DHTML / CSS / HTTP / AJAX

Games of the 2008 Browser Olympiad - Chrome is the new Bronze

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:19:30 GMT

During the course of my day job on the OWA team, I've had the opportunity to play with all the new browsers. I thought I'd share my opinions and see what my fellow web developers think. We already know what Walt Mossberg thinks.

Gold - Firefox 3.0

It's pretty fast, it's pretty stable, has more goodies per square inch than the Halloween candy section at Costco, it runs on every desktop OS that matters and most of the world's web sites support it.

Despite my fondness for Firefox, there's still room for improvements. Firebug 1.2 is so slow it's unusable when dealing with large AJAX applications. It's odd because Firefox runs large web apps fine, but Firebug is still suffering some teething pains right now. However, it looks like the forthcoming Firebug 1.3 will ease my pain in the near future.

Aside from my Firebug issues, I don't like how Firefox 3 deals with self-signed certificates (UI is too cumbersome). Seriously, it takes something like 7 mouse clicks to accept a site with self-signed cert what is 1 or 2 click task in IE & Safari. Another thing that grinds my gears, Firefox's contenteditable implementation rather is rough around the edges, (which probably only effects me & 3 other web developers at the moment). However, despite my gripes, I still like Firefox the best. I just hope they fix their contenteditable bugs in their next release.

Silver - Internet Explorer 8

I've been using Beta 2 lately and I'm pleasantly surprised. It's not Firefox fast, but it's noticeably faster than IE 7 was. It's not the most standards compliant browser, but renders 99% of the web perfectly. It doesn't have the heap fragmentation issues or stability issues that Chrome or Safari seem to. The new development tools seem to be competitive with Firebug, even if the plug in support isn't. If the IE team keeps up the good work, they might be able to stop losing market share to Firefox by the time IE 9 ships.

Despite, the marked improvement, I think IE still has 3 major hurdles they need to clear before they can get gold again.

Openness – The IE blog helps, and I know MS is unlikely to make IE open source, but they should do more. How about giving IE an open bug list like Mozilla's Bugzilla or Webkit's? That way the web developer community knows what bugs exist, is more directly involved with the product evolution, and can help Microsoft by providing feedback, bugs & test cases. For example, when is IE going to allow me to call the IDM_AUTOURLDETECT_MODE command via execCommand in Javascript? Having an HTTP or SMTP address turn into an A tag behind my back, in every single rich text editor I run in IE is really annoying.
Trust – Microsoft killed IE for Mac & Unix permanently. Microsoft put IE for Windows on ice for 4+ years and Windows Mobile IE is so bad that Microsoft's mobile carrier partners are shipping Opera with their Windows Mobile phones! That plan of inaction cost Microsoft at least 5 years of developer good will & untold amounts of credibility. Put simply, Microsoft lost their web client mojo. Maybe Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld can help web developers forgive MS of its past sins and they'll get it back.
Leadership – During browser war 1.0, IE was hands down the better browser. During war browser 2.0, IE hasn't yet done anything that Firefox or Chrome hasn't done already or is actively working on. It'd be interesting to see IE will become a leader again or just be a fast follower. At any rate, it's good to see the IE team participating in the browser wars again and sending cakes.

Bronze – Google Chrome

This newcomer shows a lot of promise. It's based on the Webkit rendering engine, so that's a good thing. Granted, I still feel Trident & Gecko are still better from an end user app compatibility, developer tool support & plug-in support stand point (despite their comparatively lower ACID scores), but at least they get the benefit of Apple's Safari work to date and WebKit has good standards support. It's one of the fastest browsers I've used. It's lets you use add search engines easily (I've added Live just to mess w/ the Google-ites). The Chrome comic was a cool introduction to Chome's features.

All in all, I'm impressed. It proves that Google knows more about Windows app development than Apple does. The ultimate test will be if they steel Microsoft's or Mozilla's browser market share. I don't think it'll happen in the near future, but this baby has potential.

4^th place – Opera 9.5

It's a nice browser to use and frankly it deserves a larger share than it has. Unfortunately, since the rise of Firefox, the reincarnation of IE, and the birth of Chrome, I can't think of a compelling reason to use it instead of one of the leaders. OK, it is currently the best web browser for Windows Mobile, but Mozilla & Microsoft are working on changing that story. It's developer tool & add-on support has improved in recent releases, but it's still not competitive with the Top 2. Oh well, it's got a bigger following in Europe and it's been around since the first browser war.

5^th place – Apple Safari 3.1.2

On Windows, Safari has all of Chrome's faults and too few of its virtues. The font rendering is fuzzier than a beanie baby. The UI controls stick out like a Pink Tony Romo Cowboys jersey at an NFC East road game. I can't add other search engines to it which sucks rocks (not be confused with sucks-rocks). Google Chrome let's me add Windows Live, but yet can't Apple bundle something like Inquisitor with Safari for Windows so I can't easily search Windows Live, Wikipedia or Amazon (LAME)? Then again, Apple isn't known for their high quality Windows applications.

OK, if you want to test your apps on Safari without buying a Mac dongle or an iPhone, use Safari for Widows. Aside from that, nobody who uses Windows is going to use it as their preferred browser.

Is Flanagan’s “Rhino book”, the Petzold of the web era?

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:53:14 GMT

10 or so years ago, when one wanted to write a Windows application, you had a choice to make. Does one take the easy way, or the hard way? Were you a real Windows Software Engineer or a wanna be? Did you use Visual Basic, or did you take the time master all the nuances of HWNDs, HDCs, and SendMessage? Was Charles Petzold's seminal Programming Windows book on your bookshelf or not? Did you enjoy the Get a Mac - Gift Exchange ad in which PC gives Mac a copy of the "C++ GUI Programming Guide"?

Today, it seems the web programming world has a evolved into a similar dicotemy. It seems there are lot of ASP.net programmers who are more like the VB programmers of yore, than the C/C++ programmers of eras past.

There are those who avoid getting their hands dirty with Javascript and really don't understand the full power of the browser's DOM. You know the ones that don't even know what byte bloat ASP.net web forms can create, let alone how or why they should avoid it.

Granted, like old Visual Basic, ASP.net web forms is a great tool for writing applications quickly. But the native tongue of Windows is the C/C++ Win32 API, and the best application developers are fluent in it. Likewise, the native tongue of the Web is the Javascript HTML DOM API, and the best application developers exploit every byte of power the web platform can offer application developers and avoid platform abstractions. Like the Windows developers of yore, the best ASP.net applications are written a little closer to the metal than most people are able or willing to go.

I don't know if I really have a point, other than sometimes large frameworks filled with time saving abstractions get in your way, more than they help. Sometimes, you need to get under the hood and get your hands dirty. Sometimes, I wish more developers had the opprotunity to build fast applications, instead of merely developing applications fast.

Sufferin' Safari

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:46:18 GMT

Do any of my fair readers have any experience or advice on Safari development tools, plug-ins, or debuggers? Most of my day to day surfing & debugging is with Firefox and IE on Windows, and I know where most of the toys for those browsers are hiding.

My knowledge of Safari plug ins & development begins and ends w/ Pimp My Safari, but I have no idea if the plug-ins are Mac only or run on Windows as well? Furthermore, I have no idea if any of them worth downloading? What are the differences between the Windows & Mac versions of Safari? Is the Mac version of Safari better than its Windows cousin (God, I hope so). How does day to day life as a web developer on Safari compare to that on Firefox or IE? In the Windows world, let's just say Safari, has its share of issues, and is unlikely to win any converts on Windows. I will admit that Safari 3.0.4 for Windows beta was an improvement over their previous beta, but it's still uglier than Opera, and buggier than IE.

However, I suspect that Apple writes code, like the Seahawks play football. They are both much better teams at home, so I suspect Mac Safari is pretty good if you use fruit computers on a daily basis. And if the rumors are to be believed, Safari is going to become much faster, which probably means Safari is going to grow its share of the market. Either way, I'm probably looking at larger browser test matrix and a new set of browser bugs to learn about for my applications.

Perhaps, I should just spelunk on Apple's Safari Developer FAQ, until I find the droids I'm looking for?