At the behest of the Processing.js folks’ request, I just wrote this up in the Microsoft Connect feedback thingy for Internet Explorer.
There’s no question that IE needs standards-compliant native <canvas> tag support ASAP. There is a lot of excitement and activity in the developer community about this new technology, and the seamless vector-based rich media support that it provides.
Current browser support for this new feature is easily summarized: “basically everybody but IE”, and that is nothing if not dangerous for IE’s market share. What’s especially silly is that it is a published standard in the HTML5 specification. There is no competitor, no commercial entity barring Microsoft from making up this deficit in one of its flagship products. So the IE team has nothing to point to except their own obstinacy1 when it comes to dedicating resources to supporting this new feature that will play a major role in the future of the internet.
Microsoft ignores this suggestion at its own peril.
So I apparently ended up channeling the Oracle of the Web, prophesying DOOM TO ALL WHO DARE IGNORE THE PORTENTS OF THESE TIMES. Nevertheless, I stand behind what I wrote.
I wish I had realized before I submitted my comment that ‘obstinance’—the word I originally used here—is not, in fact, a word. Luckily I get to blame it on the fact that I was forced to use IE in order to actually register for Microsoft Connect, and so I was typing outside of the supportive embrace of vim or firefox spell check.
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