Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Anders Nawroth]

Spolsky:

"Enough ugly hacks. 8 billion existing web pages be damned."


If I got this right, only around 10 % of web pages are rendered in 
standards mode , and will be affected 
by the changed behaviour in IE 8. Still a lot of pages, of course.


Pages done long time ago or created by amateurs probably are rendered in 
quirks mode and will be so in IE 8 too, not in "best standards mode".


Is this so, or did I miss something on this topic?

/andersN


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RE: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[michael.brockington]

>-Original Message-
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke


>"In the real world where people are imperfect, you can't have 
>a standard with just a spec-you must have a super-strict 
>reference implementation, and everybody has to test against 
>the reference implementation."
>
>Reference implementation for content marked up in HTML is the 
>W3C validator...again, confused about CSS/DOM?
>

I think you are both getting confused here - a reference implementation
of HTML is an actual HTML page. The validator is useful, but since it
has no direct link to the spec, it is technically no better than any of
the browsers. 
Compare with Tomcat, which is the reference implementation of the
servlet engine spec, and allows you to test servlets.  What is needed
here is actually a browser specification, and consequently a browser
reference implementation, against which it is possible to test HTML /
CSS / DOM 
Clearly this is a massive task though, and requires a major effort,
whether or not it is based on an existing browser.
Compare also with XML, where the DTD is the specification of validity.
The DTD can (on occasion) be read by software, and contains (almost) no
ambiguity. (I'm not advocating XHTML here, by the way, as it stands
right now - I think it was a missed, but certainly a failed,
opportunity.)



>"Enough ugly hacks. 8 billion existing web pages be damned."
>
>The fact that those 8 billion pages actually work fine in all 
>other browsers, who all seem to have managed to agree on an 
>interpretation of CSS/DOM by working together, ironing out 
>test cases, etc, doesn't matter? Are MS joining the party?


Excuse me, but exactly how many of those 8 billion pages do you reckon
work correctly at the moment? In _all_ browsers released this century?
Including assistive technology?
(I am sure I must be mis-understanding your point here - so could you
please elaborate?)

Regards,
Mike


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Alastair Campbell]

Patrick H. Lauke  wrote:
>  Reference implementation for content marked up in HTML is the W3C
>  validator...again, confused about CSS/DOM?

Fair point, but his audience is general technical rather than
(knowledgeable) web developers. If you put his post in context of
general programming (pre and post web) I think the general point is
that there isn't a reference for how the whole shebang works together.

You can't write a regular web pages (with styling) and have a
references for how it should look according to the standards. Other
programming languages (I believe) do, such as the GUIs for Java and
VB. Of course, some people *effectively* do this by developing in one
browser, which isn't a good idea in the web context.

>  The fact that those 8 billion pages actually work fine in all other
>  browsers, who all seem to have managed to agree on an interpretation of
>  CSS/DOM by working together, ironing out test cases, etc, doesn't
>  matter? Are MS joining the party?

I'm not drinking MS kool-aid (if that's the phrase), but I thought the
reason that CSS 2.1 was taking so long was that there were areas of
disagreement and 'grayness'? The IE team recently submitted hundreds
of test cases for CSS 2.1, so yes, they seem to be joining the party
(barring the evil http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/03/ie8-bad ).

The other browsers have the advantage that developers / authors aren't
trying to work around them, so can just have strict / almost strict
and quirks modes. IE doesn't have that luxury:
http://webkit.org/blog/155/versioning-compatibility-and-standards/
"we sympathize with the tough road that the IE team has to travel to
achieve a high degree of standards compliance, we haven't really
experienced the same problem. The IE team has mentioned severe
negative feedback on the IE7 release, due to sites expecting standards
behavior from most browsers, but IE6 bugs from IE."

>  So they're standard, plus some crap thrown in for non-standard IE. And
>  they do browser-sniffing or take advantage of CSS hacks, rather than
>  progressive enhancement, conditional comments, and any other modern
>  practices.

Which leads nicely onto:

>  "Mmhmm. All you smug idealists are laughing at this newbie/idjit. The
>  consumer is not an idiot. She's your wife. So stop laughing. 98% of the
>  world will install IE8 and say, "It has bugs and I can't see my sites.""

It is mostly because so many sites use crap, non standard, backward
thinking techniques that so many wives (I actually think mums would be
a better example, except mine uses Opera) would have trouble with the
betas.

>  It's also worth remembering that the MS releases these early betas
>  EXACTLY because currently sites break badly with its new rendering
>  engine.

Very true, and again, I'm glad they have started again with the
rendering engine and done away with the multi-headed hydra (thanks
Ingo) of hasLayout. However, I Joel is right about whether they will
continue with having the new rendering as default.

If at the end of the beta period lots of sites (like Microsoft.com,
like Sharepoint sites, more than 10% of the top 200 that they use as
reference) still break, they will either:
1. Revert to IE7 rendering as the default (most likely), or
2. Change the user agent string more significantly (complicated).

Personally, I'd like to see the second option explored. Perhaps it
could be solved by using something like:
Mozilla/4.0 (MS-IE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1)
rather than:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1)

However, assuming the second option doesn't work (or isn't used for
whatever reason), I think changing the default rendering would be
better for having an IE that will follow standards long term.

>  I still say the article is extremely long, confused and confusing.

I agree it could have been done in less, and didn't speak directly to
a web-dev audience. However, I think it was a good 'programmers guide'
to the issue, and had a good reading of MS.

Cheers,

-Alastair


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Lea de Groot wrote:

Joel Spolsky has published an ... interesting article
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html


Ok, I actually sat down and read Joel's convoluted prose...

"DOCTYPE is a myth.
A mortal web designer who attaches a DOCTYPE tag to their web page 
saying, “this is standard HTML,” is committing an act of hubris. There 
is no way they know that."


Joel seems to be confusing HTML - which is quite strictly standardised - 
with CSS/DOM.


"In the real world where people are imperfect, you can’t have a standard 
with just a spec–you must have a super-strict reference implementation, 
and everybody has to test against the reference implementation."


Reference implementation for content marked up in HTML is the W3C 
validator...again, confused about CSS/DOM?


"Enough ugly hacks. 8 billion existing web pages be damned."

The fact that those 8 billion pages actually work fine in all other 
browsers, who all seem to have managed to agree on an interpretation of 
CSS/DOM by working together, ironing out test cases, etc, doesn't 
matter? Are MS joining the party?


"They are usually websites which were carefully constructed to conform 
to web standards. But IE 6 and IE 7 didn’t really conform to the specs, 
so these sites have little hacks in them that say, “on Internet 
Explorer… move this thing 17 pixels to the right to compensate for IE’s 
bug.”"


So they're standard, plus some crap thrown in for non-standard IE. And 
they do browser-sniffing or take advantage of CSS hacks, rather than 
progressive enhancement, conditional comments, and any other modern 
practices.


"Mmhmm. All you smug idealists are laughing at this newbie/idjit. The 
consumer is not an idiot. She’s your wife. So stop laughing. 98% of the 
world will install IE8 and say, “It has bugs and I can’t see my sites.”"


If my wife installed an early developer-release beta on her machine, I'd 
laugh at her, yes. Same as running a nightly release of something like 
Firefox and then complaining about breakages.


It's also worth remembering that the MS releases these early betas 
EXACTLY because currently sites break badly with its new rendering 
engine. Partly, that's due to new bugs and unfinished parts of the 
rendering engine, but also so that the development teams for those sites 
can test early, remove the IE-specific cruft that now compensate for 
bugs from 6 and 7 that simply aren't there anymore, and do some proper 
version testing rather than simply sniffing for "IE or not".
Will there still be sites that, once IE8 is *actually* released to the 
public, still break? Yes, just as there were sites that broke when IE7 
came out. Mom&pop websites will break quite spectacularly. Sites on 
CD-ROM? I have quite a few old Amiga games that only run in emulation...


I still say the article is extremely long, confused and confusing.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__
Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Alastair Campbell]

> Far too long, and his point is buried somewhere...

It is long, but I like the headphone analogy that (I think) makes it
easier to understand the 'economics' of the situation. (Does it count
as economics when the products are free?)

I was very surprised by the IE teams decision to make the new
rendering the default, until I read Joel's thoughts on what they might
do before release.
IE is part of the MS ecosystem, and impacts Windows (e.g. will a
corporate client update to Vista if their intranet doesn't work with
IE 7/8), and things like Sharepoint (e.g. will IE8 render Sharepoint
sites ok).

On the Sharepoint note, either MS will have to re-do how it produces
front end code (a mammoth undertaking) or ensure that IE8 renders it
as IE7. How useful is that long term?

I'm very glad that MS started again with the rendering engine, and
they have made incredible progress given that fresh start, but I do
worry that it could have nasty consequences for IE (and web standards)
if the change to other parts of the ecosystem is too severe.

-Alastair


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

Lea de Groot wrote:
Joel Spolsky has published an ... interesting article 
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html


Microsoft failed to follow the evolutionary trail and keep up with
common standards - to the degree that such exists, and now they try to
catch up without causing a revolution with subsequent riots all over
IE/win-hackery land.
I wish the IE team - and us - good luck.

A fresh start would indeed be worth considering - with name and all, but
I can't see that coming :-(

I like "Internet Avenger" for I am a romantic. Who can think of a 
better name?  :)


It already has one: "Internet Exploder", and I'm pragmatic and can't
think of a better name until I see a better browser.

regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Lea de Groot wrote:

Joel Spolsky has published an ... interesting article
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html


Far too long, and his point is buried somewhere...

IE8b1 is a very rough beta...heck, I'd call it an alpha. They have 
serious rendering issues so far, but I doubt that they'll make it into 
the final version, what with that interoperability policy looming over 
the IE team's head.


P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__
Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__


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Re: [WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Mike Brown]

Lea de Groot wrote:

Joel Spolsky has published an ... interesting article
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html


I think it's a great article. And one the nails why this has created so 
much heat. Among many killer quotes, this to end things:


"You see? No right answer.

As usual, the idealists are 100% right in principle and, as usual, the 
pragmatists are right in practice."


Mike


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[WSG] Spolsky on IE8 flag

[Lea de Groot]

Joel Spolsky has published an ... interesting article
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

I wonder if Microsoft considered the approach of "IE 7 is the last 
version of IE. Our new product will be $NEW_PRODUCT_NAME[1]. All old 
hacks for IE are irrelevent - we're starting afresh, people!"
Sounds like its worth considering :)
After all, when I browse the web with Safari or Firefox I literally 
never see a broken page, because nothing assumes I am using some 
version of IE.
M2CW :)

warmly,
Lea
[1] I like "Internet Avenger" for I am a romantic. Who can think of a 
better name? :)
-- 
Lea de Groot
Elysian Systems
Brisbane, Australia


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