Sure, it's a bit of fun to point out an IE error visiting Bing. But the title of this post, and the uncalled-for leap to generic Microsoft bashing are pretty pathetic. The first comment (from a Microsoft employee) rightly calls the author out on this nonsense.
I'm sorry, but I've seen any number of scripts throw a JS error (especially an "Object Expected" error). Maybe an element isn't there (someone missed an if(el)), maybe an analytics service threw it, etc., etc. Microsoft does some silly things, but I don't think not testing is one of them.
I've noticed errors in IE 6 on Live.com and Bing, too. Silly that I spend all this time making our sites work with IE6, and Microsoft themselves have tossed it aside.<p>As for the general point, I couldn't agree more. I do think Microsoft has intentionally impeded the progress of the open web. They made it clear with the whole Netscape deal that shift away from desktop apps (i.e., win32) towards a system where one can access programs and accomplish tasks equally well on any desktop OS was something they sought to avoid. And why not? They essentially had an obligation to their shareholders to preserve their advantage.<p>One could see how their interests would be served by making web development more difficult.
Please remember Microsoft web developers are human, like you and I. Ask around, they all HATE ie,much more than you could know. It's an embarassment and joke inside the company.<p>The IE development team however are not human. They are monsters.
This is kind of absurd. Scripts are throwing errors all the time on the biggest of websites. The only people who notice them are the ones with their debuggers enabled. This might not even be due to MS.
Is this an error that the average user will see while using the site normally, or is it a silent error that you will only see if you check your debugger? If it's in the latter category, it's only a bug in a fairly academic sense. If silent, meaningless JS errors are what it takes to make the site work across browsers, I would not consider that a failure of testing. To the contrary, it's efficient allocation of testing resources.
I think Garry wrote this in frustration.<p>When somebody is frustrated, you forget that a company is run by people too.<p>I used to work for a company where the web site was too buggy. We (the developers) want to make the site stable but are not given resources and time by the management to do so. Our users were complaining and it was frustrating for us because there was not much we can do.<p>Microsoft is not a machine that churns out software. You may not agree with some of its practices but there are people in Microsoft that actually believe that they are doing something good for the internet as a whole.
Coincidentally, IE's Test Manager just posted on the IE Blog about how we've been dealing with incoming bug reports/feedback during IE8 and IE9. I would encourage everyone to read it, and submit pro-active, actionable bugs, especially the Microsoft haters: <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/28/product-feedback-systems.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/28/product-feedback...</a><p>In addition, I remain always available to the news.yc community (see my profile for my contact info) if you have IE issues to debug. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line!
All I could think while reading this was "what a sarcastic, snide jerk". He sees one javascript error and not only concludes that MS does no testing of Bing in IE, but decides to trumpet that "fact" on his personal blog. I think / thought posterous was cool, but knowing someone so childish is in charge of it sours it a bit.