11 " Buy your engine from a competitor and paint it m

Those ‘Microsoft’ engine control units (ECUs) in Formula 1 racing cars ? That’s what they did. Bought McLaren electronics, changed the badge :-)
I simply do not believe that MS can recreate all of IE6s bugs, from now on until the end of IE, without getting it wrong a few times. So the switch wont do what it says.
FireFox is a lot better, and in Europe has 25% of the browser market, and they feel very happy to actually fix bugs as opposed to codifying them and promising to have them forever, unless the web page asks nicely.

posted at 11:56 am on February 19, 2008 by Tom Chiverton

12 What their real issue is...

Jeremy, I’ve been following this debate with interest and definitely support you in your view. It’s good to see ALA responsibly allowing you the opportunity to put the counter-point to Eric’s original article.

My thoughts have consistently echoed yours – as in what on earth do they think IE8 is going to do to jeopardise the rendering of so many websites, given that a lot of pain has been cleared by the switch to IE7? But then it started to dawn on me that actually all those site owners who now have reasonably coherrent rendering in IE7 are not the point.

The point is the thousands of companies out there who have intranets and web apps poorly developed by short sighted business owners and developers that will only render using IE6. These businesses have actively put off upgrading, both to IE7 and by extension Vista and this is the real reason MS are so keen to be able to guarantee predictable behaviour going forward. So they can say to their customers ‘we promise that what you create with our new products will continue to work in the future’.

Unfortunately we face a divergence. Not between one browser maker and another. But between the established corporate world and how it uses the web and the real innovators. Not only are the corporates heading down an evolutionary blind alley but they’re being lead there by their ‘trusted supplier’.

posted at 12:01 pm on February 19, 2008 by Matthew Addison

13 Untitled

Rather than saying which version of IE the site is built for… can’t we say when the site was built?

Then IE just needs to say “this site was built before X, but after 2006-10-18, therefore this website must have been built for IE7�.

posted at 12:30 pm on February 19, 2008 by Craig Francis

14 Insanity

Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

This is exactly what Micrsoft is asking us to do. “Keep doing the same thing, we’ll change, really. Just wait till the next version, we’ll get it right then.”

We already have to use conditional comments to target IE6 and IE7, now we have this new switch.

Do people seriously believe things will change in the future?

posted at 01:03 pm on February 19, 2008 by Neil Cadsawan

15 Untitled

Can’t we say when the site was built?

I don’t see how that’s any easier than just putting in the current version of IE. Plus it gives you less control over the behaviour.

Unfortunately we face a divergence. Not between one browser maker and another. But between the established corporate world and how it uses the web and the real innovators.

Does the divergence not already exist? Is that not the problem: they don’t want to break the ones that have diverged down the non-standards route.

It does seem like deep down this is all about Microsoft making more money. If it was really about the intranets and such then those businesses could just use older versions of IE. But of course then they can’t upgrade to Vista. So if you bring out a version of IE that supports the older intranets you can then get them to upgrade to Vista – it’s not like they desperately need tabs and an MSN Live search bar. The best way to make sure intranets don’t break is simply not to upgrade from IE.

Having said all this, i still don’t see Version Targeting as a huge issue. Sure it’ll make Microsoft’s lives harder. But as long as you use purely standards code you should be ok for the future if you use targeting.

posted at 01:27 pm on February 19, 2008 by Mark Wales

17 Untitled

Then IE just needs to say “this site was built before X, but after 2006-10-18, therefore this website must have been built for IE7�.

That assumes that people always write sites to the latest standards. Which they clearly don’t. There are new sites being launched every day that rely on IE’s bugs to render properly. There are probably new and revised pages being uploaded to sites every day that still require IE6 bugs to render properly.

All you’re doing is making the targeting even more complicated and unnecessary than it needs to be.

posted at 02:02 pm on February 19, 2008 by Stephen Down

18 The default is the best possible solution

This is pulled from my response on Eric Meyer’s blog article.

I agree with the direction IE8 is taking. The problem is that people are confusing standards for requirements. According to the W3C the standards are recommendations and not requirements. The W3C provides standards that are relegated to mere guidance while the browser vendors provide the requirements. This is not my desire to favor browser vendors, but the reality in which the internet exists.

Identifying the problem – faulty reasoning
The problem is confusion between those “R” words. If the standards are not requirements then the idealism for standards lust based arguments looses idealistic appeal. The rational result is to ensure the recommendations become requirements, or at least enforceable options.

Identifying the solution – a migratory path for browser vendors
Unfortunately the standards are written as doctypes and not schema, so validation of code is not capable of being enforced. Browser vendors are more capable of enforcing the standards that are otherwise unenforceable merely through field use. The solution to the noted problem is help browser vendors carry the torch of standards enforcement. Notice that I said standards enforcement and not standards compliance. In order to achieve this most desirable solution without immediate alienation of backwards conformance browser vendors must adhere to a three part plan:

1) – Abandon slackware: Browser vendors must implement an optional standards mode that fails on non-compliant pages. This will allow designers to create future compatible content that is nothing less than well formed.

In the case of IE8 the IE8 processing engine must be optional if it actually wishes to be strict to the standards. Internet users must be aware that IE8 is not requiring conformance to the standards of IE8, but it will. This allows content owners to get their assets up to par before they are exposed as flawed, archaic, or simply incompetent. This would also satisfy the requirement of point 3 – timely notice.

2) – Version control: Browser vendors must implement a version control system to warn web content owners that the browser will significantly limit backwards compatibility in future versions. This will allow time necessary for content owners to conform to the standards before their pages begin to break.

3) – Timely notice: Browser vendors must make public what a browser version will no longer support and what new features it will support 9-18 months in advance to allow the market to prepare for those changes. Without timely notice the previous two points are irrelevant. The point of timely notice is not to benefit designers or asset owners, but to protect the browser vendors. Browser vendors must view themselves as always legally liable and take steps accordingly to continually provide innovation while ending support for older versions that impair such innovation.

Intended result – standards become requirements
The goal is not to improve code. The goal is to make content asset owners aware that archaic content and markup methods will expire and that it is their liability to stay up to date. Without liability there are no requirements.

The only alternative for standards achievement – abandoning HTML
If standards are important they would be enforceable. If browser conformance to those standards were important then they would be given the liability of enforcement. If the mentioned steps are too much to ask for then HTML creation will never be standards conforming. Requirements are extreme in their strictness and lack of compromise or they are not requirements. If standards are not entirely followed then they are not standards.

If the mentioned steps are not appetizing then simply abandon HTML. Create a new markup language that is more semantic and defined by schema so that validation is a requirement.

posted at 02:22 pm on February 19, 2008 by austin cheney

19 Untitled

The reasoning here is that less savvy developers shouldn’t have to worry their little heads about adding one extra line to their documents.

I don’t think the argument is that they shouldn’t, rather that they won’t, however much we want them to.

This strategy is doomed to failure. Standards-aware developers, by their very nature, will object to adding a line of unnecessary markup to their documents just to get one single browser to behave as it should by default.

I dunno. I add a heck of a lot of code to get IE 6 to (almost) behave how it should. And even if we don’t add the line, that just means our sites will be rendered by the IE 7 engine for ever more. I don‘t think that means the strategy has failed. If anything, Microsoft will get fewer calls complaining about web sites that look different in IE 42. So, from their point of view, they win.

posted at 02:26 pm on February 19, 2008 by Paul Waite

20 Principles ... a rare commodity nowadays

This article touches on the real reason for Microsoft version targeting: “… a technology born of fear”.

This has nothing to do with “helping build a better web”, “saving clueless web devs from themselves”, “helping standartistas build better sites”, or any of the other nonsense coming from the Zeldman camp.

This is all about protecting Microsoft their market share, which is being paired away every day by secure, standards-compliant browsers.

If they can create a de facto IE7 standard, which this proposal will bring about, all the fully standards-compliant browsers are suddenly broken in terms of the new ‘IE7 Standard’. Bingo! MS has the only non-broken browser!

It’s absolutely shameful the handful of ‘big hitters’ who are arguing for it, and worrying that so many others are falling for their bogus arguments.

Anyway, what’s the debate about? Microsoft will do what suits Microsoft profit margins, and fuck the rest of them. Nothing new there.

posted at 03:23 pm on February 19, 2008 by David One

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