Thursday, 3. November 2005, 18:11:23
This is what you get when you screw it up. Microsoft has spend years making
the worst browser available, breaking web standards, trying to destroy any competing browser. I even thought they were the sole authority dictating web practices, and that the
w3c were a bunch of impostors.
I've been tired that people always blame web developers and designers when a web site appears broken in IE, and on the other hand, they blame browser vendors (other than IE itself) when a web site appears broken in such browser.
Now they seem to be willing to adhere (at least a bit) to standards, but they'll be paying (at least a bit) for their arrogance. They are unleashing IE7, which will support many (previously unsupported) CSS2 features, but the problem is that web designers all over the world hacked their CSS based on unsupported features, to (attempt to) give the same visual appearance across browsers. Now web sites hacked for previous IE versions will look broken in this flashy new release.
And guess what. They are asking web developers to
remove the hacks, to re-code everything again, after they were such a pain over there (you know where). But the best part of this is not the post in itself, but the comments that follow it. I particularly liked this one.
Yes, the following suggestion might be blasphemy for Microsoft, but I had to try.
Why not use the Firefox rendering engine, called gecko? It is Open Source, so Microsoft is allowed to use it (and don't even have to pay for it, as it is available for free (as in free bear)).
Every Webdesigner would be happy if the IE 7 renders pages the same way Firefox does it.
Ok, Microsoft would have to open source IE 7 but as it is included in WinXP / Vista Microsoft doesn't make any money directly with IE. I don't think many uses will upgrade vom Windows 2000 (or whatever) only to get a new version of the Internet Explorer. So no earnings will be lost and I don't think that the business competitors won't have much advantages of an open sourced IE.
Also the developers of IE can concentrate on other features like improved phising protection or something like that.
In the end it sounds (well, at least to me) like a good solution. Less work for Microsoft, less work for Webdesigners.
As a web developer my self, I couldn't find a better answer than this one, taken also from the comments section, and very well said.
So... you're only going to fix some CSS bugs, and I have to then go around and fix the hacks on my site now? No deal. I'd rather let them break, and wonder what's wrong with IE.
Make your CSS full compliant, and then we'll talk. Last post I checked, you weren't going to be anywhere near Gecko or Safari. This isn't productive, having to mop up your mess only half way.
And last but not least, my personal favorite. This is an excerpt from a larger comment.
First you're building cars with triangular tires, and people had to build roads with holes on it, and now you're complaining your new car with round tires can not drive on these roads.
WIDGETIZE