[dba-Tech] FYI: Moving to "nirvana": if Microsoft were to shift to WebKit, you can thank Opera.

Salakhetdinov Shamil mcp2004 at mail.ru
Mon Feb 18 02:17:11 CST 2013


 Hi Hans --

Thank you for your notes.

Does cURL or any other "automation" tools are able to handle web pages, which mainly use AJAX not web forms POSTs?

<<<
But, even so, I find the concept that such a small subset of users should be able to 
hold back the progress of technology, especially in an area where interoperability and standards are important.
>>>
What (tools/technologies) are currently holding back and is it good or bad to have WebKit "monoculture" - opinions differ:
"The Pros And Cons Of A WebKit Monoculture" ( http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/17/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-webkit-monoculture/ )

<<<
... then they should just fork IE into two versions: IE and IE Classic and let the dinosaurs continue using the old version...
>>>>
They could be busy doing that currently. BTW, have you even seen the sources of any large C/C++ COM projects? - from what I have seen/handled such projects are very tightly coupled with COM interfaces and other COM "technology artifacts and tricks" - so the process of decoupling could take quite some time, but MS engineers could definitely do that...

<<<
After all, it seems MS is already killing extensions like ActiveX in IE 10 ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh920753 (v=vs.85).aspx).
>>>
Yes, I see - that's done AFAIU to better conform to HTML5 standards. But IE Web Browser Automation is currently an integral part of IE components, not an extension.

Thank you.

-- Shamil

Воскресенье, 17 февраля 2013, 13:22 -08:00 от Hans-Christian Andersen <hans.andersen at phulse.com>:
>Hi Shamil,
>
>I am not the least bit concerned about testing suites like Selenium. They have to maintain their own web driver for multiple browsers anyhow, so there is no reason they can't port their web driver from Chrome/Safari across, since they are also WebKit browsers.
>
>It seems you are also suggesting that some businesses outside automated test suites have been using this feature for scraping and what not. My first impression is that this was a bad decision. There are far better tools for doing said job (ie. curl) which are just as simple to use. But, even so, I find the concept that such a small subset of users should be able to hold back the progress of technology, especially in an area where interoperability and standards are important. And I can't imagine that Microsoft should care. If they really can't provide a compatibility layer, then they should just fork IE into two versions: IE and IE Classic and let the dinosaurs continue using the old version. After all, it seems MS is already killing extensions like ActiveX in IE 10 ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh920753 (v=vs.85).aspx).
>
>Smart move. Now they just need to upgrade to WebKit.
>
>- Hans
>
>
>On 2013-02-14, at 3:26 AM, Salakhetdinov Shamil < mcp2004 at mail.ru > wrote:
>
>> Hi Hans --
>> 
>> <<<
>> This is interesting. Could you possibly provide a few examples of where it is used in a manner that is important in some way?
>>>>> 
>> To Automate web applications testing:  http://watin.org/documentation/ (  http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cXeloE2gh )
>> 
>> To Automate repetitive tasks when web browsing is a part of a larger desktop application, e.g.
>> 
>> " Efficient data entry through browser automation"
>> 
>>  http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/338036/BrowserAutomationCrawler
>> 
>> " Microsoft Web Browser Automation using C#"
>> 
>>  http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5452/Microsoft-Web-Browser-Automation-using-C
>> 
>> The above is just a generic example - for that case Google API can be used of course but there could be many other cases when there is no any web API and (as I noted above) web browsing functionality is a part of a larger desktop application.
>> 
>> In the past (no web services/no web APIs) Microsoft Web Browser Automation was used in (VB6/VBA) apps for web crawling/scraping....
>> 
>> To see more examples browse:  http://www.codeproject.com/search.aspx?q=web+browser+automation&x=0&y=0&sbo=kw&pgnum=5
>> 
>> or google by "microsoft web browser automation".
>> 
>> -- Shamil
>> 
>> P.S. I guess Microsoft Web Browser Automation is also used in Selenium (  http://docs.seleniumhq.org/docs/index.jsp ) for IE testing automation...
>> 
>> Четверг, 14 февраля 2013, 1:36 -08:00 от Hans-Christian Andersen < hans.andersen at phulse.com >:
>>> 
>>>> AFAIK Web Browser Automation is widely used.
>>> 
>>> This is interesting. Could you possibly provide a few examples of where it is used in a manner that is important in some way?
>>> 
>>> - Hans
>>> 
>



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