Note to MS IE developers: IE7

[Vince C.]

Hi.

Since we all heard about a new version of MSIE, why not move one step
forward and have everybody agree? No more browser war, no more headaches
when designing web pages, no more bug workarounds differences, no
distinction anymore. Why not reuse Mozilla engine?

We all know it supports the latest web standards and it is updated on a
regular basis. Moreover it will spare MS a large amount of time for
development of a new engine (or enhancing the current one).

Apple did it with their file system and kernel. Why not MS with their
browser?

Vince C.

 

[Paul Smith]

Since we all heard about a new version of MSIE, why not move one step
forward and have everybody agree? No more browser war, no more headaches
when designing web pages, no more bug workarounds differences, no
distinction anymore. Why not reuse Mozilla engine?

Because Mozilla's engine can't even render blockquotes properly half the
time, and yes it is half the time because half the time it actually does
work! At least IE renders things one way and one way only, I'd much rather
that than things changing all the time.

We all know it supports the latest web standards and it is updated on a
regular basis. Moreover it will spare MS a large amount of time for
development of a new engine (or enhancing the current one).

Latest web standards? No it doesn't, it's still quite a ways away from
complete 2.1 support. Development on Firefox seems to of nearly reached a
standstill, their updating system is woefully inadequate, requiring people
to download the whole thing again - not good, it takes absolutely ages for
security issues to be fixed - not good, and even then not always since
auto-update wasn't working.

You can get away with that kind of thing when users a measured in 6 digit
numbers, but not in 8 digit numbers.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove 'nospam.' to reply by e-mail*

 

[Vince C.]

Because Mozilla's engine can't even render blockquotes properly half the
time, and yes it is half the time because half the time it actually does
work! At least IE renders things one way and one way only, I'd much rather
that than things changing all the time.

At most one thing Mozilla seems not to render properly. I personnally never
use blockquotes. I prefer CSS2 and its amazing lot of selector
possibilities. Can you drop a browser just because of a single thing like
that?

Latest web standards? No it doesn't, it's still quite a ways away from
complete 2.1 support.

Because IE addresses the standards better? 8-| Looks like you might have to
try and read further...

Recall that MSIE so-called conformed to standards up until 1999-2000. Five
years have passed since then.

Joke apart: did you try transparent PNG under IE? Did you try fixed
positionning? Did you try placing italic text to fix the horizontal scroll?
Did you ever want to use CSS2 thoroughly? Did you ever want to write
standard compliant web documents (I mean standards from the W3C, not MS')?

I asked once MS - in this forum - when IE would address CSS completely
instead of partially. I also think a browser is compliant or is not. A
"partial" implementation makes no sense at all. Partial means it's not. Do
you know what they told me? "You will have to upgrade your operating system
if you want to get a compliant browser!"

Do you also agree with that?

Development on Firefox seems to of nearly reached a
standstill, their updating system is woefully inadequate, requiring people
to download the whole thing again - not good, it takes absolutely ages for
security issues to be fixed - not good, and even then not always since
auto-update wasn't working.

Criticism is good provided it allows going further and fixing problems.
Never said MS should develop it themselves. I personnally don't care. But
after all, those who are satisfied with how things go under MS are less and
less. Anyway I never said that things could not go better. If you just
complain without suggesting how to do it better, well, it's up to you.

And I suggested MS - not you - to reuse their engine. After all you're free
to do anything you want, that's not my business. My suggestion was to get
everybody agree on the same thing, releasing MS from a (browser) monopoly
that is slow to evolve (I don't care about security fixes as long as the
tool also evolves; here it doesn't).

I personnally didn't switch to FF because its development is better or
worse, it's only a matter of adressing my needs. There is probably a reason
why more than 25,000,000 downloads were made since FF begun living.

The developer's point: look at the cerebral contorsions one has to do to get
a proper display under IE *and* other browsers (e.g.
http://www.positioniseverything.net/) and you'll understand. Of course, if
you write HTML 3.2 or Flash, you won't notice everything. But then you're
already far ahead in the wrong direction.

You can get away with that kind of thing when users a measured in 6 digit
numbers, but not in 8 digit numbers.

I don't quite understand but I remember a story where a UK state office got
80,000 windows PC blocked during 4 days due to an automatic update. There
are pros and cons. That's true. I only mean there are some technical choices
that can seem obvious but are not the best.

Vince C.

 

[Paul Smith]

Joke apart: did you try transparent PNG under IE? Did you try fixed
positionning? Did you try placing italic text to fix the horizontal
scroll?
Did you ever want to use CSS2 thoroughly? Did you ever want to write
standard compliant web documents (I mean standards from the W3C, not MS')?

I've written W3C standard sites before. It's all very well talk about
standards, if you wanna talk about standards then DVD-RW is *the* standard
according to the DVD consortium, standards are meaningless unless the
majority supports them.

No I don't use PNGs obviously, as IE has poor support for them, I don't
bother with extensive CSS2 because, 2 is outdated anyway and is clearly
replaced by 2.1.

If you know 90% of the people are going to see weird things if you use such
and such, developer rule #1 don't use it. You pressure for Microsoft to add
in better support then you support it, but you don't go and add it then
complain because it won't work - you knew you'd run into issues.

You don't go and write an application for the Mac and expect Microsoft to
then run Mac binaries on Windows do you? You target Windows, just like you
need to target IE when you write a webpage, if you know some parts of CSS
are going to cause problems - avoid them until it is supported.

I asked once MS - in this forum - when IE would address CSS completely
instead of partially. I also think a browser is compliant or is not. A
"partial" implementation makes no sense at all. Partial means it's not. Do
you know what they told me? "You will have to upgrade your operating
system
if you want to get a compliant browser!"

Firefox only has partial implementation.

And I suggested MS - not you - to reuse their engine. After all you're
free
to do anything you want, that's not my business. My suggestion was to get
everybody agree on the same thing, releasing MS from a (browser) monopoly
that is slow to evolve (I don't care about security fixes as long as the
tool also evolves; here it doesn't).

Yes a browser monopoly, do you actually know what a monopoly is?

I personnally didn't switch to FF because its development is better or
worse, it's only a matter of adressing my needs. There is probably a
reason
why more than 25,000,000 downloads were made since FF begun living.

Yes, but the actual usage is far lower probably below 8 million, after all
you have to redownload the entire thing just to patch it, so that inflates
their figures automatically - I need to have it installed to make sure my
stuff works ok, but I don't use it as my primary browser anymore.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove 'nospam.' to reply by e-mail*

 

[Vince C.]

[...]
standards are meaningless unless the
majority supports them.

This is the exact definition of "anarchy".

Standard does not mean "laws" but only a way to have everyone agree on the
same, very common things. Using and addressing standards is the best and
fair way to thank people who invested their energy trying to achieve things
for their peers. Adopting standards is like telling these people they didn't
work in vain.

"Meaningless until the majority adopts them" is just saying "I don't care
about standards". If Rome had been made in one day we probably wouldn't need
such things like standards because everybody would agree at the same time.
Utopy...

Standards are to be applied by people like you and me. And also to tell
others there are good ways to follow ("I care for standards and I'll explain
you why") and wrong ways ("I'll do the common way and, if one day standards
are adopted, then I'll switch but for now it is not viable for me; I don't
want to waste time").

You probably consider it is a waste of time. I consider it an investment.
Telling people how they should do is education. I try to educate people
around me when they don't know how and what to do. And generally the message
is clearly understood. This is my "return-on-investment". And it's a much
more important compensation than money or whatever. I admit I had once to
consider things differently.

I won't do things blindly, the common way just because 90% of the earth is
doing that way. I want to have good, sensible reasons to do so. (talking
about writing web pages, not about where and how I'm buying coffee.)

You can look at sheep: have you already watched them? If only one of them
jumps there are plenty of them that jump as well at the same place. This is
exactly what I don't want to do.
If standards were adopted fairly by everyone, we wouldn't have this
pointless discussion, you trying to explain me what a monopoly is and me
trying to see if you understood the benefit of standards.

Apparently we both failed.

The majority always starts with a single individual. There are people who
start and those who wait.

Vince C.