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August 4, 2005 6:29 AM PDT
A standards truce in the browser war?
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the most noise with the online equivalent of street theater. In one example, WaSP launched the "Browse Happy" Web site urging people to switch from IE to alternatives it said were more secure, including the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, Opera Software's browser and Apple's Safari.
Since the ceasefire, WaSP has dissociated itself from Browse Happy, transferring the site to WordPress, a provider of blogging software.
"A few WaSP members discussed the current environment and we decided to pass Browse Happy along--not give it up, mind you--as a goodwill gesture to Microsoft," said Holzschlag, a WaSP steering committee member. "To be very clear: They never asked us to do this, it was something we decided internally."
So why the thaw? Many credit Microsoft for shedding light on its oft-secretive development process through product managers' blogs. Those managers take comments from the public and often explain what's going on at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus.
That's how the WaSP relationship got started. In March, Scoble approached WaSP members, including Holzschlag, at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas.
Holzschlag initially rebuffed Scoble and his Microsoft colleagues. Soon after, Scoble complained about the snub in his blog. Holzschlag read Scoble's blog, and in the blog's comments section apologized. From there, she and Scoble began talking about ways WaSP and Microsoft could work together. Eventually, Scoble introduced Holzschlag to Microsoft developers working on Visual Studio, ASP.NET, IE, and other Web-related software titles.
An unlikely partnership was born.
"The WaSP has helped provide sound advice, real-life customer experience and appropriate input to help our teams drive to the goal of standards compliance," said Brian Goldfarb, product manager for Microsoft's Web Platform and Tools group. "We are very excited about how this relationship has progressed and with the resulting increased quality of our standards support across our products."
It's not quite as dramatic as Rick Blaine and Capt. Renault strolling into the desert at the end of "Casablanca," but it's a start. Goldfarb said WaSP convinced Microsoft to make Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 conform by default with the W3C's XHTML 1.0 Transitional recommendation and WCAG accessibility guidelines. For developers, that means fewer Microsoft-specific workarounds. For end-users with disabilities, it means more accessible pages.
"From that initial engagement, the relationship has grown to help provide that same guidance and expertise across all products that influence the Web," Goldfarb said.
Microsoft's newly cordial relationship with standards advocates comes as the software giant prepares to release its long-awaited Vista operating system--formerly known as Longhorn--and the first major upgrade to Internet Explorer in years. A final release is scheduled for the second half of next year.
Still, Microsoft execs don't consider this a fundamental shift. The company, they argue, has traditionally led the Web on standards support.
"Having other implementations out there on par with IE and better is frankly kind of new," said Chris Wilson, lead program manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. "When we shipped IE 6, that was not the case. We were far ahead out there with the standards."
No one denies that Microsoft has sometimes led the charge in supporting Web standards. Some question, however, what motivates the company.
Critics argue that Microsoft embraced standards in early versions of IE as a way of catching up to Netscape, which had a massive lead. Then, when Microsoft had its own formidable lead, these critics suggest, the company strayed from standards support. That caused Web designers to code for IE specifically, rather than to standards that leveled the playing field for Microsoft when it was behind.
"I don't believe Microsoft as a company has ever changed its attitude of winning at all costs," said WaSP founder Zeldman. "I think it does what it needs to do to keep achieving that goal. Sometimes that means it supports standards, sometimes the opposite."
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I suppose my thinking here is that while we can all pick our favorite browser and complain about the others it really comes down to the developers jobs. If all developers are able to follow a set and aggreed upon standard (beit IE or W3C) then they spend more time creating engaging sites that cost less and less time trying to make it work on different platforms.
Here is a good example of what is possible if all browsers used CSS standards right.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html</a>
(NOTE: this wont work in IE. If you want it to see it the way it is suppose to be you will have to download Firefox or Opera 8. I used those to because those are the only 'other' browser I have on my computer and this page worked in both.)
I suppose my thinking here is that while we can all pick our favorite browser and complain about the others it really comes down to the developers jobs. If all developers are able to follow a set and aggreed upon standard (beit IE or W3C) then they spend more time creating engaging sites that cost less and less time trying to make it work on different platforms.
Here is a good example of what is possible if all browsers used CSS standards right.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html</a>
(NOTE: this wont work in IE. If you want it to see it the way it is suppose to be you will have to download Firefox or Opera 8. I used those to because those are the only 'other' browser I have on my computer and this page worked in both.)
I think workarounds depend upon your view of what is being done. People who create websites for IE would be creating a workaround for Firefox and the other browsers. However, creating sites based on the W3C recommendations that aren't supported by IE would be creating a workaround to make it work in IE.
In my understanding of the system. Nobody creates a standard. The W3C creates recommendations for standards. It is up to web developers and browser developers to agree upon what is "standard" language. It is possible to have competing standards.
Truthfuly, I think if W3C had nothing more than CSS1 you probably would here as much about standard compatibility. However, with CSS2 and comming soon CSS3 developers want the ability to use them. As far as I know none of the browsers fully support CSS2 and at best only 95% of CSS1.
The fact is that IE isn't supported on anything outside of the Windows platform. The fact is that IE's poor support of anything outside of it's own extensions is one of many reason it gets a lot of flack. The fact is that no browsers is perfect no matter how much you want it to be. The fact is a lot of developers don't want to create workarounds for any browser. The fact is that web developers who do it for a living are going to be required to support more than one browser. The fact is that comparing what IE has to offer versus what the W3C's recommendations have to offer show IE comming up wanting quite a bit.
IE code is specifically designed to make Microsoft more profit, W3C and standards be damned. Ignoring standards practices and causing undue hardship to the industry for their own selfish ends, just makes MS a bully. It doesn't make them right.
I think workarounds depend upon your view of what is being done. People who create websites for IE would be creating a workaround for Firefox and the other browsers. However, creating sites based on the W3C recommendations that aren't supported by IE would be creating a workaround to make it work in IE.
In my understanding of the system. Nobody creates a standard. The W3C creates recommendations for standards. It is up to web developers and browser developers to agree upon what is "standard" language. It is possible to have competing standards.
Truthfuly, I think if W3C had nothing more than CSS1 you probably would here as much about standard compatibility. However, with CSS2 and comming soon CSS3 developers want the ability to use them. As far as I know none of the browsers fully support CSS2 and at best only 95% of CSS1.
The fact is that IE isn't supported on anything outside of the Windows platform. The fact is that IE's poor support of anything outside of it's own extensions is one of many reason it gets a lot of flack. The fact is that no browsers is perfect no matter how much you want it to be. The fact is a lot of developers don't want to create workarounds for any browser. The fact is that web developers who do it for a living are going to be required to support more than one browser. The fact is that comparing what IE has to offer versus what the W3C's recommendations have to offer show IE comming up wanting quite a bit.
IE code is specifically designed to make Microsoft more profit, W3C and standards be damned. Ignoring standards practices and causing undue hardship to the industry for their own selfish ends, just makes MS a bully. It doesn't make them right.
Developers: Forget browser brands. Just code to W3C standards, and let the browsers worry about complying.
Why dont the other browsers instead try to match IE's capabilities?
Developers: Forget browser brands. Just code to W3C standards, and let the browsers worry about complying.
Why dont the other browsers instead try to match IE's capabilities?
The standard is set when developers decide on a singular language. As far as I can tell a lot of developers would really like IE and every other browser to follow the W3C recommendations.
It is possible to create much more appealing and engaging sites using the W3C recommendations than those of IE. One of the best example I can think of is CSS popup menus. When properly created they take less code than scripting, can be changed on the fly, and are compatible with text browsers. IE doesn't support this in anyway. This is just one example of how the W3C's recommendations are far better than Microsofts.
Simply put 10% of the internet using population is still a very large group of people. Although I have not facts or figures to back up this statement, I believe the majority of developers and browser companies have spoken. I believe they have chosen the W3C recommendations to be the standard language for website creation.
I would like anybody who want to to visit this page using IE and Firefox and tell me what they think.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html</a>
The standard is set when developers decide on a singular language. As far as I can tell a lot of developers would really like IE and every other browser to follow the W3C recommendations.
It is possible to create much more appealing and engaging sites using the W3C recommendations than those of IE. One of the best example I can think of is CSS popup menus. When properly created they take less code than scripting, can be changed on the fly, and are compatible with text browsers. IE doesn't support this in anyway. This is just one example of how the W3C's recommendations are far better than Microsofts.
Simply put 10% of the internet using population is still a very large group of people. Although I have not facts or figures to back up this statement, I believe the majority of developers and browser companies have spoken. I believe they have chosen the W3C recommendations to be the standard language for website creation.
I would like anybody who want to to visit this page using IE and Firefox and tell me what they think.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html</a>
People don't care about standards, only web designers do. Those same web designers won't charge a penny less the day all browsers magically render all pages the same way. They'll just count their blessings and pocket the extra cash since they now have to perform less work for the same result.
At the same time those who rant endlessly about standards and glorify FireFox as a beacon of light on standards compliance cheer Mozilla on, touting how "innovative" it is, as it starts adding Mozilla-only extensions, something that when Microsoft does it gets announces as a mortal sin.
It's also ridiculous that after all these years where IE was at a virtual standstill that there are still things you can do with IE that no other browser out there will support.
I have pages that render as they should in IE, but render in a *non-standard* fashion on FireFox due to CSS bugs they still haven't gotten around to fixing.
Moral of the story: no browser is perfect, and there will never be a time where you can design one page and won't have to hack around to make it work in a broken browser.
The fact that IE hasn't been updated for ages should be considered a blessing. If Microsoft decides to regularly update IE again, we'll be back where we were all those years ago where one single page had to not only support three browsers, but 3-4 different versions of each browser, each with their own little quirks.
As broken as IE might be, it's been a relative constant where everything before IE 6 can now be considered obsolete, making every designer's job a LOT easier compared to when they had to support IE 4, 5, 5.5 and 6 all at the same time.
I'll put good money betting that a year from now the debate won't be about standards compliance but how agonizing it is to have to deal with all the different browser versions out there.
People don't care about standards, only web designers do. Those same web designers won't charge a penny less the day all browsers magically render all pages the same way. They'll just count their blessings and pocket the extra cash since they now have to perform less work for the same result.
At the same time those who rant endlessly about standards and glorify FireFox as a beacon of light on standards compliance cheer Mozilla on, touting how "innovative" it is, as it starts adding Mozilla-only extensions, something that when Microsoft does it gets announces as a mortal sin.
It's also ridiculous that after all these years where IE was at a virtual standstill that there are still things you can do with IE that no other browser out there will support.
I have pages that render as they should in IE, but render in a *non-standard* fashion on FireFox due to CSS bugs they still haven't gotten around to fixing.
Moral of the story: no browser is perfect, and there will never be a time where you can design one page and won't have to hack around to make it work in a broken browser.
The fact that IE hasn't been updated for ages should be considered a blessing. If Microsoft decides to regularly update IE again, we'll be back where we were all those years ago where one single page had to not only support three browsers, but 3-4 different versions of each browser, each with their own little quirks.
As broken as IE might be, it's been a relative constant where everything before IE 6 can now be considered obsolete, making every designer's job a LOT easier compared to when they had to support IE 4, 5, 5.5 and 6 all at the same time.
I'll put good money betting that a year from now the debate won't be about standards compliance but how agonizing it is to have to deal with all the different browser versions out there.