Category Archives: web standards

Time to Drop Web Standards?

Oct
12
2008

Color and a Sign

Last month Molly Holzschlag lead an interesting discussion on the divided state of the web standards community on A List Apart.  Now we all know this has been happening for a while, this fragmentation of the web standards community.

Molly is prompting people to get involve with their web standards group of their choice, in an effort bolster the community, and maybe reverse the trend.

Okay it’s a good idea in theory; but in reality, from a personal view I’m tired of the same thing time and time again.  Take for example the Web Standards Group mailing list (we don’t have a local WSG) I’m finding the constant rehashing of topics and questions and answers a bit pointless, to the point that I’ve just lost interest.

Round 3 – Back flip on a Back flip – Hell’s on the Boil

Aug
31
2008

You know a few months back Microsoft floored the web industry by doing a back flip on its previous decision to include a X-UA-Compatible Meta switch with Internet Explorer 8.

What a difference 6 months makes.  Now Microsoft are back to their old tricks.  So what have they done, well it seems now that Internet Explorer 8 will not be defaulting to rendering in complete standards compliant mode that Microsoft promised.

Round Two – IE8 Backflip, Hell Just Froze Over

Mar
4
2008

Microsoft told us via a very careful explanation from the standards representatives working with them (Eric Meyer et al) that Internet Explorer 8 would have a switch (meta tag) that would have to be in place to render the new features (including JavaScript improvements), otherwise the rendering engine would be fixed at Internet Explorer 7 levels. In other words to render IE8 as IE8 you have to have the metatag switch.

This was primarily in response to the IE6 to IE7 compatibility backlash by the corporate sector; as IE7 broke a lot of Intranet applications. We all bitched and grumbled, Jeremy Keith got up on his soapbox. But basically we all go on with it, understanding (but not liking) Microsoft’s positioning. That was in the past.