Browser : Operating System

Fairly early in my career as a programmer, I switched from the C and C++ path over to front-end web development. It was fun, in-demand, and provided a way to scratch my artistic and programming itches at the same time.

I spent a lot of that time wrestling with web browsers.

These days, I write most of my JavaScript for node, and run my programs on servers. I’ve found that wrestling with operating system differences is very similar to web browsers.

(Disclaimer: this is a joke. Please don’t email me.)

IE : Windows

Full of Microsoftisms. Most things mostly work, except that sometimes they don’t, and when they do, it’s usually in a completely foreign and strange way. So different that many people either don’t support it, or don’t support anything else.

Firefox : Linux

Mostly works, but always awkward. A perpetually broken mish-mash of components that often weren’t really intended to be used together. No two are alike, and nothing ever looks exactly right.

Shrouded in a religious belief that it is fixing the worlds problems. Any criticism is viewed as heresy (unless it comes with a patch).

WebKit/Safari/Chrome : Darwin/BSD

Very nice, very polished. Would probably die if not for the fact that a huge corporation decided to back it (since we already have a public option with Linux/Firefox). Mostly open source, but if you have to actually do things, you’ll inevitably be forced into the “blessed” APIs, which are not standard.

Opera : SunOS

All 12 of its users loudly agree it is superior in every way, and they have graphs to prove it.