Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, and Web Standards
This is the sort of article I’d read, pass on to a few web developer buddies, and let that be that. I usually don’t post these things here because it’d be like a lawyer posting an interesting article on the tax code (boring). But Microsoft has recently made a very controversial decision about their upcoming browser, one which many of you will end up using (by choice, laziness, or zealous corporate IT), that may break a large majority of the pages you open with it. Joel on Software explains it quite thoroughly and manages to make the subject seem pretty entertaining and exciting while he’s at it.
Comments
man…. i dont want to have to read a whole thing… with words…. can you just break it down for me?
Basically, it goes like this:
I write my pages in standards-based XHTML, CSS, and javascript. Most good web developers do. But Internet Explorer has never really been all that into web standards. It does its own thing. So usually we develop our pages in standards, then go back and fix the page up for Internet Explorer. Or you’re like me and you go “fuck you, internet explorer, I don’t feel like fixing you” and you let your blog sit unfixed for months.
And so the web, as it exists right now, is a whole lot of standards pages with a whole lot of special conditional tweaks and fixes for IE. Basically stuff like “here, browser, use this stylesheet. unless you’re internet explorer, then use this other stylesheet that is incorrect but you seem to like.”
But Internet Explorer 8 is going to be standards based. And not only will it be standards based, it’s going to enforce standards by default — thus killing backwards compatibility.
So when you download Internet Explorer 8 and you hit my pages or you hit Google Maps or you hit any number of pages that have all these “if you’re internet explorer, use this broke stylesheet and javascript” tags all over them, Internet Explorer 8, still being internet explorer, will render the incorrect code correctly effectively breaking the page.
So what happens then? Do people not adopt IE8 because they think it’s broken and buggy since their pages don’t load? Do the 80% of web programmers out there finally learn how to program correctly and fix up their pages to prepare for IE8? Does microsoft change its stance again before launch and have it render buggy shit correctly by default?
It’ll be interesting…
what the hell does that have to do with the tax code?
Arguing over IE is funny.
People will be up in arms if standards are enforced by default. People will be up in arms if standards are not enforced by default.
how hard is it to remove the thing that says “if your ie then appear this way”? because it doesnt sound like the problem is huge.
I oversimplified, Derrick. There are lots of those conditionals sprinkled throughout pages. And then there’s still the people on old IE browsers that need them.
But yeah, Reg. I’m looking forward to watching it all unfold.
nerds.
Couldn’t MS make it so the new IE had a slightly different naming convention…so the old browsers could still use the “if your IE goto this stylesheet” and the new browser would just skip by it unless it included the modified name?