Re: IE7 Feed Rendering Issue

[M. David Peterson]

> That being said, as I noted in my earlier e-mail, I do agree that this IE behavior change breaks some non-traditional web sites (including some of my own), and that some sort of workaround is going to be needed. <

 

And thats the key I think we both agree on.

 

You right about the feed readers in general.. Thats simply not the norm, so it cant be expected.  However, Sean's point that other feed readers dont allow customization was a bit of target as some actually do.

 

The thing that seems to bother both you, myself, and several other folks is not that IE is adding feed reading support, but that they seems to have forgotten that there are a lot of folks out there who see IE as a web browser and expect that when the move to IE6 to IE7 begins to take place, things will not break in any way, shape, or form.  In fact, there is a post on the IE7 blog that speaks directly to this general fact, and is why I am probably a bit more agitated that I would be had they not made it point to bring the "not break existing customers apps" out as a priority:

 

Compatibility and our updated CSS behavior

Obviously, we have heard the feedback asking us to be more standards-compliant in our rendering behavior. We must balance this ask with the need of our customers (and end users) to have their pages not be broken. To find a balance we introduced a strict mode in IE6 that lets authors opt in into the more standards compliant rendering (and, if you're putting in a modern DOCTYPE declaration, you're being opted in automatically). Pages authored under non-strict mode (or "quirks mode") will not change behavior in IE7 – so the fixes we've done to be more CSS compliant won't appear under quirks mode. However, if your content is under "strict mode", our behavior is more standards compliant, and your pages may break - for example, if you use some of the CSS hacks or rely on our old incorrect overflow behavior. We understand the pain this might cause in the short term but we believe a move to a more standard compliant implementation benefits everyone in the long run.

Last but not least, big thanks to the community: here on the blog (yes, we are paying attention to the comments), the WASP team and those out on the web reporting CSS issues with IE. We know we have a long road ahead but I am very excited with the progress we are making.

- Markus Mielke

source: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/02/523679.aspx

 

Does this smell a bit off to anyone else to see such opposing viewpoints?  I realize in large companies this will happen.. one person will say one thing for one team, another for another, and they dont necessarily contradict each other.

 

It seems maybe that the IE7 and RSS teams need to decide what the message is overall, and then speak to that point once they have...

 

On 3/9/06, David Nesting <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On 3/9/06, David Nesting <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:

On 3/9/06, M. David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:

If, in fact, what you mean by this *IS* that its the end users choice, then I would tend to agree... as long as the option exists. 

That was, actually, what I was trying to say. 

Oops, I quoted the wrong thing.  I was, in fact, trying to say the opposite: it's up to the consuming applications (feed readers) to decide how they want to render your feed.  You cannot exert control over 100% of feed readers' presentations of your feed, since many of them will not resemble a web browser in any way.  Therefore it is unreasonable for you to expect to have 100% control over feed readers that are also web browsers.

That being said, as I noted in my earlier e-mail, I do agree that this IE behavior change breaks some non-traditional web sites (including some of my own), and that some sort of workaround is going to be needed.
 

David

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M. David Peterson
http://www.xsltblog.com/