Kyoto Fun
I’m not going to take a lot of time to post tonight. The weather finally broke here so instead of being 85 degrees with high humidity (and sweat running down the insides of your clothing), it was overcast, slightly rainy at times, and about 70 degrees. That was a nice change. Since I’m from Seattle originally, a little rain doesn’t bother me but the heat really does.
Yesterday, we visited the Kyoto Imperial Palace (which was a bit of a yawn) and Nijo Castle, which was much more interesting. Nijo Castle does not allow photos of the interior (a practice that seems to be common with cultural treasures in Japan) but it is full of beautiful rooms with painted panels that are hundreds of years old.
Following this, we took the trip out to see Nanzen-ji, which is one of the five great temples of Kyoto and an important one for Rinzai Zen. The temple there was beautiful and part of a larger complex. It had some very nice rooms and shrine areas (again, no pictures allowed) and some out “dry” Zen gardens.
Following this, on the suggestion of our guidebook, we made the climb into the wooded hills behind Nanzen-ji to Nanzen-ji Oku-no-in. This turned out to have a beautiful set of small shrines and a small, cultivated, waterfall, along with a shrine in a cave. All of this at the top of some steps cemented into the rocks and across a small bridge.
Today, we went to To-ji, one of the main Shingon temples in Kyoto. This temple was given over to Kobo Daishi by the emperor and became one of the core Shingon temples early on. It as a pagoda that is reputed to have been built by him as well.
It also has one of the most impressive statuary displays inside, including a beautiful statue of Mahavairocana supported by the twelve generals, one of Fudo Myoo and the other light kings, and a number of others. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures of these either. I did drop a hefty chunk of change picking up some images of Fudo Myoo and the Taizokai and Kongokai Mandalas that they had there (suitable for framing), along with a few odds and ends.
We closed the day with some shopping elsewhere and a visit to Heian-jingu, a national Shinto shrine that had some impressive buildings but felt a little underwhelming otherwise.
Here are links to some of my galleries of photos from the last two days:
More IE Comments from Dave Massy
For those following the request that IE begin to actually speak in public again about what is being done for upcoming IE development (IE8), Dave Massy continues to speak as well on his blog on this. It is worth reading what he has to say:
I do agree though that the IE team needs to start talking to the developer community on a much more consistent basis. After the release of IE7 all online chats stopped. The online chats had been taking place every month since well before IE7 was under development. After the release of IE7 the bug reporting system was withdrawn. There have been vague promises that it was only temporary but it has now been almost a year and no replacement is in sight.
The IE team does not have to give exact details of IE8 but their complete silence shows a complete lack of respect for the developer community.
Dave also left the IE team and Microsoft after IE7 shipped so he brings both a longterm insider view and one from someone who no longer has a vested interested, just a personal one, in where things are going. Since he is also from a different discipline (not being QA), his perspective on things is also likely to be different there as well.
Updated: For those that ask why this we are even discussing IE at all, I will point out that, like it or not, Microsoft Windows still controls th VAST majority of operating system installations on a personal computer. I’ve seen numbers that show more Windows Vista users than Mac OS X users. Since IE7 is standard on Vista and likely in place for XP (unless they have IE6 SP2), what Microsoft does in the browsing space has an impact on anyone who makes a living working on the web. For that reason, getting the IE team to continue to have open communication and to move towards more standards support is very important.
Openness and IE or “Talk to us!”
It came to my attention that comments started to be posted about my Borgzilla blog post over on the IEBlog on an unrelated post there.
They haven’t really said anything phenomenal but the points made here were noticed. Dave Massy, also formerly of Microsoft and the IE team, has also had some things to say about Internet Explorer on his new blog lately. Without my knowledge, he had also posted about the old Connect site (aka “Borgzilla”) in mid-August. I recommend checking him out for another perspective.
One thing that I see that is really missing from this conversation is any commentary for any member of the Internet Explorer team. There hasn’t been a peep in response to the comments on their own blog (always bad form and something discouraged when I was involved with it) and none of the members of the team who blog on their own seem to be saying anything. This needs to change, in my own special opinion.
IE7 was done, really done, by the end of the Summer in 2006. Heck, it was done except for bug fixes when I left in May, 2006. It is now, officially, the Fall of 2007. It has been more than a year since work finished on IE7. More than 200 people work on Internet Explorer (heck, if you count “contingent staff” as well as employees, there were more than 120 QA people on IE in mid-2006 and I bet over 100 developers). They’ve all been working on something for a year now. You wouldn’t know it by any public announcements, demonstrations, or posts on their blog. Most of what gets posted there is a retread on IE7 features and not terribly often at that.
Hey, Dean, Tony, and the rest of the IE leadership, what are you guys doing? Hello? Is this thing on? I know you don’t want to spill the beans on your next big thing, especially to avoid your next great ideas being copied (and more quickly shipped) by competitors, but you could at least give us a hint as to what the IE team has been doing for a year. I know you guys and you aren’t unintelligent or inarticulate. Please start talking to the web community about what you are up to with IE8. You have good people working on IE. Don’t be afraid to let them post something to the IEBlog about future work and ideas. The world is curious.
For others reading this, I know that the IE team is active again with the W3C and its working groups (and good for them for doing so!). Can someone give a summary of what they seem to be up to there? I’m not going to go through a few hundred pages of e-mail from lists from Japan to figure it out but I am curious.
On that note, I’ll go back to my vacation. I figured that I should post something more than photos of Japan and lists of places that I’ve been or to which I am going. Hardly riveting fare for most people, I am sure. It make my mother happy, though. :-)
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