14 DAY TRIAL // People that have gone through multiple major Internet Explorer versions already know that Internet Explorer 9 is completely different from its predecessors. In a good way. There’s better performance, enhanced standard support, a streamlined UI, hardware acceleration, etc. At the same time, one aspect of IE’s evolution involves an accelerated release process for development milestones.
There is still a single Beta Build since IE9 was first introduced in November 2009, but there have been no less than seven Developer Previews offered since March 2010, with the IE team managing to commit to and maintain a very tight release schedule.
According to Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President IE, the IE9 development process has been different from past IE versions because of dev feedback, producing a different Internet Explorer.
Still, Microsoft will not follow rival browser makers such as Google and Mozilla and release a flood of development builds to the public. Hachamovitch explained that this is not the focus of the IE team, although it too puts together a multitude of interim builds.
“This latest Platform Preview comes about two and half weeks after the most recent Preview. Leading up to the IE9 beta, we released Platform Previews approximately every eight weeks. We have internal builds of IE at least once a day, often more. Why not release public “dailies” and “nightlies” of IE?” he asked.
“The cadence of IE Platform Previews reflects our point of view: the point of a browser is to run actual websites, not just benchmarks or samples that are hardwired for one browser.
“Our point of view starts with providing consistent quality to respect customers’ time and includes delivering meaningful progress with each Platform Preview.”
Mozilla has long been providing testers with nightly builds of Firefox, and of course, this is specific of an open source development process, which is truly opened to the public in all aspects.
This is also valid for Chromium, the project at the foundation of the Google Chrome browser, which also offers testers access to every interim build that gets compiled.
But users should not expect the same from Microsoft, although, by any standards, the way in which the IE team shares information and development Builds with testers has certainly changed for the better.
“Twenty four hours of elapsed time is rarely meaningful. “Nightlies” vary widely in performance and quality, and may not run actual websites successfully.
“Those daily builds are of some interest to a small audience of “insider” enthusiasts who often take activity (even incrementing the version number) as progress.
“The gap between the IE Platform Preview download numbers (in the millions) and the other browsers’ pre-release offerings reflects this difference,” Hachamovitch added.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 7 (PP7) is available for download here.