Comments on: Chris Wilson keynote at TAE

By: Frank Thuerigen

Frank Thuerigen — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:06:09 +0000

It doesnÂ´t look like Microsoft will redesign IE8 to be standards compliant. I would just take it as it is and hope we donÂ´t get another non-standards non-IE6 non-IE7 next version of the explorer (the third way). I kind of made peace with the situation – because there is no way I could change whatever Microsoft is up to. From a business point of view: cross browser testing will never be a part of a fixed price project here.

By: ktrott

ktrott — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:56:05 +0000

I think that Microsoft is overly concerned about not breaking the Web to the point where they become enablers of abuse. The idea that a page could declare a standards mode DOCTYPE but IE would say “well you said you wanted standards mode but we don’t really think that’s what you meant, so if you really want standards mode you’ll need to also declare something in a conditional comment or meta tag” is absolutely ridiculous. They are concerned that currently lots of people are using standards mode not realizing what they are getting/doing and there’s a lot of existing pages built this way. Well IE, if you hadn’t done it wrong in the first place, there probably wouldn’t be this problem. But don’t hold the development of the Web back just because a set of people don’t know what they’re doing. Don’t diverge again from all the other browsers and standard just to enable people to use things incorrectly. What about me? I really do want standards mode and if I specify the right DOCTYPE I should get it. Period. I shouldn’t have to also use yet another IE specific way of doing things.

By: Whoops I annoyed you

Whoops I annoyed you — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:42:19 +0000

Here’s a though MS, don’t move the refresh button to a tiny button the other side of the URL location. I can’t tell you how many times a day I fumble around with that. Start watching yourself and you’ll have a very clear and continuous non-CSS / JS hack annoyance with IE. Whatever usability wonk told them this was a good idea esp. with all the other browsers doing it the old way out to be run out of the industry.

By: todd

todd — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:06:33 +0000

What I loved about the keynote:

1. Chris stated that because of IE7, 50% of the top 200 websites are now running in ‘standards’ mode and not ‘quirks’ mode……but in reality, the reason they’re running in ‘standards’ mode is because they know they have to code for Firefox and other standards compliant browsers. So they’ve gone ahead and coded it the right way, and then hacked the code to work in IE.

2. He more or less said that IE7 is not standards compliant because M$ doesn’t want to ‘break the web’. He used some mundane examples of how his mothers bank website wouldn’t work if they made major changes to IE7. But what he failed to mention is that ANY respectable financial institution has allready coded their site for FF, so she has the option to use a browser that works, while IE7 gets their asses in gear.

3. What Chris failed to realize is that every waking moment that they ship a sub par, non-standards compliant product, that means more and more websites get created using the hacks that he says will ‘break the web’ if they get removed. So all of his answers for why IE is non compliant pose paradoxes.

One solution that I see to this, is to start fresh with IE8. Fix whatever issues there are in IE7, then mothball the project. Allow IE8 to be a separate and non mandatory install that will not overwrite IE7. This way, you start with a new code base that can be made standards compliant and not use cloogy proprietary technology. It would also allow for all current websites to still work, thus not ‘breaking the web’ but then give them the ability and time to remove any hacks that might exist and create their sites they way they should be created.

M$ doesn’t charge for their browser, so why develop it in a manner that lends itself to competition? Theres no need for market share in a browser. I may be wrong on that, and i challenge anyone to show me the fault in that statement, because i would love to know. But if they do in fact want to keep their “market share” they need to immediately tuen 180 degrees and begin listening to the people. If that doesnt not happen, the effect will be that FF takes over as the market share leader, and they wont have to look back. As long as they would stay compliant, there would be nothing that IE could do to regain the ground.

By: Mike Ritchie

Mike Ritchie — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:48:36 +0000

All I want is for IE to give me the *actual* line number on the *actual* file that my javascript error is coming from. “Line 20: Object does not support that method” leaves me no closer to understanding the source of the error than I was before I double-click on the error prompt.

By: Tim Cooijmans

Tim Cooijmans — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:44:50 +0000

So where do I get Visual Web Developer Expres? The download center doesn’t list it.

By: Michael van Ouwerkerk

Michael van Ouwerkerk — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:12:30 +0000

If we are to move forward and start running IE in standards compliant mode, I have one simple requirement and it’s a single CSS property: support box-sizing.

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ui/#box-sizing

In setting up the Backbase widget library my experience has been that not having support for this property can easily lead to ugly hacks and attempts at writing non standards compliant code, only for IE.

The content-box model specified in CSS2.1 is just not the most suitable for all situations, so a document level switch (the way IE implemented control over box sizing) is clearly insufficient and hinders adoption of the standards.

By: cdude

cdude — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:18:39 +0000

The only way to move the web forward is for all web developers to unite and say no to IE hacks and work-arounds. I doubt many will adopt this so we’ll keep on whining and the IE team will keep on preaching web standards.

By: GMFlash

GMFlash — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:08:09 +0000

I think it’s funny that the Platform Architect of Internet Explorer called his keynote “Moving The Web Forward”. Guess he doesn’t realize that his product has been HOLDING THE WEB BACK all these years!

By: AndiSkater

AndiSkater — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:07:17 +0000

Microsoft has finally succeeded: I’ll develop Flex/AIR web applications in the future. No more HTML/JS/CSS for me.

The Internet Explorer has hindered web development for years now and there seems to be is no end. There is one question I am particular interested in: How many billions of Dollars have been wasted to create workarounds for the IE?

In the company I am working for we spend a tremendous amount of time to fix IE issues…

I really hate Microsoft for making the web such an unpleased place.