That title should get some people’s attention. So why do I start off by offending everyone? Blame it on Microsoft.

I recently came across a rather funny and curious ad on-line. Actually someone sent it to me via email. Apparently Microsoft has launched a campaign to get rid of IE6 – it’s nearly 10 year old web browser. It turns out that not everyone is upgrading to the newer IE8 (or even IE7). First, here’s the ad:

I have to give a big thumbs up to whoever came up with this ad. So how does all of this lead to lazy developers? It’s simple. A little while ago I went through the task of creating a web portal for a cloud project. I decided to use a tool called Django to build this portal. Django is awesome if you haven’t had the chance to use it. Everything is built on templates and Python. It also heavily uses CSS to create the web pages. Even my blog here heavily uses CSS to build up the pages. One of the many problems with CSS is the horrible adherence to the spec by Microsoft in all of its browsers. Try to align something to float left and IE6 will work. IE7 completely bombs out. IE8 requires some magical wrapper code. All this to achieve the same thing. It turns out that IE6 actually sticks the closest to the code. Instead of looking at the incoming header to figure out what browser is doing the request and sending back a different CSS for each of them I simply return CSS that works with IE6 (and every other browser on the market) and breaks with IE7 and IE8. Does that make me a lazy developer? Absolutely.

So who’s to blame here really? Is it me not willing to maintain 3 sets of the same CSS file with subtle differences to get newer Microsoft browsers to work? Or is it Microsoft and their complete lack of a standard CSS implementation in their newer browsers? I guess both could be to blame but it sure is a little of the pot calling the kettle black when Microsoft runs an ad forcing me to upgrade to a newer version of IE.

And where does all of this play into the cloud you ask? Well, one of the first things and the hardest things you’ll hit in your cloud project is the portal. And if you’re like most shops with a mix of different Operating Systems and browsers you’ll soon see how much of a pain IE can really be. You’ll soon have to come across the decision of whether or not you want to be a lazy developer too and stick with “9 year old milk” or whether you have enough time on your hands to make sure you work with the “new milk”. It will be interesting to see the frustrating path that people go down.

Anyhow, I just thought I’d point out the rather funny ad and then complain a little on the really horrible incentive to upgrade to a newer browser – getting all of my programs to work with it. Personally I think I’ll grow a taste for the sour milk or go to the fridge and get some juice (any other browser except IE).

Yesterday marked a huge day of history in the world of cloud computing. The Open Cloud Manifesto was finally released to the public. You might ask, “What the heck is an open cloud manifesto”. I’m glad you asked. Basically what happened is someone to 6 pages to basically write that cloud interoperability should be based on open standards. Wow! Shocking, isn’t it? Stop the presses!!! Someone in the computer world wants open standards around something.

There’s a lot I have to laugh at when looking at this whole manifesto. First there’s the name. Manifesto is usually used in the political arena to talk about your stance on a certain topic. OK. That’s certainly the point here. However isn’t this a little bit of a majestic or more to the point strong name for simply saying you want some standards in an emerging IT field? I mean it’s pretty much given these days that if there’s something interesting happening in IT then someone is going to declare that it should be open and free for the masses. The whole problem I have with that is a guy’s gotta eat. Not everything in the world can be free. At some point companies have to make money to pay the employees so they can eat and be well nourished so they can complain that things aren’t free. As Dane Cook would say, “It’s a vicious circle”. This is probably why people like Microsoft and Google and Amazon didn’t sign the document.

I also find it interesting that a manifesto about openness was done in a closed environment. This is the reason the CCIF pulled out even though they helped author the document in the first place. There’s some poetic justice there somewhere.

So here we are probably 500 blogs, a few dozen news articles, and countless thought cycles later with the “major” news that we need some open standards in cloud interoperability. I really question why we needed a document like this anyways. The IT industry and standards bodies were already working on this problem in an open way. You already had CCIF, OCCI at the OGF, SNIA, and probably DMTF before too long. How many different open standards can you really have going on at the same time anyways? So great, Manifesto crowd, now we’re going to have open standards just like you wanted – 20 of them. Well, there’s always tomorrow when I’ve heard the Proprietary Capitalism Manifesto will be released with Microsoft, Citrix, Amazon, and Google as the original signers. Can’t wait to read that one!

CAUTION! This one is a bit of a rant.

As a lot of people may or may not know I really hate anonymous comments. I do allow them on this blog as do most other blogs but about every month I revisit that decision. On the one hand I don’t want to have to make people register in order to get their opinion posted. On the other hand I really find anonymous comments cowardice. I mean if you really feel strongly about your point then why not just put your name there with it? I always make a point of putting my full, real name on every one of my comments. If that means registering then I take the extra time to do that.

What really got me thinking about this again is the Dilbert cartoon below. Several months ago I had touched a button with some of the guys over at Marathon after calling them out on a few things. Stratus came into the conversation to throw more mud on the situation under the name of “Top Gun”. A little detective work and it was easy to see who was behind the comments.

More recently there was some back and forth on someone defending Citrix’s abysmal performance with their virtualization platform. The commenter? Man-Guy. What a stupid name.

So here’s a plea to all who post comments on the web. Let’s start using some real names. If you don’t want your full name out there because you’re falsely scared that someone might steal your identity just from that then just post your real first name. If you want to go one better then try even letting people know who you work for. Believe me, it helps the conversation and then people won’t just write you off.

I’ll probably revisit anonymous comments on my blog again soon. In the mean time , you’re still free to comment at any time you want and I never delete or moderate any comments other than obvious spam.

- Mike DiPetrillo

Here’s the Dilbert cartoon that got this whole rant started.