11 A Microsoft-centric solution

Sure, most trips through the “Wayback Machine� don’t suffer in modern browsers because the DOCTYPE switch still serves them well, but what about a site built to IE6’s implementation of “standards� mode? We already know that, in many cases, IE7 won’t render it properly.

Agreed, IE7 won’t be able to render it — but Firefox or Safari will, because the author didn’t need to use wholesale hacks and workarounds for these browsers to get the layout to work in the first place.

You’re proposing a Microsoft-centric solution to a problem that Microsoft created for themselves, by not keeping up with modern browsers post-IE6. That five-year gap produced the millions websites designed just for IE6 — that Microsoft bosses are desperate to support at all costs.

Why is the onus on people who are actually trying to use standards to declare it, rather than on the people who only support obsolete technology like IE6?

posted at 11:32 am on January 22, 2008 by Jonathan Kahn

12

Firstly, if MS can get IE8 to render correctly via me using a meta tag – particularly one other browsers can use – I’ll live with that. Their ‘not break the web’ mantra means that this is about the best we’re likely to get from them here, so I’ll settle.

That’s what my head tells me. If there’s something new, something that doesn’t in itself break standards, I’m prepared to add it to my template.

Secondly, like wot Gareth Adams says:

“If you want to render my document, there is a defined set of standards. If you aren’t up to implementing those standards then make your own excuses, don’t expect me to update my document to suit.”

It in my heart it feels like a backward step. But I’m still prepared to give it a go.

posted at 11:38 am on January 22, 2008 by Jack Pickard

13 This doesn't feel right

Maybe this is a difficult concept to grasp but intuitively it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. It seems to be a solution designed solely to support the various versions of Internet Explorer which aren’t able to easily co-exist with other browsers (or even themselves).

What’s really needed is a concerted effort to make front-end web development a recognised profession. This might help to ensure that more developers have sufficient knowledge to overcome the differences between browsers whilst we move to a more standardised rendering situation.

After all there doesn’t seem to be a problem with Progressive Enhancement when you know what you’re doing.

posted at 11:55 am on January 22, 2008 by Mike Loizides

14 Declared Interests?

Sounds like you put a reasonable amount of work into this concept, which rather flies in the face of many years of web standards effort.

Can I ask if you were paid by Microsoft for this effort, and if so how much?

posted at 12:05 pm on January 22, 2008 by Doug Winter

15 Err, we allready have a standard for that...

Well, as some other people noticed, I think this is not the right move to make. Because every website is already defining how it wants to be rendered. Just take a look at the doctype and you know.

There is a good solution; the browser vendors should implement standards as defined by the W3C. So we all know how a browser will render a site. Maybe not in the most smooth way, but you only have to build your site once.

This new standard will not be implemented by all browser vendors, so again we will have the problem fixed for only a few browsers. Its just another patch.

And by the way, how many MB is Safari for iPhone after 10 new render engines?

posted at 12:12 pm on January 22, 2008 by Mathijs Kadijk

16 I feel happy

Not about a browser compatibility declaration, but the fact that Microsoft are concerned about standards compliance and not breaking existing websites. Maybe there’s hope for the future after all.

posted at 12:34 pm on January 22, 2008 by Hal Stephenson

17 Re:

So some people are trying really hard to fight standards, interoperability, and maintainability. I admire the tenacity, but I’m about to lose any motivation to deal with that in a constructive fashion. (Qed.)

posted at 12:47 pm on January 22, 2008 by Jens Meiert

18 This is not a sustainable solution

I’m afraid that, on this occasion, I agree with most of the posters on the IEBlog that this is a very regressive step and I think the Webstandards folk really should be ashamed of going along with this.

There may have been some layout compat problems when IE7 launched, but the world has not fallen apart, and the IE7 Trident is certainly a major improvement on IE6 Trident.

I still don’t really see why this metatag ‘solution’ should be needed. The only sites that are really going to need serious checking of layout are the kind of sites that are done by people who understand CSS and therefore more likely to be actively maintained.

People using table tags and other stuff are surely not likely to be affected for the simple reason that IE already implements all of the basics, and the vast majority of CSS stuff to the standards, with only more complex floats and other more complex areas less consistently supported (but again, IE7 Trident got alot of that closer to other browser vendors’ implementations).

I think we just have to accept within the web development community that some breakage will occur as the web moves on. The same has happened in the security and other arenas. Otherwise we face the bad old world of browser sniffing, which surely we all tried to move away from years ago?

And also, how does this solve the issue of maintaining support for older browsers? Do we now have to maintain two copies of a site, one with the meta tag and one without? I’d say the use of the odd CSS hack is far preferable to that kind of situation.

I really hope that other browser vendors do not implement that and that the IE team think very seriously again about the consequences of implementing this. Compatibility is important but we have to accept that some breakage CAN occur as the web is a constantly evolving medium, and that people have to accept that.

posted at 12:50 pm on January 22, 2008 by Thomas Tallyce

19 Down to the browser developers

I will be very welcome to see “legacy rendering and scripting engines to display the site as it was intended—well into the future”. I hope that The Web Standards Project are able to get this rolled out with IE8, and as Hal Stephenson says it is great to hear that Microsoft are concerned about compliance. I like the consensus though am not happy with adding meta tags to effectively “code fork” the correct rendering of websites that I build.

posted at 01:03 pm on January 22, 2008 by Kevin Rapley

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