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Comments: 154 +- Developers: Microsoft's Lack of Nightly Builds For IE on Friday November 20, @04:13PM
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kdawson
on Friday November 20, @04:13PM
from the think-of-the-developers dept.
from the think-of-the-developers dept.
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Ricky writes "Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer — or at least something more frequent than months-to-years. Ars talks with Microsoft's general manager for IE, who says the IE9 development cycle will look much the same as previous versions. Not a great idea."
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Submission: Microsoft's lack of nightly builds for IE by Anonymous Coward
leverage, n.:
Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks
about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out.
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Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer
Um, because they never have and never will?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody else uses Trident (IE's rendering engine), and if Trident breaks, a lot of other stuff in Windows breaks. They don't want to release development versions of their browser, because their corporate customers don't want users breaking things.
Frankly, I'm wondering what benefit nightlies would have for MS, who does pretty much all of their testing in-house.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
'if Trident breaks, a lot of other stuff in Windows breaks'
Which is, of course, precisely the reason to have a meaningful suite of automated tests and frequent build/test cycles. You'd rather work 6 months on something and then throw it over the wall to testers only to have them come back with either hundreds of regression failures (best case) or a handful of failures so severe they couldn't even get past the basic smoke test script?
That's even before you get to your user community, which as the article poi
Re:Obvious... (Score:4, Informative)
The nightlies of Microsoft Bob basically killed all positive hype for the program.
Parent
OMG My Eyes! (Score:4, Funny)
The nightlies of Microsoft Bob basically killed all positive hype for the program. I don't want to see Microsoft Bob in nighties! It was bad enough seeing Bill Gates wiggling his ass for the cameras.
Oh, nightlies ...
I'll have to ask Clippy for linux [tri-bit.com] and get back to you on that ...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't want to see Microsoft Bob in nighties!
Hey... be thankful he wasn’t nude, like Clippy was...
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, why the hell would they release nightly builds?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah... my main thought initially was “they’re Microsoft – they don’t need a reason,” but that was only very shortly followed by “how on earth would that benefit them, us, or anyone else for that matter?”
They DO do nightlies... (Score:3, Informative)
From what I've gleaned from various Microsoft blogs, they DO release nightly builds, internally to all their own testers and employees.
That way, as far as I can tell, they get all the benefit of nightly builds, with absolutely zero of the downsides in terms of company image and dealing with buggy software in the wild.
Re: (Score:2)
They probably have more people using nightly builds of IE than there are folk using nightly builds of FF!! Oh the irony!
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
As somebody who has frequently participated in beta tests of lots of software, including Microsoft's, this is spot-on. Sure, their infrequent betas get some good feedback and some good bug reports, but they also get absolutely drowned in a deluge of people on the discussion boards (newsgroups, actually) who complain about:
A) Nothing particular at all, they just signed on to complain.
B) Stuff that's completely unrelated to the beta (such as a complaint about IE6 on the IE8 beta discussion)
C) Stuff that's completely unrelated to the product (complaints about Excel on the IE8 board)
D) "How dare Microsoft release [a beta of] this product with such-and-such [known, sometimes in release notes] bug!"
E) "WTF I installed the latest version of X, and now I can't access my Y, so I'm switching to competitor Z and never buying anything Microsoft again!"
F) Complaints about Beta 1 bugs during Beta 2 or RC test phases.
G) Complaints from people who installed the software on a production machine, and expect Microsoft to provide support for it.
These are the types of morons that Microsoft has to deal with. I've seen some of this type of behavior in other betas, to be sure, but some of the problems, especially D, E, and G, are most common on the MS betas. People just seem to expect that any code from MS will be production-ready and expects the company to stand behind their software as though it were a released product.
Microsoft would be *insane* to release nightly builds to a group like that. A closed beta nightly program, maybe (participants culled from those who are actually useful and productive on the public beta) but certainly not open. Especially considering point F above; people already can't always keep up with the pace of the infrequent releases, and asking them to identify the build number they're using would be an exercise in futility for far too many.
Parent
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Shitty article. Nothing to see here....
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I’ve just had an epiphany.
I hear there's a pill for that.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait... was it the blue one, or the red one?
Agile isn't the only legitimate way! (Score:5, Interesting)
What does MS offer nightly builds for??? It's just not how they work. They're a typical monolithic development house that deals only with releases and occasionally lets beta code out. There are benefits to the approach like not trying to shoot a moving target when it comes to bugs etc. People who've grown up with agile seem to think it's the only way to do quality assurance.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
How's that non-agile, waterfall QA working out for ya?
Re: (Score:2)
Believe it or not, waterfall is not the only alternative to agile. In fact, your comment represents one of the biggest critisms of agile. It misrepresents the alternatives and in many ways seems more like a religion than a development methology.
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html [blogspot.com]
Security Updates? (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, isn't that what Update Tuesdays are for? Constantly patching IE along with other OS updates?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The author of the article seems to think IE should be treated separately from Windows.
I guess Konqueror should have it's own update system, the OS update system isn't good enough?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I guess Konqueror should have it's own update system, the OS update system isn't good enough?
Its, not it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Touche-with-the-accent-that-I'm-lazy-to-put-on. I usually try to be good about that, too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Touché
Also, I’m = I’m.
Okay, I’ll shut up... and damn slashcode for not letting me use the … character code.
Wait a second... oh my god... did they really fix Unicode?
“Touché.”
It looks right in the preview. Just my luck it’ll screw it up as soon as I post.
It still doesn’t allow arbitrary characters, though... just certain ones. The ellipsis just melts into oblivion...
Re: (Score:2)
They did? Hmmm. Tèstíng.
I am shöcked.
Re: (Score:2)
I am shöcked.
What a coincidence! I just bought one of those at Ikea last week.
Confused about article, any developers here? (Score:2)
Although many developers may not really care much for nightlies or even point releases, it keeps them in the loop, and keeps them interested.
This confused me. Many developers don't care about them, but they do care about them... is that basically what the Ars article is saying?
Re:Confused about article, any developers here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, the article seems to take some things for granted...
the reality is that every other browser has a more regular release cycle than IE does, and that keeps them relevant.
I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!
The result is a strong perception that IE is lagging behind, no matter how great the major release versions are.
The perception that IE is lagging behind has nothing to do with a bad development cycle, it's more tied to ... bad development and a not-very-good product.
and the browser's updates are pushed through Windows Update. The actual browser doesn't have its own updating system, and this is a large part of the reason that over 40 percent of users are still using IE6 and IE7.
That's an interesting assertion. The only backup he gives are numbers for browser stats.
On the whole, this seems like one guy doing an editorial and talking off the cuff. That's how it struck me, anyways.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The perception that IE is lagging behind has nothing to do with a bad development cycle, it's more tied to ... bad development and a not-very-good product.
And opening up the process with, perhaps, a chance to incorporate feedback early in the process is a great way to address this. You want to give people what they want? be more responsive and don't cast the featureset in stone based on whatthe product manager says.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!
I thought I read in the news that they were pulling the plug on that in 2011...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yea they have it (Score:2)
I'm sure the developers have one, or maybe something that can be done ondemand. No point having one for the public imo
Normal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether or not you think that it is a good idea for there to be IE nightly builds, it isn't exactly absurd to judge a product by the standards of other similar products, rather than other products with similar licenses.
Re:Normal (Score:5, Informative)
WTF? Most companies don't release nightly builds of their software.
Not when it comes to web browsers. You can get nightlies from every single other major browser, except for IE.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Safari != webkit, Chromium != Google Chrome. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Webkit is a rendering engine. Its pretty useless without supporting code. The link you gave links you to a loadable library essentially. The app icon you get for OSX actually runs a script that has Safari use the webkit library from the package, but the UI and everything else is still the same old Safari thats installed on the system.
If someone bothered to put the effort into it, you could stuff IE's renderer into Safari on Windows,
Who is Many? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer."
Whoever "Many" is, they seem to always be interviewed by Ars and FoxNews.
Re:Who is Many? (Score:5, Funny)
Many believe this was a random baseless comment.
Parent
Of course not.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The IE guys are going to have to fix any problems in how it plays nice with Windows anyway, and if the development process is so broken that they can't even keep O/S-breaking regressions out of the builds, there's a problem. The whole point of having frequent builds is to identify errors sooner, while it's cheaper and easier to fix them, than later, after the edifice has been built on the unstable foundation.
with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away, even security vulnerabilities aren't promptly fixed on IE, let alone user suggestions....
I suggest that's the whole point of wanting IE to have a more frequent build and release cycle -- ge
Nightmare (Score:2)
More Microsoft Bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because many of us use their stuff and despair at the problems that arise that we cannot fix and the Microsoft will ignore.
That creates a culture of just complaining to each other about the company in general. We say to each other things like "this was the company that was given the BSD source code on a plate and still couldn't get even ping right" and other things non-techies would find completely irrelevent.
Just filter the MS stories out - there's not going to be muc
Maybe it takes more than a day to build it? (Score:2)
The Microsoft build labs has been described in many books but one thing that stood out to me was the alleged fact that most builds, like Windows, take well over 24 hours to finish. Given how tied into the operating system that MSIE is, I suppose that a build of MSIE would require a significant build of Windows as well.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, there's yer problem... The are probably running their build server on windows. Now if they ran a nice Linux build server...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Given how tied into the operating system that MSIE is, I suppose that a build of MSIE would require a significant build of Windows as well.
I find it highly unlikely. In the end, IE lives in its own library, and any OS services that may need it call through that via stabilized COM interfaces. There's no reason why Windows can't be build against precompiled IE binaries and .idl files describing the interface, and similarly no reason why IE can't be built against the most up-to-date Windows SDK headers.
This simply does not make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not a fan of Internet Explorer at all - however I know people who are, and I can't imagine this mattering to them in the least.
Heck, I can't imagine the vast majority of Firefox or Safari/Chrome users caring about those available snapshots; and I say that as someone who has used nightly builds for both those products fairly frequently!
This just seems silly on the face of it. "Microsoft doesn't follow Firefox's development path", complains a Firefox fan.
Coming up next (Score:5, Funny)
Can bees think? A new study indicates that no, they cannot.
This story is bookmarked (Score:5, Insightful)
Filed under "weirdest story ever to appear on /."
Next week we can discuss the outrage that stems from Microsoft's refusal to offer free back massages on the New York subway.
It doesn't need a nightly build. (Score:2)
McDonalds' Nightly Builds... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nightly builds, if they were released every time:
Bun
Bun
Bun
Bun
Meat
Meat
Bun + Meat
Bun + Meat
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
GHERKIN!
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt++
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt+++++
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + Tomato
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + That Other Stuff
Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + That Other Slightly Better Stuff
Quarter Pounder With Cheese
As an IT Manager for one of the 100 biggest companies in the world, I couldn't give a flying f*ck about the inbetween. All I want to know is what we're getting. And if it breaks a part of our fundamental application stack, we'll complain or won't use it. If I want something in the release, I'll lobby for it. If you want to be part of the IE development cycle, sign an agreement with MS to be a part of it, then you'll get the alphas and beta.
Total non-story.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you hadn't noticed, but development of IE7 and IE8 have not been tied to a specific OS at all. IE7 was released before Vista and installs on XP, and IE8 well before Win 7 and that installs on Vista and XP. Microsoft has said that IE9 will be released in 2010, while Windows 8 is set for 2012. IE and Office are both on different development timetables than Windows -- although Office is almost always released 6 to 8 months after a desktop Windows release. Sure, they're linked in some senses because e