Microsoft's JavaScript strategy hurting IE 8?

Microsoft's focus on selected improvements in Internet Explorer's handling of Javascript has cost its latest browser in the race against competitors. Internet Explorer 8 is ninth in a list of 10 browsers that have been tested for speed, with the previous version of Microsoft's browser - IE 7 - coming last. This list arrives …

[Mike]

javascript performance

all i can say is DOM performance... it's faster to render things by building a string of HTML and updating the page, rather than just using the DOM to add an element in the right place - and that about sums up why performance is so terrible

[Tom]

Microsoft dont want Javascript to work well

If JavaScript works well people rapidly find out that you dont need the desktop as we know it.

You only need a browser and server loaded apps...

If you only need a browser you dont need 90% of MS revenue generating software...

Thats why MS joined in the JS standards process to stop it being developed.

Same goes for Adobe....

[Andy Barber]

I gave up...

...with IE6. Enough said?

[Dirk Vandenheuvel]

Waste of time

Javascript speed mattered in the 90s. Now speed of the Internet is the defining property for good end-user experience while browsing.

Seriously... benchmarking a script language on the PC we have in 2009?

[Eddy Ito]

[ecma,java]script tuning

Obviously nobody they know has been unemployed recently. Perhaps the most highly loaded sites today are of the monster, et al, dot com variety. Many of these are heavily using javascript / ajax and slow as shit through a straw. Granted, it isn't 3D but it certainly is a damn sight more than 20%. Given the current job bleed rate floating in the 1/2 to 3/4 million each month, it is becoming ever more critical to handle scripts well.

[William Towle]

Apples and Oranges

....except Microsoft didn't "explain[ IE's] changes in terms of making the user more productive" in response to the Peacekeeper javascript testing; their blogger specifically noted that was in reaction to "browser X has superior speed and performance" claims in general - so this wasn't their sleight of hand, it was yours. They should be applauded for the public admission there were big-picture problems being addressed in the context of an evangelism piece.

The comparison did make me think of the "we sped up the boot process because companies lose so much time during reboots" reportage, though ... if only to wonder how much of *that* was journalistic "license" and Chinese whispers!

// Heaven's Gates 'cos he's innocent this time

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this news?

A test of javascript speed says that the browser that openly said that they weren't going for javascript speed like all the other browsers..... had a low javascript speed!

Also....

"You only need a browser and server loaded apps...

If you only need a browser you dont need 90% of MS revenue generating software..."

The browser still needs a OS to run on....

[Anonymous Coward]

MS - one bottle neck at a time.

So, they didn't think improving JS speed specifiically was a good thing... kinda like making windows cluster's and forgetting to do anything about the terrible disk I/O handling that brings clustering rather pointlessly to its knees..

MS don't see any bigger pictures than wanting to own the wold.. the bigger picture of a browser working well in all areas is lost on them.

IE 6 killed off any kind of faith in MS's ability to write web software.... which is why silverlight is still a plugin i don't want or need.

[Dave]

@Anonymous Coward 07:56

"The browser still needs a OS to run on...."

Not really, at least nothing much more complex than say DOS6. That's why it is possible for web browsers to run on TV's and mobile phones.