This week I interviewed Microsoft's Chris
Wilson, the Group Program Manager for IE, to address the issue of Web standards
compliance and IE7. There has been controversy about this lately, sparked by a Slashdot thread
last week that claimed IE7 was basically non-compliant with CSS standards. I then
repeated those claims on my ZDNet
blog, but I have to admit that I (and Slashdot too) missed one vital point - it was
largely based on an article Paul Thurrott
wrote in August 2005, so it was outdated information. Chris Wilson was naturally
sensitive to all the criticism and so he vigorously defended IE's standards compliance in his blog.
I hope my interview with Chris Wilson went some way to clarify Microsoft's current position on CSS and standards support for IE7. Although I personally still prefer Firefox's features - and the innovation and vision of browsers like Flock (one of my new sponsors btw) - I do think it's important not to unfairly tar IE7 with the same brush as IE6. Let's be frank, IE6 deserved to be tarred and feathered! Indeed Chris acknowledged that there were a ton of bugs in IE6 that caused web developers a lot of pain. But there seems to be a real conviction in the IE team to make IE7 as standards compliant as possible - while also trying to keep it backwards compatible with IE6 and their prior versions. That alone is a huge challenge.
Slashdot posted my interview with Chris, with an unfortunate title that was totally my fault: Microsoft Insists IE7 is Standards Compliant. I blame that heading on a tired mind, as it was late into the night my time. Sorry Chris and also to Slashdot's Taco, who was unfairly blamed for the heading. In any case, what Chris Wilson did say is that Microsoft is definitely improving its CSS and web standards support in IE7. He also wrote in a follow-up post on his blog that "in fact, I would insist that neither IE nor any other browser today is "compliant" with the CSS 2.1 standard. [...] I'd hope that every change we did in IE7 brought us closer to full compliance."
Paul Thurrott, one of the most influential Microsoft commentators in the world today, also has weighed in with his opinion. He thinks IE7 has its issues - what he calls "interface gaffs", along with features that Firefox has that he can't live without (such as inline search). But in terms of standards compliance Thurrott says IE7 is an improvement. He concludes:
"So will I be using IE 7? No, probably not: Firefox still "feels" better and it has features that are missing in IE 7. But I can't condemn IE anymore. Clearly, Microsoft cares about IE and is now updating it regularly. Clearly, they are listening to feedback, and this article is presented in that context, as feedback, as the start of a dialog. IE 7 isn't perfect, but it's not the monster IE used to be. I won't make fun of people for using it, and I won't feel stressed that it's going to compromise my system. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find myself back in IE again someday. You just never know."
I find myself in a similar position to Paul, although I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as him on these matters. My sense is that the IE team is working very hard to address the gremlins of the past - and in particular the standards monstrosity that was IE6. There is also still a lot of bad blood in the Web community about Microsoft's actions in the browser market in the past - I'm talking about the 90's here. But to be fair, they are reaching out to developers and others now, to make sure that IE7 is based on common Web standards rather than proprietary functionality. Of course it remains to be seen whether the final IE7 product will live up to the expectations, but for now they're making the right noises.
Personally I'm most interested in browser innovation - and that is where the likes of Flock and Opera are impressing. My interview with Flock's Geoffrey Arone covered that topic. I also discussed the future of browsers with Chris, which I will post about soon.
Comments
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The important thing is that Microsoft have signed up to WaSP, which shows they are committed to improving standards support.
They are also making serious noise about their Expression line being able to generate standards compliant HTML.
I think they have realised that to seriously tackle Adobe in this space (and they want to) then they have to target web developers as strongly as they targetted Delphi developers on the desktop.
Posted by: JulesLt | August 18, 2006 12:27 AM
Maybe this is amusing to some, but this page doesn't display properly in Firefox 1.5.0.6. See Readwrite top menu .
Renders fine in IE7 though, and Opera 9.
Posted by: Juha | August 18, 2006 1:33 AM
Doh... try this link instead.
Posted by: Juha | August 18, 2006 1:59 AM
There was a slight bug in there, although I use Firefox 1.5.0.6 and didn't see it. But I think I found it and fixed it. Let me know if anyone spots anny other CSS issues though! ;-)
Thanks Juha.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 18, 2006 5:50 AM
Now, I admit that I've done done any real development for a while. So some of you smarter people may have a more detailed view of things.
I totally accept that IE became a nightmare. But the keyword here was became.
IE saved us. I remember working on stuff in 93 when IE was forcing us to use VBscript, i remember when they refused to use javaScript. The "good old days" when you clicked on a big N to get on the internet. Version 3 of IE, really brought it into line with Netscape. While still not popular, and apparently Microsoft doing some evil pushing (that, btw, did that evr really affect anyone), I didn't have to build 2 versions of my web page for NS3 and IE3.
Then came NS4, and IE4. IE4 stuck to the standards. NS4 was a disaster, the whole way up to 4.7. I know people said that was because Microsoft was pushing IE, but as someone who was into his 4th year of coding for the web, IE4 just worked. For the first time a browser actually did what we wanted. And yes, it had CSS, and teh ECMA standards compliance, and it brought us something called the xmlHTTP inline request (as I said it's been years so i may have that name wrong) - you know it's the one that allows you to get/post XML without reloading the page.
IE5 had no real competitor. NS6 was a total joke, and infairness to IE5.5 it actually did a good job of rendering any bad NS code, while NS didn't do the same the other way around. So for all of the evilness of the monopoly, it wasn't like there was a whole lot of option for people out there. Microsoft didn't force developers to code a certain way, there was just no point in spending double the amount of time making this work for Netscape when they'd lost the market confidnce.
Then came IE6. Which at the time was ok. It was closer to standards compliance, but lets not forget that when it was in teh Beta stage, we were discussing the new Standards. There was a large moving goalpost that Microsoft was expected to hit, and then roll out globally. Frankly, at the time of launch I thought it was ok. From a development Point of View, it didn't cause me or my teams many hassles.
But here's what happened. the world changed, the net changed, compliance changed, things became stricter. Which was great. IE didn't move with it. And 4 years later it's become the monster you mention today. I don't think anyone can argue with that (i know I'm not), but it's wrong to say it's always been that way.
IE7 is as good as it can be right now. I still use FireFox as it fits into how I want to do things, but since I downloaded the beta of IE7 to our family PCs, 3 of the 5 in teh house have gone back to using it of their own free will. It's not even the default browser. And thats not down to anyone or any company pushing it.
There will always be pages/sites/things that look better i some browsers than others. There will never be a perfect browser. Given that our standards are an ever evolving thing, with Accessibility standards different worldwide; picking holes in a beta software as easily and as vocally as we do on the net is never going to be constructive.
Richard, it's very cool of you to admit that you ranted a little, and were a bit off base. Now if we can just get most other blog writers to test the browser before writing about how bad/evil it is, we'd be a bit better off, adn maybe better informed.
Steve
Posted by: Steve Bank | August 19, 2006 6:39 PM
"Indeed Chris acknowledged that there were a ton of bugs in IE6 that caused web developers a lot of pain." Were? How about there ARE a ton of bugs?
Posted by: Tim Haines | August 20, 2006 8:43 PM
True, Tim, IE6 does have a lot of bugs.
But so does almost every piece of software.
Respectfully, we in the business, and certainly those people who are more tech savvy, have been a bit spoilt by the community element behind FireFox. People want to fix bugs and fill in bug reports for FireFox, but they just wnat to blog/bitch about IE.
When there is a critical update foe FireFox, I'll get 4-5 emails or comments from people saying "Firefox is fixing some of those issues. Remember and download it. Must be great to be using a browser that people care about". Yet when IE gets an update, we get "See IE is fixing *more* of the bugs. Man, how many does it have? use FireFox".
As someone who's been pushing whats now AJAX for almost 6 years, i can assure you that there are a TON of bugs in FireFox as well. Maybe not as many as IE6, but FireFox is no where near as old as IE6.
Posted by: Steve Bank | August 21, 2006 8:14 AM
"But there seems to be a real conviction in the IE team to make IE7 as standards compliant as possible - while also trying to keep it backwards compatible with IE6 and their prior versions. That alone is a huge challenge."
That is the great sin.
IE6 was a disaster. It totally ignored web standards. As you said it should be tarred and feathered along with every web designer that used it as the "Gold standard". Microsoft blew it.
They should break all backward compatibility that prevents following the current standards.
Web designers will just have to use web detection like they do now for IE6 and or FireFox.
Eventually IE 6 will fade and the days browser detection and coding for specific browsers will be over.
For all those broken web based applications that require IE6 to work? Well I guess adopting software that doesn't follow standards was a mistake wasn't it.
Posted by: David | August 21, 2006 9:41 AM
IE staff is listening to community, thats a good point. But the community has a lot of things to say. How long will it take for the IE team to correct these things ? 10 years ? in IE8 ?
Posted by: balr0g | August 21, 2006 9:41 AM
I'd be more interested in IE7 as a product if I could install it without fear that it would alter my system in some unpredictable way. Both betas have caused me grief. I love the firefox installer, though I do wish the automatic update feature(s) would work. (I don't want to be notified - just do it if I choose to allow you to.)
I especially like applications that can be unpacked to a single folder and then executed. Portable Firefox provides that capability. I feel that I can trust an application that has this feature to not take over my computer and attempt to become my operating system or to integrate/ingratiate itself into my OS.
Posted by: John Mull | August 21, 2006 10:01 AM
To me the problem is that MS have the attitude that they can make standards and others must follow. The world decides on standards and MS say how it thinks they should be. It's an American disease and the baggage of success.
MS have still a long way to go if they want to put right this wrong, which personally I don't think they do.
Posted by: mark | August 21, 2006 10:19 AM
Steve, you hit on the key point right at the end... IE hasn't been updated for 6 years. When it was released it was a pretty competent browser, but some of the CSS issues it has are so egregious that a lack of updates since then is just a willful power play. The community aspect of Mozilla has nothing to do with it. Opera's out there leading the way, so why can't IE get their shit together? The reason is because it didn't make business sense for IE to be standards-compliant. That would only help other browsers more compatible, and thus more attractive.
John: Tell me about it, when the IE6 beta came out in 1999 or 2000 I installed it on my Win98 box and it mangled the boot blocks on my HD so bad I had to re-install Windows on the spot. Some months later I bought a G4 and haven't looked back.
Posted by: Gabe | August 21, 2006 10:21 AM
I don't care what improvements show up in IE 7 (from what i've recently read, IE 7 is only 55% compliant to standards but who the hell knows), the fact is that IE 6 is still around to weight us down like a sack of bowling balls and we have to design for it. IE 6 was never fixed or improved and there won't be a mass movement to IE 7 for awhile after it comes out. What does that mean in the real world? It means not only do we have to keep putting absurd hacks in our code IE 6, we have a whole NEW SET of hacks to include for IE7 so our work load increases. It will be this way for years to come. Chris Wilson can vigorously defend his ass from my foot.
Posted by: T Boner | August 21, 2006 10:23 AM
MS have still a long way to go if they want to put right this wrong, which personally I don't think they do.
Am not shure thay thay will ever rule the world as they one did.
Posted by: MIrko | August 21, 2006 10:34 AM
IE7 is too little too late. I design standards compliant websites and they work in every browser except IE. I see no difference between IE 6 and 7, i still have to use hacks to make my sites look right. It doesn't matter to me that they say they're committed to standards, i'll believe it when i see it. Will IE ever pass the Acid 2 test?
Posted by: Tom | August 21, 2006 11:46 AM
@John: Umm, please get it right, IE7 doesn't take over your computer, it's a seperate entity from Windows Explorer now, IE5 was the first IE browser to be a browser and the OS file explorer, IE7 goes back to the old ways prior to IE5 where the file explorer is it's own program and IE is it's own seperate entity.
Posted by: Ray | August 21, 2006 1:55 PM
I agree with Ray. IE 7 is more independent on its own application, rather than fully integrated with the main OS. However, still IE is required for some of the critical updates, such as Office Update and Windows Update (the two has combined to be known as Microsoft Update)
Posted by: Keith | August 22, 2006 3:09 AM
As a developer, I want standards support upto the mark where EVERY SINGLE WEB GUY will appreciate it in IE 8.
Posted by: anonymous | August 22, 2006 4:25 AM
"I design standards compliant websites and they work in every browser except IE".
Really? you design 100% compliant websites, to all teh latest standards and Accessibility complaince for all countries, and it works on 100% of all browsers eveywhere ... EXCEPT all version of IE.
Who are you Tom? PLese include an email address so we can hire you, cos my developers and project managers claim that it ain't possible to make statements that include the word "EVERY".
Unless, of course, you're helping to prove my point about people judgin a browser from Microsoft differently to others...
Posted by: Steve Bank | August 22, 2006 4:34 PM
Following that post, we (with http://www.core-services.fr/) have developped an add-on for IE that mimicks FF search behavior in IE 5.5 and above.
Check it out http://www.core-services.fr/inline-search/
Posted by: Eugene | September 3, 2006 8:34 AM