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But the snub, from one of Microsoft's most vocal critics, the Web Standards Project (WaSP), snowballed through blog postings and public apologies to produce a little-noticed detente in the long-running feud between Microsoft and Web standards advocates. That has some developers hopeful the software giant is entering a new era of standards compliance.
A month ago, Microsoft entered into an unlikely partnership with WaSP, forming a joint task force to help Redmond get an array of software titles up to snuff on standards. The advocacy group, created in the late 1990s to goad Microsoft and then-rival Netscape into adhering to standards for Web programming, was known for often theatrical campaigns against Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser.
What's new:
Microsoft appears to be moving toward accepting Web browser standards long supported by advocates such as the Web Standards Project.
Bottom line:
Web authors, who have spent inordinate amounts of time coding Web pages specifically to accommodate Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, say that a Microsoft shift toward standards will mean they spend far less time and money developing work-arounds to accommodate IE, and the Web as a whole will grow more quickly.
"Weather forecast for Hell: Cold and colder today," Scoble wrote in his blog after news of the partnership broke. "Seriously, congrats to everyone involved. Hope this collaboration brings us some good stuff for developers."
Web developers and their clients took notice this week when it was reported that Microsoft's next browser, IE 7, would not pass a stringent standards test called Acid2.
But while the news led to vociferous griping on discussion forums around the Net, and to one widely blogged call by Windows IT Pro news editor Paul Thurrott for an IE boycott, the recent detente helps explain why WaSP was surprisingly nonplussed.
This is a dramatic shift. Developers--that is, Web authors--have been locked in a standards standoff with Microsoft for years. Seven years after WaSP launched, developers acknowledge some progress but complain that they're still coding browser-specific Web pages.
"Some colleagues and I launched the Web standards movement eight years ago precisely because we were wasting too much time--and charging our clients too much money--working around browser differences instead of focusing on brand and usability issues," said Jeffrey Zeldman, a WaSP founder who is no longer active in the group. "Years later, because of sometimes grossly imperfect standards compliance, we're still wasting time and money on browser work-arounds."
Peace on the standards front could have a significant impact on the Web. With its 90-percent share of the browser market, Microsoft has a virtual veto over what industry standards Web authors can rely on and what kind of content and presentation users encounter. If Microsoft hewed more closely to Web standards, developers and standards groups say the Web as a whole would grow more quickly--and more cheaply.
Real-world agreement on standards could let corporations and others with large Web presences save a bundle. Right now, discrepancies between browsers and the standards promulgated by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) often force Web developers to concoct elaborate work-arounds.
"The browser wars being waged on the standards level has caused so many problems, cost a lot of money, and worn down a lot of good people," said Molly Holzschlag, a prominent Web designer and standards advocate. "As it stands, a lot of development money goes into special development for IE. What's more, developers and companies not using standards end up costing lots of money over time because code has to be constantly rewritten, constantly reviewed to address all these concerns."
Many credit WaSP's actions with influencing browser evolution, including Netscape's decision to abandon its legacy browser code in favor of the Gecko engine that underlies today's increasingly successful Firefox browser.
But despite occasional "mission accomplished" declarations, the group made
See more CNET content tagged:
browser war, standards, Web browser, author, developer
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.
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html
(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.
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html
(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.
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html
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.
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html
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.
- Look at past behavior, it is all a farse! LookOut!
- by 202578300049013666264380294439 August 7, 2005 8:57 AM PDT
- Sure, whatever. M$ says "we'll behave", then twists the knife in your back. History shows this is always the case, expect nothing else from M$.
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