Shining Arcanine wrote:

After reading a few answers to my questions, I have to say that the IE team needs to learn from the VB.NET guys. They broke backwards compatibility and look at all of the good that did.

infrared wrote:

"John_MS : Q: Why do gifs show red X's in IE?

John_MS : A: If you can give me a consistently reproable example of this I will be happy to follow up on it. I haven't seen this..."

<url>http://www.dslreports.com/faq/6720 </url>

It's a big issue, why aren't they aware of this??

DMassy wrote:

Shining Arcanine wrote:After reading a few answers to my questions, I have to say that the IE team needs to learn from the VB.NET guys. They broke backwards compatibility and look at all of the good that did.

Yes. But Shining, the VB situation is quite different! In the case of VB a user's old VB6 applications still run. The compatibility was only changed for developers and even then there's an excellent conversion tool when you open a VB6 project in Visual Studio .NET to help the developer move forward.
In the case of a webBrowser a user can update and if we ignored compatibility many of their existing websites and web applications might break. These might include things they use everyday from TV guides to banking. These users are not necessarily technically savvy and explaining that this is "good for them" isn't much use if their 7 year old child is screaming and in tears because they can't get to the site of their favorite cartoon character.
Compatibility is an extremely important issue and extends beyond the internet that you and I experience to corporations with applications on their intranets. These corporations do not waste time picking up the phone to us if a browser update breaks them and is costing them huge amounts of money in terms of lost productivity. For these reasons we spend a great deal of resources on testing and do not believe that compatibility is an issue we can ignore. It's a complex issue and a change that even changes rendering by just one pixel could break something such as the printout of barcodes. So every change to code has to take compatibility into account.

Shining Arcanine wrote:

<snip/>

Many of the old sites will still be rendered to the point where they are accessible and there is a conversation tool, it is called HTML Tidy:

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/

If someone codes their application to take advantage of a glitch in .NET 1.1's clientside code (which ironically breaks standards) that breaks the rules of the programming language the clientside code is written in, you guys aren't going to leave the glitch in the next version of .NET. It should be the same for IE.

DMassy wrote:

Shining,
I have to disagree here, it is one thing to break developers and ask them to recompile and modify their .NET applications it is completely different to try and force many millions of websites to be updated. Many of these websites are run by companies who have other activities as their primary business such as making cars, banking, etc. Asking them to spend time and money to update their websites would get a very short and clear response. They simply will not do it. As a result users would refuse to install a newer version of a browser if they cannot access content.
In the past we have broken very minor things in updates of Internet Explorer and it has been something we have received very clear feedback on that this is NOT acceptable. The only time I think such action could possibly be acceptable is when the change is in the interest of security, even then we get pretty strong feedback.

DMassy wrote:

This is not to say that we cannot make any changes in the future as use of the <!DOCTYPE switch in IE6 for stricter CSS compliance demonstrates. However rendering existing content remains extremely important. 

Thanks
-Dave

Manip wrote:

What is it you do at Microsoft?

DMassy wrote:

I really have to go and do some other work now

I think we are not in that much disagreement though.
Rendering of existing content without the site having to be updated is very important for reasons we have already discussed. Given the size and diversity of our user base we will make every effort not to break any existing content. You can disagree with this but it is reality that we will not knowingly break existing content and seriously impact the productivity of large corporations.
In Internet Explorer 6 we introduced the !DOCTYPE switch http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnie60/html/cssenhancements.asp to allow us to alter rendering for greater CSS compliance without breaking existing content. I'd expect us to use that same technique in the future.


Thanks
-Dave

You're right. The problem is that you misinterpreted what I said. Quirks mode is for sites that do not have a doctype and therefore do not adhere to any specification. However standards mode is for sites that state that they adhere to a specification by having a doctype. I did not say that you should change Quirks mode's current behavior. I said that you should have full standards support.

Full standards support means that any websites that claim to adhere to any specification should be rendered according to it along with their CSS stylesheets to the CSS spec. This means fixing/supporting:

• The Box Model - The problems I know of at the moment seem to be documented here and here.
• Child Selectors
  
• Adjacent Selectors
  
• Attribute Selectors
• Dynamic Pseudo Classes
• :first-child Pseudo Class
• Fixed Positioning
• IE's Automatic Insertation of a white space which can be seen both here and here.
• min-width, max-width
• min-height, max-height
• Support of list-style-type's values
  
• The auto and % values of the width and height properties
  
• Dynamic Outlines
• empty-cells
• border-spacing
• visibility
• background-attachment's fixed attribute
• img{display:none} so that IE will not download images
• font-size's absolute-size values
• The bugs listed here
  

Under standards mode.

Jaz wrote:

can't you just make everyone happy and release IE Beta where it's seperated from IE, isn't really 100% supported but is worked upon as a future version where that yes maybe it breaks 90% of sites but it contains all these features alot of people are crying out for?  surely it wouldn't be that much of a deal to do.

DMassy wrote:

Thanks Shining.

"Full standards support" is an interesting term and one that we hear a lot. It is difficult for anyone to disgree with it as it sounds like you might be disagreeing with the idea of world peace.
It implies support for every recommendation published by the W3C, ECMA and any other standards body. However I should point out that no browser does this, no browser I know of claims to do this and no browser I know of claims this as a goal as there are many standards for different applications and some that are in conflict.
In your case you have defined a set of specific things you mean by "Full Standards Support". This is very useful feedback because it is specific. However the term "Full Standards Support" is a confusing one to use for the subset of functionality you would specifically like to see supported. 

We certainly understand the need for us to address issues in this area. I cannot tell you when or how that will happen at this time but I can assure you we have heard the feedback and are taking it seriously.

When we released Internet Explorer 6 in 2001 it passed the W3C tests for CSS1 compliance. Since that time other browsers have made significant progress in this area and as a result issues have come to light in our implementation. We do understand the need to address these issues. I'm sure you understand that at this stage of our planning I will not be drawn into making a commitment on features and schedule until I am very confident we can keep it.

Thanks
-Dave

DMassy wrote:

Hi Jaz,

The audience that is campaigning so passionately for improved standards compliance is the web development community. For them they need their audience "the general public" to have a browser capabile of rendering the content.
The users will not update to a browser that is unsupported and does not work with all existing content on the web.

This is not an easy issue with an easy instant solution, but it is something we take very seriously.

Thanks
-Dave

• This header: "Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml" causes IE to download the page
• Favicon support is broken
  

• min-width
• min-height
• max-width
• max-height
• :hover on elements other than <a>
• alpha png support
  

Keskos wrote:

Let me give you my own interesting experience related with this issue. I had implemented a complex web app that looks exactly the same on both mozilla and IE. Everything was fine, but then mozilla updated its browser. They fixed a bug that made my whole app not function anymore. I was this close to drop support for mozilla, because I had no clue where the problem is, it was a very weird problem. Nevertheless, because I use Linux I spent some few days and fixed the bug playing with css etc... I was really very close to dropping support for Mozilla, because later on I changed my computer and the new computer was running Windows XP. I talked to mozilla developers in irc, but they really dont seem to care about these type of problems. They simply want to improve their browser and don't care about these problems much. Previously their small install base helped them a lot to make their browser better and better, but at the same time so many bashers on the web bashed Microsoft for not making its browser any better. By the way, the bug that is being fixed was a very simple thing, but clearly it costed me days to fix.

Once I had this experience, I can't bet my company on mozilla. Because mozilla developers do not care about backward compatability. There are so many other problems with the mozilla project, but they just don't have the same respect to customers Microsoft has. I use Firefox, I develop my apps for both mozilla and IE, but I dont trust Mozilla at all. The only reason I have supported it because it is the only decent browser available for Linux. Mozilla developers seem to enjoy the attention they are getting on the web and media, and they seem to be focused more on bashing Microsoft. Sooner or later they will realize that people just don't like this crap, business is business. Once I design a web app, I expect it to work for years, W3C or any other reason means nothing to me. Mozilla shouldn't be working for W3C, it should be working for us, users, designers. Clearly the web doesn't respresent the real world.

Another experience I had was, my web app didn't work properly on Windows ME with IE 6. Supposedely my web app should work on IE 6, because it does work on IE 6 on Windows XP. So this is frustrating. Clearly something is wrong with upgrading to IE 6 on Windows ME. So these issues are extremely important, I can't buy bunch of equipment, install bunch of Oses to each of them with different configurations, different versions and try my web app to each of them. As soon as, Microsoft listents to critics who pressure them to make IE incompatible Microsoft will definitely lose customers.

sbc wrote:

I don't see how implementing some useful CSS properties will break any sites, as you can't use them in IE anyway.
e.g.

• min-width
• min-height
• max-width
• max-height
• :hover on elements other than <a>
• alpha png support
  

Just implementing these could improve sites a lot. min/max-width/height would allow sites to have truely flowing layouts (as the designer could make sure a design does not get too small/big). :hover on any element would allow a lot more creativity and it would negate the need to use javascript in many circumstances. CSS driven menus would be possible without resorting to hacks.

Of course hacks would still be needed but if IE is delayed so much it will fall further and further behind and useful CSS will only work with other browsers. The sooner IE gets updated the better.

Keskos wrote:

Even though I hate my web apps to break and completely understand this concern, I agree with sbc that some features can be added without affecting any web app. You guys know it better than us of course, but you can already do min-width etc... with current IE, it is simply about implementing these properly. I wish I join you and fix those problems myself.

DMassy wrote:

Hi SBC,

I don't think we have ever said we couldn't or wouldn't implement these features because of compatibility concerns. Indeed I have repaetedly pointed to the use of DOCTYPE as the solution we used in IE6 and are likely to use again.

DMassy wrote:

It has been proposed in this forum and elsewhere that compatibility is something we should not be concerned about and websites should change to be standards compliant. I was pointing out that compatibility will always be a very high priority for us and for very good reason.

Thanks
-Dave

jonathanh wrote:

The chat made eWeek and Microsoft Watch: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1621558,00.asp

(Although I don't remember seeing Mary Jo Foley in the audience )

Shining Arcanine wrote:

I'd suggest having a public beta so web developers can check to see if IE is properly rendering the CSS attributes that you add. That would ensure that you will not have to worry about correcting your implementation of these attributes in standards mode. This might be easier on everyone if you modularized the CSS parser (easier for you to update it and easier for people to revert back to the production one).

Manip wrote:

But FireFox fixes most of these issues and that doesn't break sites. I mean of course some don't work and others look slightly odd but 90% work perfectly.

Keskos wrote:

"The entire idea of standards is so that applications last for years and are easy to maintain and update."

Shinin, I very much understand your effort to promote something, but you are dismissing our concerns and you almost want us to worship W3C. If you care to listen to my concerns and stop worshipping W3C, then we can all mutually move forward and make progress.

Keskos wrote:

First of all, "the entire idea of standards is so that applications last for years" is not meaningful. When someone publishes a specification, all it means is that programmers will try their best to implement it as correctly as possible. As you know, IE was the first browser that implemented the W3C's specifications. All other browsers played a catch up with IE, only very recently Mozilla fully caught up with IE, from almost every angle. So what happened is that, some people still didn't even migrate to IE 6 where developers can use better standard complaince techniques, yet people still bash Microsoft for IE 5.5. You can write pretty much complaint pages with IE 6, sure there are bugs but it is stupid to bash Microsoft for those bugs. Mozilla supposedely tried to implement specification as best as it can, but whenever it fixes its own bugs, it breaks apps. So there is no such thing as , if you try to implement standards fully, you will be automatically immune to these problems. I think what you are talking about is probably, if you write to the specification, because people stick to the specifications, you will not have a problem, but what you miss is that browsers are not pefect, they have bugs. When you design something, you try to make it work. I have enough experience to know many mozilla bugs, and what I do is work around them. If Mozilla fixes those bugs in the future, I dont want my app to stop working. So they have to be careful whenever they fix bugs. I can't go to the source code every time I mozilla release a new browser. In some cases, the code is spit out by bunch of classes, I don't even remember which class spits out which code. There are so many number of solutions like that which are complex.

Keskos wrote:

But, if you attack Microsoft on the point that they didn't update their browser to fix some of these problems, I am with you. I think the defense that IE is tied to Windows thus they can't update is totally BS. I don't buy it. I don't think Microsoft listens to customers here. I think Microsoft probably doesn't update IE because of different priority issues. Because now they are going to support XAML in the future version of IE, they probably don't want to divide developers' effort there. I definitely want to write web apps that are easier to design, maintain etc.. I think if Microsoft makes a little effort, not much, they can create an IE which will make it much easier for us to worry about differences between browsers and much easier to design. I like IE a lot, it is a fantastic browser, but I think there are some untouched issues that I believe IE team can easily implement. If we stick to the real issues, which I believe you do in most of the cases, except this near-worship love to W3C, we can achieve better results.

Keskos wrote:

Remember that, many people bash Microsoft anyway, and frankly I can easily say that 99 out of 100 Microsoft bashings are plain stupid. I don't think you are a Microsoft basher, it seems to me you are very much sincere in your effort, and good for you, because I also want many of the features you want. But I disagree with you on the point that I should be following W3C all the time even though they screw things up and never ever criticize them because they are immune to that.

Keskos wrote:

" By the way, you shot yourself in the foot. You can't expect the web to be at a standstill for years and even then, after those years are finished, what about the people that just coded with the coding practices a browser from the previous decade created by ruining the spec? "

I think you are missing the issues here. First of all, we are pretty much still now. Most of the sites still use HTML 4 and higher. Even browser makers didn't upgrade to XHTML fully. Check out what David Hyatt says on extending HTML  http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_07.html#005928 . He essentially says that, XHTML support is still not there. He mentions real world standards and calls people who don't want such standards to be supported in Safari as people that are out of touch with reality. He extended HTML for their proprietary  Dashboard application and submitted the changes to WHAT-WG. He says that, he can't implement SVG quickly, but that they need 2 years to properly implement Dashboard support with XHTML and SVG. This is the guy who is working for another browser. He clearly says that backward compatibility is more important than forward compatibility. You don't sacrifice old things for the new things. Ok, because I assume you don't like Microsoft example, check out what Apple has done when it moved forward with MacOS X. They introduced a nesty layer for MacOS 9 apps. If they said what you are telling us, customers would show Apple their middle fingers. This is how life works. I think you have never implemented a software product and supported it successfully in your life. People don't want to listen to your ideals, they don't care, I don't care. It has to work. We don't have time to fix our code everytime you think we should move forward and as I mentioned you can't write a browser that gets everything right the first time you implement it. You are going to make bugs the first time you release it and you have to think about those bugs for your second release. When Microsoft released IE first, they specifically duplicated the bugs in Netscape. Think about that. This is what software engineering is about.

Keskos wrote:

Alistapart and csszengarden are cool and helpful sites, but these people are only one of the hundrends of HTML, XHTML, CSS sites on the net. They made a name for themselves by virtually doing nothing much but saying the obvious thing. They say they are doing something, but so far I haven't seen any specific action taken because of these guys. Furthermore, they are completely out of touch with reality. Initially Zeldman started that site, he is an intelligent guy, and at the time it was about moving away from Netscape 4. Later on so many Microsoft bashers joined that, it virtually lost its core message. It become an attraction for Microsoft bashers. Zeldman also stopped participating in Alistapart later. They don't do anything in particular, lots of them are promoting themselves, Zeldman published a book using the word "standard" in the title of the book. That's really lame, because almost all HTML, XHTML books are about standards. There is no separate thing as standard. Even though technically the book doesn't offer much, people intentionally praise the book because they think it is like a religion, something you have to approve by heart even if it doesn't make sense. Later on their message turned into, hey don't use anything except what we think is standard. For example they think using tables are not standard, even though it is in the standard. They are part of this culture who thinks that it is cool to put a link to creative commons web site. They link to sites like cnet, eweek, wired etc... They will have a heart attack if their little web page doesn't validate. They threaten to stop supporting IE in their sites, they rant all day long. Most of them like macs, they use macs, they bash Microsoft, etc... What I am trying to say is that, that culture doesn't represent where the world stands today. They are noisy, but they are not the world. You can find a similar situation with respect to operating system choice. Go to the web, similar sites, you will find out that macs are better in every respect, but people don't switch to Macs and certainly it  is not better.

Keskos wrote:

The real decision makers are people using these technologies. That means millions of people around the world. You got to listen to what they say, and even though I can easily bash Microsoft here, I am reasonable enough to know that the minute they break my apps I am going to be upset about them, because I don't have time to deal with those old programs now. I am also giving you the proof that this is not about Microsoft, but all software producers, because they don't get it right the first time. Check out bugzilla, mozilla still has many bugs to fix, including about standards support.

LarryOsterman wrote:

Manip wrote:But FireFox fixes most of these issues and that doesn't break sites. I mean of course some don't work and others look slightly odd but 90% work perfectly.

Manip, did you forget the <dripping with irony> tags in your post?

If Microsoft made that change, then 10% of the web sites would stop working.

And people would SCREAM!

Keskos wrote:

Shining, I believe you have lack of experience in software business, or developing a product that mass number of people use.

Keskos wrote:

" If there is no standard way of doing things, there will be no way to address your concerns while ensuring a bright future."

Standards etc... mean nothing to people. People use applications and they have zero tolerance when things stop working.

Keskos wrote:

"If something is done now, 10 years from now, the web will be less of a mess and backwards compatibility wouldn't be an issue."

People are already working on these now as you know. So there is nothing new that has to be done now. IE developers are working, Mozilla developers are working, W3C is working etc...

Keskos wrote:

"If nothing is done now, the web will exponentially get worse and backwards compatibility will continue to be an issue."

Wrong! One of the important reasons why we don't see independent developers developing for Linux is that some developers responsible for core libraries break things, because they improve them. Miguel De Icaza is the person who tells this. Windows still run DOS apps, even though it is a huge overhead, yet Windows gets better and better with every release. There is no such thing as backwards compatibility will create havoc in the future. I think what you are saying is FUD. You just try to scare people for no good reason. Also you make all sorts of wrong assumptions. We have this new XHTML, but what's the advantage of using XHTML over HTML. There is no clear advantage, in fact it has all sorts of disadvantages. It is harder to write there are less number of tags, so it is not straightforward to move HTML to XHTML. Browsers support HTML better than they support XHTML. Besides, so many people make so many mistakes that, XHTML just doesn't work for them.

Keskos wrote:

" I don't see how coding your site according to a specification will cause it to become broken when x browser's developers fix a flaw it their browser's support of that specification"

That's probably because you haven't developed a complex program yourself or didn't have deep experience with html or xhtml. There are all sorts of things going on there. It is so complex that, one specific set of tags working great doesn't work that much great if you mix it with other tags. There are lots of weird bugs. Try to go a little deeper than what you read on alistapart. Believe me, it is extremely frustrating, there is no perfect browser out there. So far I like mozilla and IE only. Safari is coming strong, but the last time I checked it wasnt' there yet. Opera is nowhere near IE or Mozilla.

Keskos wrote:

" I agree with you regarding everything in that paragraph except for the last sentence because the W3C is supposed to resolve these issues"

Look, W3C doesn't implement browsers. Implementing a browser is something different than producing specifications. W3C wasn't even able to resolve the problems I am having with Mozilla and yet you claim that it resolves problem. It doesn't do anything, all it does is produce guidelines, specifications. Specifications don't talk about which bugs you should have only, how bugs should be ordered. These things make it very hard for us to properly code for browsers, because each browser has its own bugs with different quantities.

Keskos wrote:

" I know that you don't have time to fix your code everytime someone thinks you should move forward. That is why you must fix your code because if you do, you will be able to continue to code according to the specifications that you chose to code according to for a very long time (as long as both browsers exist and browser makers keep support for those specifications)"

First of all, my site already works with Mozilla. What do you want me to fix there? I already learned the specification in detail, and use it extensively. However, before the version change in mozilla, I also thought I did, but Mozilla developers decided to fix a bug and screw me. Developing for two browsers is already a pain in the *, developing for arrogant developers who refuse to respect their own users is even more painful. Mozilla developers are like new pop stars thank think everybody worships them thus they are immune to criticism.

Keskos wrote:

"This is why I tell them that they must fix standards mode even if sites that rely on an incompliance with x specification will be broken by fixing standards mode."

I think you don't understand what this means. It is an insult to your users. It is like saying f*** off to your users. People don't care about moral issues like standards or whatever you want to call it. If you modify C++ specification and modify all new compilers so that they refuse to compile old C++ code, I am going to be very very mad. You can't tell me that the new stuff is much better, I just don't care. It doesn't matter one bit whether it is 1000 times superior, yet there is no clear advantage to the new stuff (XHTML) on the web. XHTML is something done to please computers, not people. The only nice thing is CSS, and people use it extensively. You just can't tell people to work on their old sites to make it work in new browsers. It is meaningless and suicidal. People will refuse you, they will kick your *

Keskos wrote:

" You say that you haven't seen a specific action taken because of people such as Zeldman. Where were you when Mozilla/Netscape and Opera were fixing their compliance with the specification in standards mode? Where were you when I was writing my site from scratch so it complied with HTML 4.01 and made use of external CSS1 stylesheets? Where were you when thousands hundreds of thousands of sites fixed their code to comply with a specification because of these people?"

What are you talking about? Are you worshipping Zeldman? Where was I? What kind of a question is that? Here is the situation. Imagine bunch of workers fixing road and assume that I am cheering near the road telling workers that they got to fix the road because cars are passing from there, it would be dangerous if they don't do it etc... I go to town and give conferences to people that worker have to fix the road because of this and that. I spread the word and eventually workers finish their work, fix the road and then all of a sudden I become a hero, because I spent so much effort to make them fix the road. That's what Zeldman did.

LarryOsterman wrote:

Manip wrote: But FireFox fixes most of these issues and that doesn't break sites. I mean of course some don't work and others look slightly odd but 90% work perfectly.

Manip, did you forget the <dripping with irony> tags in your post?

bsilby wrote:

I've never been too worried about standards. I'm only interested in producing something that looks good to most people. Since most people use IE, I ensure that my product looks good with that browser. Then I work in some code just incase someone is viewing with Mozilla.

This has never been a problem for me. Its no big deal.

Personally I'm happy with the way IE works. My content has always run very well in IE (much faster than Moz).

Whatever moves IE team make towards supporting more "standards" I think they need to maintain backward compatibility. It is not acceptable to make changes that will break sites simply because of some arbitary standards. The general public do not know about the standards debate. They just want to open IE and view all the sites that they normally visit.

Brent.

Keskos wrote:

"uhh Keskos.... spell check is great..... too bad they don't have "logic check""

I remember your logic. It was simple "Bash Microsoft". Your sarcastic comments are just a good proof that, I am telling the truth.

Keskos wrote:

re:Shining

" If lacking experience means failing to see the future, you're right."

No lacking experience means that, you assume that everything is so simple that if you tell people to be standard complaint it means something. You don't think about the number of users you have to support, people that will have problems using your software, the bugs, the order of bugs, the updates and so on. You simplfy everything into one thing, stick with standards, even though the evidence shows that browsers never going to be able to fully support standards.

Keskos wrote:

" What would you say if God decided to make the physics of every area 5 ft away from another area different? A standard way of things is important?"

I simply love your logic. Who argued that standards are bad? I said, standards is not the only thing and if the standards you are talking about is extremely hard to implement onsistently across the browsers, then you are never going to achieve what standards is really about. You will always have problems as we have now.  Your question btw doesn't make sense at all. Standards is not God. I can criticize W3C at any moment. You are trying to take that freedom away from us.

Keskos wrote:

" The IE developers' atitude towards compatibility with broken standards support in standards mode being their #1 concern when fixing things will not help the matter."

What do you want exactly? I have mentioned what I want from IE team once, twice. You are repeating the same story over and over again here, asked the same question several times on the chat yesterday. Sure, I understand some real effort to push your wish on IE, which I also like to see to happen, but there should be a limit, and you can't accuse others of being in sin because they say that they don't have to listen to W3C necessarily. This is not a religion. We can criticize whoever we like, just like you come here and beat the IE team over their support for CSS.

Keskos wrote:

You are repeating the same story over and over again here

Keskos wrote:

" If all sites were written to a specification and browsers had proper support for it, we wouldn't have any of these problems."

What we have seen so far is that, this is simply not humanely possible. There are minor but important differences between Opera and Mozilla who both claim to support standards. Let's forget about IE for a while, there are tens of browsers out there and only one of them is good enough for specs and that is Mozilla.

Keskos wrote:

" If the website is coded according to the specification and the browser was coded according to the specification, it would render properly. If the browser was not coded exactly according to the specification, the site would not view correctly but would view correctly when the browser is fixed. This is why I don't see how coding your site according to a specification will cause it to become broken in the future. However, coding your site according to what a browser renders (like you have done) and not to the spec is likely to cause it to become broken in the future."

I understand what you are talking about there, but you don't see what I am talking about. Here is how you implement something. You have a specific goal in your mind, you want the page to look and behave in a certain way. Ok, what do you do? Go and read the specs and implement what you want using them. Cool, I do that. Open up mozilla, fix your code etc... until mozilla shows it properly. Oh wait, I see a bug here (maybe I don't see it at all). It looks like what I want to do has some problems with Mozilla. So what do I do? Well, then workaround the problem. Use a different layout, different tags, use spacing, use hacks, use javascript, do something but fix the damn problem. Ok, I fixed it. Now what? Oh, see, Mozilla upgraded its browser. Cool, download it, view my page on it. Oh my god, my page is all messed up, why? Hmm, looks like mozilla fixed its previous bug which makes my site messed up. You always use standards to implement what you want to do, but bugs push you to use work arounds and a work around is not a work around for the standard, it is a work around for the standard that is implemented by that particular browser, which is the browser itself. Once you understand this fact, I think you will see that it is not as easy as you seem to think.

Keskos wrote:

" Actually, they do considering the W3C consists of companies and organizations such as Microsoft, Opera and Mozilla.

Since you seem to care about whether or not your site works in tomorrow's browser, I'll tell you what to do to ensure that it works in tomorrow's browser. Go to the Firefox/Mozilla forums or talk to one of the Firefox/Mozilla developers and say: "I've been coding without standards for a really long time and I'm sick of my site's lack of forward compatibility. My site uses <insert technologies here>, would you mind linking me to the specifications revelent to me?" I'm sure that they would be overjoyed to help you out. And yes, you'll have to go through compatibility charts to see which browser supports what and it will take longer because browsers have broken standards support (which is why I'm here now) but in the end you'll be a much happier person."

I have been coding with standards for a really long time and I am sick of people trying to teach what standards is. Instead of accusing people not to follow your God, why don't you point out the specific sin you think we are violating. Standards are W3C's specs, nothing else. Mozilla is the implementation of those specs with bugs of their own. Opera is another implementation of those specs with their own bugs etc... iCab is another browser which sucks, I don't even consider to support it. Because of these bugs there is no one standard as you want to believe. When someone tells you the truth, you go into denial, you blame those people who tell you the truth. There is no standard that specifies what the innerHeight of a window is. It is different from browser to browser, version to version. You tell me that, either don't use the innerHeight of the window or you wrongly think that it is specified in W3C. Again and again, you don't want to understand the basic fact that, there is no such thing as totally standard, the same exact implementation of the specs. You want something that is not possible, we can only approximate to that, and on top of that I am suggesting that we don't have to worship whatever W3C says. When I say there are unspecified things in W3C I am not making it up. I have talked to mozilla developers, various other people. It all comes down to W3C's not specifiying it, or that Mozilla's not supporting something useful available in IE because it is not in W3C. Mozilla do support things not in W3C though, it is simply an excuse in some cases. W3C's lack of being thorough for web app developers' needs make it useless in most of the cases.

Keskos wrote:

" I'll admit Open Source developers are mostly jerks (which is why I don't like them) but they are doing something Microsoft is failing to do. Puting standards in standards mode ahead of compatibility when you cannot have both due to a browser bug"

First of all, not all open source developers are jerks. Miguel Icaza is a great guy, and I respect him a lot. Anyway, let's see what happens when mozilla developers do what you say. I write an app, ship it to the customers, customers update their Mozilla browser, and my app stops functioning and I die. The client has to rehire someone to fix the problem or stick with the older browser. Are you able to see the problem here?

Keskos wrote:

" Would you cut it out with the worshipping garabage? Every time I say something you say "are you worshipping <insert organization/company/person/group/whatever here>" or "are you smoking." I find it to be very immature but if you are trying to give me the impression that you have maturity issues you are doing a very good job of it."

No it is not about immaturity. It is a fun way of showing where you are headed because you talk as if we really have to worship everything W3C says. I am definitely suprised that you give so much credit to Zeldman and not people who explain CSS, because CSS is the standard we are talking about. I mean what is Zeldman doing different than a CSS book author, other than mentioning the word standard over and over again. It is quite true that people abuse the word standard. They abuse it almost everywhere, use it in meaningless context. Standards you are talking about are simple, they are CSS, HTML, XHTML, DOM etc... as they are specified in the W3C's specifications. People like standards because standard has a positive image in our brains. We think that if you don't comply with the standards it is not good. But standards, speifications have never been the rule of law in IT. TCP/IP is a great example to that. As long as you don't accept the fact that it is not easy to compeletely comply with the specifications, you will keep saying the same things without much point. You fail to show us that even Opera doesn't supports the God as well as Mozilla does.

Keskos wrote:

Conclusion, we don't have to accept whatever W3C comes up with. People who tell you that you should support whatever W3C tells you to do are smoking pot. You have the freedom not to support it at all. Second, complete standard complaince is impossible to achieve in CSS/HTML. There are bugs for each browser and each one differs. We can approximate to the ideal case, but will never achieve it. These two assertions do not conflict with my earlier wishes that IE support some extra things in CSS, HTML etc... Finally, Zeldman's role in moving forward with CSS, HTML is not big at all. He is simply a good author and web designer who was able to take advantage of the situation by using the correct words (standards) over and over again. At the end all he does is the same as other authors people using the same exact technologies. Despite the fact that he abused the word standards, his original goal with his site was legitimate, but later on they turned standards into God and made the whole thing a stupid zealocy thing. Most of the people who scream standards everywhere are definitely not normal people.

DMassy wrote:

Guys,
Please try to be respectful of each other. There are extremely good points being put forward from both sides of this discussion. It's great to see people being so passionate but please show respect even if you disagree with the others point of view.
Thanks
-Dave

DMassy wrote:

Shining,
I don't necessarily disagree with you although I don't quite follow your logic that standards ensure things will work forever. Standards may certainly help here but I believe it is a mistake to believe they will absolutely ensure that things will work forever. Standards are sometimes flawed as is the case of CSS2 and is the reason behind the creation of CSS2.1. The analogy isn't quite accurate but the 8 track tape was a standard of sorts, I'm not sure you'll find it easy to play that format today and certainly not in 100 years time.

Sometimes we have to accept that we are not going to change the opinion of others. However that does not mean the debate is not worth having and that it isn't worth putting forward a point of view and considering the opinions of others. I think we can do that in a respectful fashion.

Thanks
-Dave

Shining Arcanine wrote:

Let me guess, you use tables for positioning. IE renders tables faster than Mozilla.

bsilby wrote:

Shining Arcanine wrote: Let me guess, you use tables for positioning. IE renders tables faster than Mozilla.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about the dhtml animation in my games. I use image clipping to switch to different parts of a gif, and I reposition many elements around the screen quite rapidly to produce arcade style games.

Internet explorer handles everything I do very quickly. Its fantastic for dhtml animation. My games will work in Mozilla, but as soon as a game starts resizing images or moving them over a complex background things slow to a crawl. Internet Explorer doesn't have this problem. Speed is always consistent.

There is something wrong with the rendering in Mozilla. Its inefficient. On Bugzilla, there are heaps of posts about this problem, however it is not being addressed. Its scheduled for "future".

Its important to me to ensure that my games run well on all browsers. However at this stage I have to recommend to my audience that they use Internet Explorer 5.5(up).

So my only request is that the IE team don't mess with the rendering engine. It works very well as it is.

Cheers,
Brent.
BTW, my games are at www.def-logic.com. I think they are a good illustration of the speed differences between IE and Moz.

Keskos wrote:

If we believe in God, we are going to live happily in the other world forever sounds similar here.

But of course I don't think there is any logic in this standards case. It is all about propaganda. If you implement a browser with a well speicified specification, it doesn't matter whether it is your own or W3C's, if you support that specification in your browser your pages will live forever. It doesn't have to be a standard for it to live. Browsers has to stick with whatever they have supported previously. I think it is simply an attempt to come up with some weird logic to force people to worship W3C. Browsers should take into human error also.

It would be too bad if zealots command our technological life. Probably the company who follow the zealots will pay it dearly at one point, because people don't like when things stop working for this or that reason.

re:  "If there is no standard way of doing things, there will be no way to address your concerns while ensuring a bright future. "


Egad man... everything should be done differently - not the same

this is why standards cant work

you gotta do it different and BETTER than the other guy


plus the whole name "standards" just sounds so... standard

It should be called "Excellence" or something - as in - does your product or website adhere to the Excellence Reccomendations..

who wants to be standard
standards are 1%
( ok ok 2% - mozilla just gained a percent

Shining Arcanine wrote:

Dave Massy asks you to stop yet you continue to cause a disturbance in this thread...

DMassy wrote:

Shining Arcanine wrote: Dave Massy asks you to stop yet you continue to cause a disturbance in this thread...

Shining,
I asked you all to show some respect, I did not ask anyone to stop the conversation. As I said before there are lots of valid viewpoints being expressed here and it's great to see the debate. You are all welcome to continue expressing your viewpoints but I think it would be a shame if this forum deteriorated to the level of some others. It may be worth avoiding the topics of religion and politics but if there's something people have to say that is relevant to this area then let's hear it.
Keskos is actually bringing up some valuable points that reflect some of the experience I have had when dealing with standards. While I don't agree with everything being said here Keskos is correct to point out that there are some issues with standards. It's very easy to take an idealistic approach when it comes to standards. It's worth remembering that we do not live in an ideal world, but that should not stop us from reaching for those ideals! The fact that CSS2 is flawed and being replaced with CSS2.1 demonstrates that errors are made and we do not live in an ideal world. I believe it is to the W3C's credit that CSS2.1 is moving forward as an implementable set of functionality.
At Microsoft we value the work of standards bodies and we understand the value of a common framework for developers. We have already said that we understand the issues that developers are facing and that Internet Explorer has fallen behind in support of some recommendations. At this time we can't say definitively when and how we might address this as I do not want to make any statement until we are sure we can deliver.
It does seem that this debate is a little tired at the moment but that does not mean that each viewpoint is not valuable. Sometimes it is possible to agree to disagree so we can move on to a different topic

Thanks
-Dave

Keskos wrote:

Shining,
sorry if my comments seemed to be disrespectful to you.

Keskos wrote:

However I stand up with what I said.

Keskos wrote:

I think we should talk more about technical issues rather than who is more moral or who is more cheering for the W3C etc...

Keskos wrote:

Let's be to the point, let's discuss the real issues, rather than saying things like "we will not be here if there is no standards".

Keskos wrote:

I don't think anybody is disputing the importance of standards, but really it is lame to misuse the word standards.

Keskos wrote:

I appreciate that you are really concerned about standards, and it is a very good thing to have people like you (especially the fact that you are doing this not to bash Microsoft), but I think we shouldn't go over the board.

Keskos wrote:

Yeah, let's put pressure on IE team to address some of the important concerns we have, but let's be reasonable in our demands so we can spend more time on really important issues, rather than spending time who is the best cheerleader for "standards".

Keskos wrote:

Also let's stop saying we can't criticize W3C, yes we can.

Keskos wrote:

We can also raise issues with standards itself.

Keskos wrote:

We have that freedom.

Keskos wrote:

Maybe that way we can fix problems, maybe we can provide feedback back to W3C.

Keskos wrote:

It is important not to have an environment where everybody feel that they have to be zealot to say something.

Keskos wrote:

That kills the discussion environment and it is extremely important to make that channel open.