IE8 will have multiple render modes

[tiagosilva29]

Sorry this isn't about you but the customer and their needs. Bad developer......

Good developer, bad business. Unless the usual things change.

[+mrbester MVC]

Sorry this isn't about you but the customer and their needs. Bad developer......

Wrong. This is about how developers are being screwed around with in order that the "customer" (read "user") doesn't notice a single thing changing when they upgrade their browser, because (as I've already stated) if a website doesn't look right in a certain browser, about 0.000000001% of customers will think it is because of the browser. The rest think it's the fault of the developer.

Well, if everyone transitions to IE8 and you don't transition your page as well, you are left in the dust and not IE8.

Not if we make enough noise about it that Microsoft reverses its position. Or enough of a grass-roots movement is generated that refuse to support IE8 in this current guise and display to users (in some way) that their browser is not fit for purpose. Users will see it and blog about it. Then the developers can respond in the blog comments as to why it happens. Then the media will get hold of it ("Hundreds of websites break in Internet Explorer 8") and perhaps we might be listened to for a change. I'm up for it, I'm pretty sure Hixie would (given his opinions about this are the same as mine and his already stated refusal to support this bollocks), John Resig et al.

Or Microsoft could sort this out before IE8 goes final. Their choice.

[libertas83]

Wrong. This is about how developers are being screwed around with in order that the "customer" (read "user") doesn't notice a single thing changing when they upgrade their browser, because (as I've already stated) if a website doesn't look right in a certain browser, about 0.000000001% of customers will think it is because of the browser. The rest think it's the fault of the developer.

I hope you are not a developer with attitudes like that. I work in software support and I understand the "evil user". I am also a developer. My first priority as a developer is to understand the user's needs, not my needs. We might not be able to do it all for user in the timeframe given or the technology we have, but we can make something very useful to them. The whole point of IT is to give people the ability to manage information effectively. I hear people all the time say to users, that is by design, and that is how our product works, NO! The user just gets frustated and will find someone else who can do it better (sometimes there isn't anyone better).

Now seriously, if you really think CSS and XHTML are so bad because of IE6 then go back to real programming where real computer science is needed to develop the application. Yes, I waste many hours on stupid little things with the CSS support, and I hate it as much as everyone here. However, I have an idea on how I want something to work, and I make it work. There are plenty of workarounds avaialble and solutions are everywhere. And come on...... adding one line of code to the app and now I don't have to worry about IE8, and continue to work on bugs for IE7 and IE6 support, thats worth my time.

Also, Microsoft did not create the web alone. Go read up on some old books. JavaScript aka AJAX was never recomended, people didn't want to use Flash because it required a plugin, and so many other things that started from nothing and have become a major part of the web. Gee, where did the sites that were coded in web standards come from. Wow....I guess a group of people created a browser around it, and developers flocked to it so here it is. The same will happen this next time and standard based sites will keep growing.

[Argi]

I haven't read through the all the pages but the issue with multiple rendering engines is that given the choice of not updating their page to be standards compliant people (see: major companies), being lazy, won't. If you dont give them the option then it's all the better.

If people upgrade to IE8 and see their site not working anymore, they'll update it and surprise surprise it'll suddenly work in every browser the same.

[Matt T]

This is slightly off-topic and may sound like a stupid idea, but is there any reason why Microsoft don't just dump the IE engine in favour of Gecko? A single rendering engine between FF and IE would eliminate all compatibility issues and probably save Microsoft money since Gecko is open source.

[+mrbester MVC]

Difficult to know where to start...

This sub-thread is all about one browser manufacturer who is forcing, yet again, developers to jump through unnecessary hoops just to make their software work the same way as every other browser manufacturer.

I hear people all the time say to users, that is by design, and that is how our product works, NO! The user just gets frustated and will find someone else who can do it better (sometimes there isn't anyone better).

When it comes to browsers, the "people" are Microsoft. They also used to be Netscape before the Gecko revolution. Hence the rise of Fx, Opera, et al. as an alternative to IE. Have a search on MSDN to see how many "this behavior [sic] is by design" you can find.

Now seriously, if you really think CSS and XHTML are so bad because of IE6 then go back to real programming where real computer science is needed to develop the application.

CSS and (X)HTML are not "so bad". They've been standardised for nearly a decade. IE6 allowed the stagnation due to the lack of support.

...adding one line of code to the app and now I don't have to worry about IE8, and continue to work on bugs for IE7 and IE6 support, thats worth my time.

I don't see how this is a difficult concept for you to understand: a standards compliant page should render in standards mode, not a downlevel mode without ANY additions. Also, should there be rendering bugs in IE7 even when given a standards compliant page that are addressed by standards mode in IE8, the proposed course of action would be to go through every single page of every single site that you've made to standards to apply additional code so the correct rendering is used (the alternative is to get a systems admin to apply a header to all sites on all the servers. Either way is time consuming and therefore expensive). If there are workarounds for IE7 then the browser has to apply those workarounds when it could quite easily just render in IE8 standards. This would mean no code changes, seeing as you've already gone through the hassle of targeting a number of previous versions.

Also, Microsoft did not create the web alone. <snip type="bibble"/>

No, but they actively and aggressively targeted it to crush Netscape.

Gee, where did the sites that were coded in web standards come from. Wow....I guess a group of people created a browser around it, and developers flocked to it so here it is.

No. Standards were evangelised and developers saw the wisdom of them so ALL devices, not just PCs with a screen, JavaScript support, stylesheet support and plugins could use the same content. Browser support came later.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Standards came first, browsers came second (anybody remember the Netscape rewrite?)

MS is not trying to play catch up with the more advanced browsers, this is their way to go about it (It's not a good way, but it's the way they are going to do it). It's one of those "We decide, you implement" decisions.

Edit: Some of the stuff started off as a browser thing, then got standardized, now browsers are trying to catch up to the standards.

[libertas83]

When it comes to browsers, the "people" are Microsoft. They also used to be Netscape before the Gecko revolution. Hence the rise of Fx, Opera, et al. as an alternative to IE. Have a search on MSDN to see how many "this behavior [sic] is by design" you can find.

"People" is not Microsoft, it is developers which include Microsoft developers as well as you. It is an attitude that I see persist in IT where the real reason for our existience is forgotton.

CSS and (X)HTML are not "so bad". They've been standardised for nearly a decade. IE6 allowed the stagnation due to the lack of support.

I agree, I didn't say CSS and XHTML are bad. I was saying that people are acting like its the most difficult language to program in. By your own admission you think developers are being screwed just because Microsoft doesn't want to break all the websites that rely on IE to have bugs. I agree that IE6 made things move a bit slower, but the web was still progressing to become more professional, more useful, and more standard with or without Microsoft. It may have been alot of hard work, but those who did it should be proud.

I don't see how this is a difficult concept for you to understand: a standards compliant page should render in standards mode, not a downlevel mode without ANY additions.

Many standard websites are not sending a standard compliant page to IE, not even to IE8. That is what Microsoft learned with IE7. In theory, yes you are right, but Microsoft saw hard evidence that was not the case so they wanted to be more careful this time around.

Also, should there be rendering bugs in IE7 even when given a standards compliant page that are addressed by standards mode in IE8, the proposed course of action would be to go through every single page of every single site that you've made to standards to apply additional code so the correct rendering is used

How are you rendering it in IE7 now? Do you not bother fixing the bugs, adding workarounds? Many sites do and per above, many of them will send the same work arounds to IE8 even in super standard mode. Except, in super standard mode, it breaks because those workarounds are not standard compliant.

No. Standards were evangelised and developers saw the wisdom of them so ALL devices, not just PCs with a screen, JavaScript support, stylesheet support and plugins could use the same content. Browser support came later.

Doesn't really matter, you missed the point. BTW, since it appears you at least read the majority of my post. You do realize this was a recommendation to Microsoft by many of the same groups evanglising web standards, not entirely Microsoft's idea?

[primexx]

Many standard websites are not sending a standard compliant page to IE, not even to IE8.

that's the developer's fault for not sending it as standard.

Doesn't really matter, you missed the point. BTW, since it appears you at least read the majority of my post. You do realize this was a recommendation to Microsoft by many of the same groups evanglising web standards, not entirely Microsoft's idea?

how much of the idea was microsoft's we don't know, it's likely that they all came to a compromise with MS pushing for the meta idea. in any case, it doesn't really matter because even if the wasp people did recommend it, it's still bad implementation and the wasp people would be equally deserving of blame.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

...

Many standard websites are not sending a standard compliant page to IE, not even to IE8. That is what Microsoft learned with IE7. In theory, yes you are right, but Microsoft saw hard evidence that was not the case so they wanted to be more careful this time around.

...

The problem with IE7 was that it was getting sent standards compliant pages, but that had IE6 hacks in them (that weren't targeting IE6 only, or relied on IE6 parsing errors).

And it's likely that the majority of this idea came from MS.

[+mrbester MVC]

...if the wasp people did recommend it, it's still bad implementation and the wasp people would be equally deserving of blame.

And therein lies another spot of entertainment. No group recommends this implementation, only some members of those groups; this has been misreported as a group endorsement.

...How are you rendering it in IE7 now? Do you not bother fixing the bugs, adding workarounds?

The same way I fix bugs in any version that renders incorrectly: targeted workarounds. If it works in Fx, Opera, Safari, etc., but not IE7 then most likely conditional comments (urgh) targeted at IE7. IE6 bugs that are resolved by the IE7 CC encapsulated workarounds get targeted by an altered condition. Those that aren't get an additional CC, possibly nested, targeted at IE6. And so on, not forgetting the odd version number you have to use for IE5.5...

The thing is, if a [would render fine in IE8 standards] page contains targeted workarounds for IE < 8, why should extra work occur on the part of the browser to implement the workaround for the IE7 mode when it doesn't need to use it in the first place?

I think the problem is that IE probably starts in quirks mode (which, given the amount of crap around, might not be a bad place to start) and then ups the level depending on what it discovers and the "super standards" is just an extra thing to find to trigger top level. Perhaps going the other direction would be better; best level first, downgrading as necessary, but the bottom up way is probably one of those "by design" (read: Not Invented Here) things; it's easier to tack on than reverse flow...

[primexx]

And therein lies another spot of entertainment. No group recommends this implementation, only some members of those groups; this has been misreported as a group endorsement.

i did have the word people after the word wasp, noting the specific people who worked with MS...perhaps i wasn't clear enough.