Here comes IE8, just like every IE before it. Nick MacKechnie, a senior manager on the IE8 project, blogged that webmasters should get ready for IE8 by adding special IE8 tags to their websites. The irony is that the edits to HTML needed to make sites compatible with IE8 are to tell the browser that you’re making an HTML-compliant page. Basically, IE8 defaults to wanting everything the standard way, but you can tell it to handle things the Microsoft way if that’s how you’ve previously coded your site.
While we like the idea of Microsoft finally making Internet Explorer default to Web standards, it still sucks that many sites have had to support older versions of IE for a decade, making special changes, that now have to be undone.
Microsoft really needs to figure out a better way to do this. The problem was that years ago it decided that it was too powerful to adopt somebody else’s standards for HTML and made up its own. As IE browser share skyrocketed, Web designers had little choice but do things the MS way. Now that Web standard browsers are evening the score, webmasters can do things the right way.
This is all a boondoggle that reminds one of Vietnam: it likely never should have happened in the first place, but once a mess is made you have to do what you can to fix it.
Yes, I just compared Internet Explorer to the Vietnam War. Sue me.
Ummm, you had your chance…
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/03/microsoft-s-interoperability-principles-and-ie8.aspx
Don’t get mad at Microsoft – they had the right idea to begin with, but caved to the weight of the not-so-bright interwebs. The only thing you can fault them for is taking the advice of the majority.
I think “Brian” here is a MS employee…
an MS employee?
Microsoft
I hate internet explorer. I’m not upgrading and I wish I could uninstall the whole damned thing. I’ve got the “virtumonde” virus because of it and am going to have to do a clean install.
I’m currently using SeaMonkey and very happy. Also was very happy with thunderbird.
Darn it
I haven’t even upgraded to 7 yet
Thanks M$ for helping keep us Web Folks employed
Sorry but, Brian said ‘We had our chance’
I saw the chance, realised i couldn’t be bothered, went to FireFox, and havn’t looked back once.
Internet Explorer, is slated, and degraded on a daily basis, then they make it harder for the people sticking with them. To stick with them.
They’re just not helping themselves, atall!
Geek it BLACK
http://www.geekitblack.blogspot.com
Comparing it to Vietnam? Actually that war was started by the French, so we didn’t basically “make” that mess. A better example of “it likely never should have happened in the first place, but once a mess is made you have to do what you can to fix it?” Put a picture of the IRAQ WAR next to that phrase. There couldn’t be a better example — you didn’t need to reach back 40 years for that comparison.
But I agree with the IE8 thing. Totally. What do you expect from Microsoft though?
Seems like Microsoft still wants things their way. And then people wonder why some sites look funny under other browsers.
why do they keep trying. There is no reason for them to even have a browser anymore. IE is a ship that sank a long time ago. Firefox easily out dominates them, so what is the reason they are still trying to complete?
I’m guessing nobody here has had to develop web applications for large corporate/internal systems over the last 10 years. Internet Explorer has done some great things for the web over the years but stagnated for a while, which is why there’s so much negativity around it.
They have a HUGE responsibility to stay modern, support many web standards, while also being backwards compatible to old, crappy HTML that YOU have generated over the last decade.
Disclaimer: I switched browsers to Firefox back when it was Firebird 0.89. I’m posting this comment from FF 3
Yes i do work in the web area for a large corporation, and many of our applications only function in IE6, so the entire company is restricted to that browser. And yes that allows the company to do things they wouldn’t be able to if it didn’t exist. But I mean now, they are difficult to sustain at the very least.
But now I NEVER want to see an application like that outside of our intranet. Because that means i have to close my browser, open IE, hope i don’t get a bunch of spyawre while its open, and then go back to Firefox when I’m done with that. By coming out with a new browser they aren’t making anymore money, They are just trying to keep people from switching, and other than just to spite Mozilla, I don’t see a reason why they continue.
Oh please, there is zero reason to have supported non-standard technologies to begin with.
Webmasters should have one thing to say to Microsoft now. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” That about sums it up.
“Oh please, there is zero reason to have supported non-standard technologies to begin with.”
Ever used xmlhttprequest? That was a non-standard bit of proprietary code MS developed for OWA back in the days. That’s what made AJAX possible, and is used everywhere.
I think this conversation needs to end – it’s been said by much smarter people than us and over a much longer period of time. Like I said in the first link – we all had our chance. I agreed with MS initial stance, and I was sad to see them change their plan because of pressures from the community. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
So… This is why i chose to develop web pages to work with firefox then…
What’s so new about IE8? Will it take longer to load about:blank? How about adding more hints on what is a tab on the about:tabs page? Come on Microsoft, i know you can make it slower!!!!
And, uhm, will you please make us download yet another “You are a pirate, no OS for you” false positive prone application? Please?