Ever since I asked myself and tried to find out why people tend to hate JavaScript I have been loving the language. My research revealed that JavaScript has many cool features from the very beginning. The reason people are hating it are the sucky browsers. Every browser has its own implementation which causes problems. What is more JavaScript's main use is to deal with the dreaded DOM. Luckily in recent years people seem to discover the power of JavaScript and appreciate the fact that the language is very well suited for the untyped nature of the DOM. As you probably know I do not believe that the Web should be rich and made to resemble desktop applications. Unfortunately this means that I did not have a chance to write complicated JavaScript and use the language to its full potential. The stuff I did was really simple validation and calculations like adding two numbers. However our current project is more user-centric and requires rich UI so it seems like the time has come for me to write some elite JavaScript...

   Уж лято, пък студено. Дали заради това в неделя следобед пред зала Универсиада нямаше много народ. Защо ли пък да има, все пак момчетата от Brooklyn, New York едва ли са най-големите звезди. Много хора си нямат идея кой е този Biohazard и на какъв инструмент свири, защото жанърът hardcore punk няма много почитатели, но феновете му са най-верни от всички...

   In order to pass the last exam left and graduate from the University of Plovdiv I had to create a small program that draws some splines. I picked Bézier curves as they seemed to be one of the simplest kind of parametric curves...

   Дойде време за таз годишния Калиакра рок фест и не можех да скрия, че ентусиазмът ми беше много по-малко от предишните години. След като се оказа, че противно на слуховете, представителите на новата метална школа Mastodon и големите Anthrax всъщност няма да участват във фестивала сериозно се замислих дали да отделя време и пари за мероприятието. Още повече, че за разлика от предишни години концертите бяха в работни дни. Много се радвам, че в крайна сметка уважението ми към някои от групите надделя...

   Some of you probably know that the minority browser makers worried by the fact that people do not give a fuck about their crappy software and the useless web "standards" went to the EU Commission and asked it to make Microsoft bundle their browsers with Windows because according to them Microsoft abused their OS market share by bundling Internet Explorer. Of course Microsoft had no intention to bundle alternative browsers with their OS. At the very least Microsoft do not want to answer support calls for browsers they did not make. So what did Microsoft do. They said "FUCK YOU" to the EU Commission and they will ship Windows 7 in Europe without any browser. There will be a separate CD with IE for OEMs. Of course all OEMs will just install IE because none of them will want to take all the support calls complaining that "The Internet is missing". Most of them probably will not bundle alternative browsers because this means they will have to support it. Basically IE will be bundled with as many Windows installations as it is bundled with now - all of them. The only people who will be affected are the 10% of the users that I (and most probably you) belong to who install Windows on their own. Now the installation will require two discs - one for Windows and one for the browser (be it IE or a minority one). How is that any other OS can ship with a browser but Windows cannot? The funny part is that IE has less than 50% usage share in Europe. Good job protecting the consumers EU Commission. FUCK YOU!


Update 03.08.2009

   Microsoft has decided to include ballot screen in Windows 7 if the default browser is IE. The solution is quite interesting since the ballot screen will be presented in IE itself. It will be a web page with an option to download browsers ordered by market share. Even more interesting is the fact that the ballot screen will be pushed through Windows Update to XP and Vista machines. It will be displayed only to users that have IE set as the default browser so this can lead to users moving away from IE but not the other way around. Microsoft will be promoting direct competitors. It is not yet sure if the EU Commission will accept this offer.

   One thing that is really good about this decision is that 5 years from now Windows 7 will not be shipping with 5 years old Firefox.

Q: What is worse than 8 years old browser shipping with the most popular OS?
A: Five 8 years old browsers shipping with the most popular OS.

You can read more and see a screenshot of the ballot screen here.