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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Netscape shipped Javascript. Microsoft shipped JScript in a desperate attempt to peel away their near-monopoly market share, and they (correctly, IMHO) judged that impossible if they were entirely incompatible with Navigator.

Microsoft is no longer in a position to unilaterally destroy the web anymore, and I see no high probability of them regaining that position in the forseeable future. (Too much stuff going mobile, and they're still not strong enough in that space to dictate.... to put it lightly.)

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Microsoft may still be able to hinder the web by using its influence in W3C to push for detrimental standards like Encrypted Media Extensions, and by refusing to implement things like WebGL.

They can't stall forever on new web standards if they prove useful. I'm not sure WebGL will, but if it does, the "graceful degradation" culture in web development means that IE users will get some sort of slow, limited approximation of the intended experience. And enough of them will know and start installing Chrome or Firefox in larger numbers again.

Microsoft can slow the adoption of web standards (and just via the desktop), but they don't have any real control now. And the only reason WebGL isn't in IE 10 is because they didn't want to offend the DX/D3D team. Once IE supports WebGL, D3D will die.

WebGL is useful for more than just games. For example, I'm using a fragment shader to implement client-side demosaicing[0] in the web interface for my Kinect-enabled home automation hardware (link in my profile if you're curious). CSS Shaders/custom filters might serve as a partial substitute for WebGL, but IE doesn't support those either.

On the bright side, I've seen rumors that IE11 will support WebGL, but that is of little use to people stuck on XP, Vista, or W7 due to compatibility requirements of other legacy apps. As you say, IE doesn't have the dominance it once did, but for some reason it's still used in certain market segments.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing

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