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Quiz Microsoft's IE Team Leader

Posted by Roblimo on Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:00 PM
from the man-in-the-hot-seat dept.
About as timely an interview as you can get: Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 last week, and today we're gathering questions for IE team general manager Dean Hachamovitch. As usual, please follow Slashdot interview rules when posting or moderating questions. We'll publish Dean's answers verbatim as soon as he replies.
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[+] Microsoft's IE Team Leader Answers Slashdot Questions 530 comments
We got lots and lots of questions for Dean Hachamovitch, whose formal title is "general manager Internet Explorer at Microsoft Corp." Picking a mere 10 of those questions was not easy, and I wish Dean could have answered twice as many -- and so does he, but his schedule has been tight this week. Anyway, here are his answers to the Chosen Ten.
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  • How about this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by also-rr (980579) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:02PM (#16547388) Homepage
    Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems?
  • CSS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Beuno (740018) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {anitnegra}> on Monday October 23 2006, @12:04PM (#16547408) Homepage
    Why did you go half way implementing CSS instead of fully supporting standards all other browsers have for some time now.
    • by Petersko (564140) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:15PM (#16547616)
      "Why did you go half way implementing CSS instead of fully supporting standards all other browsers have for some time now."

      I believe that NO browser fully supports CSS. Am I wrong in this assumption? Even if you're asking them to support the standards to the same level as all other browsers the implementation would still be incomplete.

      There's a built-in derogatory slant to your question. I believe that IE supports more than 50% of CSS standards, which would mean they went further than half-way. Your choice of words is subtly antagonistic.

      It's not a "Have you quit beating your wife" question, but neither is it a suitable one for a serious discussion.
  • Evil Plan? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dsginter (104154) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:04PM (#16547420)
    As someone who has developed for multiple browsers, it really seems like there is a secret ploy at Microsoft to keep IE relatively incompatible with other browsers.

    Is this purposeful? If not, what is the reason?
  • IE's design goals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tet (2721) <slashdot&astradyne,co,uk> on Monday October 23 2006, @12:05PM (#16547454) Homepage Journal
    I've seen it mentioned (by Chris Wilson, amongst others) that IE7 was never going to pass the ACID2 tests when it shipped. Although as a web developer, that's not a situation I'm particularly pleased about, I'm mostly OK with it. I can appreciate that some aspects of the browsing experience will be propritized above others. However, I don't think I've ever seen a clear statement from Microsoft that 100% HTML and CSS compliance is even a goal. Can you comment on that?

    Is it your goal to render a standards compliant website correctly in all cases, or are you just aiming to implement those parts of the spec that are used by the majority of your customers? Naturally, I can understand prioritizing the things that are hitting your customers above those that are rarely used in the real world, but part of the reason the some of them aren't used in the real world is down to lack of browser support. I find it incredibly frustrating that some of my site layouts have to be butchered just to get them to work in the commonly used browsers. If IE fails to render a compliant page according to the spec, can you commit to actively tracking it as a bug with a view to fixing it in a future release of IE, even if it only affects a handful of people?

  • A question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by also-rr (980579) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:06PM (#16547466) Homepage
    Would you like to see a universal architecture so that all rendering engines* worked in all web browsers, and all plugins** worked with all rendering engines? *Gecko, mshtml etc **Free and non-free - flash, mplayer and the like
  • Prediction: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Atlantis-Rising (857278) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:07PM (#16547486) Homepage
    90% of the questions posted by slashdot will fall into one of two categories (or maybe both): 1) Why is Microsoft the Evil Empire and what are you doing to stop this (like using Firefox) and 2) What the fuck is up with your CSS support, dude?
  • Interface (Score:5, Interesting)

    by techmuse (160085) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:07PM (#16547492)
    The new version of IE makes it much harder to work with certain critical aspects of the browser. While I like some aspects of the new browser, some of the interface changes make it much more difficult to work with, and this will keep me firmly in the Firefox camp for now. For example, bookmarks now require many more clicks to access, especially if you use links nested in folders. Also, most interface elements can not be moved around as was previously possible (and is currently possible in Firefox.) The menu bar itself is hidden, and when exposed, appears in the middle of the browser controls! Why go to so much trouble to make essential elements of the program difficult for users to access?
  • by justinbach (1002761) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:07PM (#16547494) Homepage
    How important is it to Microsoft to ensure that IE passes acknowledged tests of compliane (i.e. Acid2) at the cost of sacrificing newer and possibly more exciting/efficient proprietary technologies?
  • Best/Future Features (Score:5, Interesting)

    by x_MeRLiN_x (935994) * on Monday October 23 2006, @12:08PM (#16547498) Homepage
    What are the best features of IE7 that sets it above the competition, what features are perhaps lacking and are you currently working on adding these?
  • My Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by B3ryllium (571199) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:08PM (#16547502) Homepage
    Well, I can't think of a real Slashdot-headed question to ask, so I'll go for the entertaining rather than socially relevant:

    Presumably, throughout this development process for IE7, your team has had their nose to the grind-wheel, so to speak. What sort of things did you do to chill out and relax? Were there any in-office perks, like pool tables or whatnot? And were you actually all in the same office, or did some members of the team have to telecommute from far-off lands, like Oregon?
  • IE7 release time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BeeBeard (999187) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:08PM (#16547516)
    Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?
  • DOM 2 Events (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman (238306) * <akaimbatman@NOsPaM.gmail.com> on Monday October 23 2006, @12:10PM (#16547536) Homepage Journal
    One of the stated purposes of IE7 was to better support the W3C standards, and (presumably) to increase compatibility among W3C-compliant browsers. Yet despite multiple requests for DOM 2 Events support, the IE team decided to overlook this support [mozillazine.org]. Currently, IE is the only major browser lacking DOM Events support. Which is a major issue, as IE's attachEvent() design means that special code must be written for IE compatibility.

    As someone who's been forced into using runtime patches (example [lachy.id.au]) to increase IE's compatibility with DHTML code, I feel compelled to ask: Why has the IE team ignored this critical standard?
  • by jellomizer (103300) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:12PM (#16547556)
    Doing some WebSite development I found that with IE 6 (I havent been able to test IE 7 Yet) I always had to wander away from the standards and the only reason I have gotten is that MS just doesn't like them. Is IE 7 going to make sure that they follow the stands much more closely so when I make HTML and I test it in IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera they all look the same, I normally get the Last 3 to work without much fighting but IE always decided to do it differently. Giving us New Windows Only features is not useful for the developers, but following the standards is. As well our custerms weither they know it or not like it better when we follow the standards (Less junk and warning messages, Or misaligned stuff).
  • Simple questions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrother&optonline,net> on Monday October 23 2006, @12:12PM (#16547560) Journal

    IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?

  • by linuxci (3530) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:12PM (#16547570) Homepage
    One of the biggest complaints [browserden.co.uk] about IE7 is that it does not obey the standard user interface guidelines for Windows XP. As an update that'll be pushed to users automatically [msdn.com] next month do you not consider it a bad idea to break platform conventions?


    There is a workaround [enhanceie.com] that involves editing the registry to get the menu bar in the correct place but why is this not implemented as part of toolbar customisation?

  • by BeeBeard (999187) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:16PM (#16547634)
    What do you make of all this pro-Firefox, anti-IE digital jihadism?
  • IE7 + Win2k (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TubeSteak (669689) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:17PM (#16547642) Journal
    Why haven't you guys hacked IE7 to run on Win2k minus the WinXP SP2-dependant security features?

    It's not like it'd be any less secure than IE6 on Win2k.
  • by HaeMaker (221642) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:17PM (#16547660) Homepage
    As I recall, Microsoft licensed SpyGlass browser code as the basis for Internet Explorer. Is there any of it left, or have you finally rewritten all the IE code?
  • by Bromskloss (750445) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:18PM (#16547678)
    ...when will you come to SVG?
  • My shot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Njovich (553857) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:19PM (#16547694)
    What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
  • IE 8 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by diegocgteleline.es (653730) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:19PM (#16547706)
    A simple question: What are you planning to implement for the next IE version, be it IE 8 or IE 7.5 or whatever?
    • by Petersko (564140) on Monday October 23 2006, @12:18PM (#16547672)
      "Why are you so gay? And why do you allow IE to destroy the fucking internet?"

      This is an important question. We don't want people to view the average slashdotter as able to participate in a calm, reasonable discussion. We need to be viewed as zealots, collectively frothing at the mouth.

      I'd even like to see this question include just for humour.