21 Untitled

I agree with the majority that this is not the best solution. Moreover, it is likely to be a source of future browser instabilities. However, we are going to have to live with that.

posted at 01:10 pm on January 22, 2008 by Olga Rezo

22 I like it

The main problem with browsers and html interpretation has been that IE was bugged, and no one fixed it for a long time.
So everyone used it, thought the behaviour they witnessed was normal, and everyone was happy… Until other people came up with browsers that actually performed correctly.
But there were so many of those sites that were built wrong, that Microsoft could not do much without breaking compatibility. And with every version that came out, they had to be really careful about what they did, otherwise the world would collapse.
So standards were held back because: – IE could not go the ‘normal way’ easily – people building sites felt bad about writing correct code knowing 70% of the world wouldn’t see it right

Here is a solution that makes it easier on Microsoft to move towards standards AND also has potential support for legacy browsers. How can this be bad (as long as it’s not perverted) ?

The argument that companies can’t support multiple versions is irrelevant: Microsoft still does it inside IE7 and they’re the ones with the biggest stack of bugs.

I welcome this idea.

posted at 01:47 pm on January 22, 2008 by Mikael Gramont

23 A variation

Rather than specifying a particular browser/s to render with, how about specifying a date when the website was known to render correctly across all browsers.

<meta http-equiv=“X-UA-Compatible” content=“2007-12-18” />

Browsers would keep records of when a particular rendering agent was introduced, and render the page according to which engine was used at that date. This method allows all browser developers to support the method and removes any developer specific values.

posted at 01:53 pm on January 22, 2008 by David Bailey

24 Untitled

So we’re reinventing browser sniffing? Great, being an opera user, I’m going to be so thrilled with that, when people specify IE8, FF3, and then some lower number for everything else because they can’t be arsed with other browsers. So I get some crappy version when I run Opera? Maybe Opera will have some sense and just ignore it.

Absolutely. This new proposal would be a disaster for the web, it would be a disaster for the development of web standards and technologies, it would be a disaster for everyone who doesn’t use IE or Firefox.

New browsers are going to support web standards. No new browser that doesn’t will get very far. If even IE is going to support them, we should be in the clear as far as new browsers go. What that means is that any site that is coded to web standards should be fine in new browsers. If you’re not relying on bugs and hacks, you won’t have a problem.

Specifying which browsers get a cutting-edge version of the page is completely the wrong way to go about things. Design the “current” version, using the methods of progressive enhancement – and then ensure that any browsers that are known to not support technologies used get a stripped-down version that they can understand.

posted at 02:00 pm on January 22, 2008 by Stephen Down

25 Disastrous

I am sorry, but this can only be described as madness. We are talking about browser sniffing and code forking here, are we not? Although I appreciate the problem of dealing with legacy web documents, any solution that allows browser vendors to drift away from web standards and do their own thing is wrong, wrong, wrong.

That’s because even Eric Meyer can’t predict layout or scripting bugs that may be accidentally introduced by a new browser version.

There shouldn’t be a need to do that. If a new browser version emerges with such bugs, the developer community should notify the browser vendor so that they can roll out an update that fixes the problems.

This kind of feature also opens up the possibility of allowing browsers vendors to start creating device-specific browsers. Already, I see completely unnecessary iPhone-specific sites springing up all over the place – a slap in the face for CSS standards designed to cope with many devices.

No. This seems to be something conjured-up for the benefit of Microsoft, and not for the benefit of the web or the developer community.

posted at 02:04 pm on January 22, 2008 by Simon Jessey

26 IE8 is not a new rendering engine

“The IE team began work on a completely new rendering engine for IE8”

According to Chris Wilson in a recent interview he states:

“We’re not actually building a whole new engine, like the whole – In IE, our component was code-named a long time ago, ‘Trident.’ It’s kind of the rendering engine and the object model and the parser – all of these pieces pushed together.”

posted at 02:19 pm on January 22, 2008 by Chris Hester

27 stupid

This idea is full of fail. How many versions back must a mobile browser keep? Or let’s say something renders ugly in version 8.1, like transparency. Would I specify 8.2 and hope it’ll get fixed in that version, or would I specify edge and see all my other fixes break in 8.5, or will I specify 8.1 and forever have an ugly site?

This will solve one problem for Microsofts introduktion of IE8, and that’s it. For me a a developer, this will be just another thing to keep in mind while doing workarounds. And what’s next? Specifying 8.1+FIX#14+SP3?

posted at 02:19 pm on January 22, 2008 by Andreas Lanjerud

28 Bad Idea

This feels, and I think is, a very bad idea for the reasons mentioned above. The way it’s been “revealed”, while obviously going against the grain of openly developed standards, feeds into the negative feelings.

I, for one, won’t welcome our new silly tags like this.

posted at 02:20 pm on January 22, 2008 by Ian No I Prefer Privacy

29 Preservation

The problem here center’s around preservation of old websites. What I think we have to remember here is that the web is still in its infancy. As it grows, things are going to be lost…that is the nature of not just the web, but any new technology, dating all the way back to written word. As browsers become settled around established standards, this problem will solve itself.

In simpler terms, you don’t need to throw a Hail Mary in the first quarter when you are down by a field goal. There is still plenty of game left to play, and urgency to solve every problem all at once is only going to hurt us in the long run.

On a different angle, I have to also state that in any website, content is king. While I am sure some of us would like our designs to be saved and looked upon by future generations in the same way that we look upon some of the great posters of the 40s and 50s, that is mostly irrelevant as long as users can get to and understand the content. And no matter how much of a disaster any older website comes out in modern browsers, people will figure out a way to get to the content.

posted at 02:25 pm on January 22, 2008 by Sean Ryan

30 Microsoft don't want to break the web?

They already have!

And now they want to fix it by reintroducing browser sniffing? If all you standards guys managed to get wuality time with Microsoft, surely it would’ve been a lot more beneficial to the web and its future to look them in the eye and say:

“You want to fix the mess you’ve made? Quite simply build IE8 to render standards TO THE LETTER. No interpretation, no second-guessing, just do what the specs say. Everybody else does it, why are you any different?”

But of course it’s Microsoft and the real reason for all this is simply “but if we do things properly, there will be no reason for our users to stick with our browser, so let’s act like we’re doing the right thing and perpetuate IE-specific code”.

You want to make sure everything renders properly on the web? Then make sure all browsers render the specs correctly. You then want to make sure developers use those specs? have browsers block ALL rendering if the DOCTYPE is missing or invalid.

No excuses on either side of the fence then.

posted at 02:26 pm on January 22, 2008 by Ross Clutterbuck

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