"Poor Microsoft. This week, the Redmond, Wash., giant is gearing up for the next big release of its Web browser, a leap from Internet Explorer 7 to IE 8. When open-source competitor Mozilla released its last update of Firefox in June, the Web went wild: People downloaded more than 8 million copies in 24 hours. Microsoft's release might not have such a frat party feel. Even as it gears up to release IE 8, the developers behind the Firefox Web browser are experimenting with a new technology that sharpens the threat their browser software poses to Microsoft's most valuable businesses. The new technology, dubbed TraceMonkey, promises to speed up Firefox's ability to deliver complex applications." While many have abandoned Microsoft's browser offerings, Microsoft will be introducing an innovative new type of selective privacy mode called InPrivate with IE8.
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Member since:2007-01-22
what is appealing is the large number of extensions for firefox. For example, in IE8 there is a new feature called "Activities"? Well, there already is a firefox extension duplicating that feature.
And of course there is adblock. I don't understand how anyone can tolerate using any browser without adblock.
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:2007-09-08
Do you really expect all those people using a browser on, say, PDAs, mobile phones or games consoles to ditch their platform of choice and use a PC, just because a website or two uses Silverlight?
Not going to happen.
Silverlight, like Flash, can not possibly be supported as widely as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript already are. An increasing number of web browsers are not based on desktop OSes, so Microsoft really don't have enough pull anymore to push people into using Silverlight.
Besides, you sound like someone who's never really used JavaScript. It's a great language - the only thing that really causes problems is IE's slow and buggy JScript engine.
It's also kind of hard to argue that JavaScript is going to be made irrelevant in favour of Flex and Silverlight when Flex uses ActionScript (a JavaScript variant), and Silverlight is currently uses the browser's JavaScript engine for scripting support.
Member since:2005-12-09
Member since:2005-11-09
I have used it and I tolerate it.
Thanks.
when exactly was the last time a cell phone, PDA or game console was used to do something that could be considered a complex web application? We are talking about apps that have the functionality of a desktop program, not simply serving up information.
I am not trying to argue that Javascript is a dead tech, I am arguing that a speed boost in javascript that is touted as being a killer for complex web applications, is nothing of the sort.
I can't wait for JS to work faster on all teh web 2.0 sites I visit, it will make them operate faster. Javascript is not an ideal platform for applications that replace desktop installed apps.
Member since:2005-11-02
The only other thing that causes problems is that serious programmers for many years did not touch the client web. As such most javascript has been, until recent years, written by (no offense) amateurs. The large amount of poorly written, buggy JS code scattered around the web tended to give the language itself a bad reputation.
In the last 5 years or so this has really changed. Workarounds for commonly encountered bugs and time-saving utility functions have evolved into high-level toolkits. 10 years ago I would have welcomed the fiery death of javascript in favor of any other answer. Today it has been proven that the language is not bad (in fact, it's really awesome) it's just the use of it that has been bad.
Member since:
2005-11-09
uh-huh.
The features and vertical integration with current production make Flex and Siliverlight, going forward, more appealing (especially silverlight). The language features that Silverlight will expose to web development will far surpass anything that javascript and google gears can provide.
Javascript will, in a few years, be going out of style for Web application developers.