5 ms·

IE9 adds support for CSS3, denies importance of ACID3

49 points by judsoncollier 17y ago

joubert 17y ago
It'd be nice if they could include in a SP to IE 6, 7, and 8 considering half the planet is still on legacy browsers.
- ihumanable 17y ago
  This is one thing I've been thinking about since Google released Chrome Frame. Microsoft should release a service pack that attaches a standard compliant rendering engine to IE (basically a Microsoft blessed Chrome Frame). Then legacy applications would continue to work and the rest of the world could toss a meta engine="nosuck" that IE would respond to by rendering with the good engine.
  - ComputerGuru 17y ago
    That WAS Internet Explorer 9, but the online community made such a ruckus (with good reason) that MS would use the "standards compliant" mode only with a nosuck tag, that they went ahead and made it the default and you'd have to opt-in to the sucky mode.
    - cstejerean 17y ago
      IE9 should be standards compliant by default. A patched version of IE6 however should continue to be sucky by default and use a new rendering engine only with a nosuck tag.
- judsoncollier 17y ago
  Absolutely. I'm gung ho for IE catching up, but they don't bother to push their IE 6 and 7 users to upgrade in the same way safari, firefox and all other browsers use. Mainly, it's just creating yet-another-browser-to-test. (edit: forgot to hit reply and made a new message. doh.)
  - halo 17y ago
    It's a critical Windows update, meaning that for most people IE will update automatically with Windows.
    - joubert 17y ago
      Why are so many people still on IE 6 then?
      - zaatar 17y ago
        Because local network admins in various big companies refuse to upgrade from IE6 since they depend on internal applications coded against IE6 specifically, and Microsoft does not control every single corporate LAN to be able to force upgrades down their throats when they don't want them ...
        rbritton 17y ago
        ... and many companies are unwilling to fork out the money for upgraded boxes until those running Windows 2000 finally die. We're stuck in that situation.
        fserb 17y ago
        do you realize that we are at the current situation precisely because every IE version is different from the previous one and they are all different from the standards available at their time? If local network admins upgraded to the latest and greatest IE8/9 we would still be in the same horse shit regarding IE not following web standards. We would be free of "IE6 doesn't have a fucking clue about the box model". But we would be at "IE8 doesn't support canvas (or proper event bubble)". Microsoft has been using this "network admins don't upgrade from IE6" for too long as an excuse for the mess they keep putting web standards into. A proper solution for Microsoft now would be to completely ditch IE backend and use one of the current available libraries like webkit. And put in place a IE frontend that can have IE6/7/8 tabs and a proper browser (defaulting to a proper browser). Any other move coming from Microsoft is either PR or evilness.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
halo 17y ago
Actually, I'd argue that Microsoft's assessment of Acid3 is reasonably fair. Acid 3 isn't like Acid 1 (sane CSS box model) or Acid 2 (good resiliant consistent CSS2 support) - rather, it tests a whole bunch of random features and JavaScript edge cases. I can perfectly understand why Microsoft would prioritise implementing certain up-and-coming features or improving their rendering speed and stability over implementing parts of Acid3.
- wgj 17y ago
  > it tests a whole bunch of random features It clearly can't be random if four other major browser vendors independently score over 90%, and if: Firefox 2, a browser released in 2006 and predates Acid 3, scores a 52/100 versus the current IE9 score of 32/100. The only possible explanations are either a) it's an insidious and well organized campaign to unfairly discredit IE, or b) IE, even unreleased IE9, is way behind everybody. No matter which you believe, random is not an option.
  - halo 17y ago
    Sorry, but I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. By "random features" I mean that the features chosen are fairly arbitrary in nature, taken from arbitrary sections of a fairly arbitrary selection of standards. That's what makes the Acid3 test different from the Acid1 and Acid2 tests which were rather more specific in what they tested (i.e. CSS), something which is much more fundamental to the web than anything Acid3 tests. Also, the Acid tests are deliberately constructed with browser bugs in mind. That's why IE fails it incredibly badly since it's been designed to make IE fail incredibly badly. There's no conspiracy when the entire point of the test is that it reveals browser bugs. That said, Microsoft are behind everybody else, and no-one has said otherwise. However, given inherent limited resources, I'm not sure if I'd rather Microsoft focus on passing Acid3 than improving other aspects of their browser. Given the choice between good CSS3 support and Canvas or SVG Fonts and SMIL I'd prefer the prior pair, and I'm sure many of their users would gladly choose improved performance and stability over web standards.
    - wgj 17y ago
sketerpot 17y ago
Maybe I'll stop hating Internet Explorer quite so vehemently if they do these things: 1. Faster Javascript. This looks like the main point of IE 9, so apparently we won't be waiting much longer for this one. 2. SVG support. Every other browser does this; why not IE? There's so much cool stuff we could do with SVG if only IE didn't hold us back. 3. How about some HTML5 canvas support? Canvas is a nice, straightforward API, and it's all sorts of useful. But as usual, IE strangles progress. As a user, I can just ignore IE. But as a web developer, I absolutely loathe it for making everybody jump through hoops to support it, and for holding back SVG and canvas.
- Periodic 17y ago
  It's as the author says: IE glady rides the backseat in standards, and it’s making my life terrible. In the inverse of your problem, I often have to interface with enterprise web applications and help some of our other staff with them. They are only approved to work on Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6 (though I think many have finally moved to IE7 as a supported platform). This causes all sorts of headaches for my Linux users when we have to access the financial system or report time and leave. There was a period of about 6 months where I was logging into the one Windows computer in my group to report vacation because it was the only one with the right version of Java and IE to get it to work.
  - xal 17y ago
    Did you have any success with suggesting Chrome Frame?
city41 17y ago
You really can't use MS employee blogs against MS. They are written with no supervision, come directly from the employee with no proof reading or anything. They truly are just blogs.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

49 points by judsoncollier 17y ago

joubert 17y ago

It'd be nice if they could include in a SP to IE 6, 7, and 8 considering half the planet is still on legacy browsers.

ihumanable 17y ago
This is one thing I've been thinking about since Google released Chrome Frame. Microsoft should release a service pack that attaches a standard compliant rendering engine to IE (basically a Microsoft blessed Chrome Frame). Then legacy applications would continue to work and the rest of the world could toss a meta engine="nosuck" that IE would respond to by rendering with the good engine.
- ComputerGuru 17y ago
  That WAS Internet Explorer 9, but the online community made such a ruckus (with good reason) that MS would use the "standards compliant" mode only with a nosuck tag, that they went ahead and made it the default and you'd have to opt-in to the sucky mode.
  - cstejerean 17y ago
    IE9 should be standards compliant by default. A patched version of IE6 however should continue to be sucky by default and use a new rendering engine only with a nosuck tag.
judsoncollier 17y ago
Absolutely. I'm gung ho for IE catching up, but they don't bother to push their IE 6 and 7 users to upgrade in the same way safari, firefox and all other browsers use. Mainly, it's just creating yet-another-browser-to-test. (edit: forgot to hit reply and made a new message. doh.)
- halo 17y ago
  It's a critical Windows update, meaning that for most people IE will update automatically with Windows.
  - joubert 17y ago
    Why are so many people still on IE 6 then?
    - zaatar 17y ago
      Because local network admins in various big companies refuse to upgrade from IE6 since they depend on internal applications coded against IE6 specifically, and Microsoft does not control every single corporate LAN to be able to force upgrades down their throats when they don't want them ...
      - rbritton 17y ago
        ... and many companies are unwilling to fork out the money for upgraded boxes until those running Windows 2000 finally die. We're stuck in that situation.
      - fserb 17y ago
        do you realize that we are at the current situation precisely because every IE version is different from the previous one and they are all different from the standards available at their time? If local network admins upgraded to the latest and greatest IE8/9 we would still be in the same horse shit regarding IE not following web standards. We would be free of "IE6 doesn't have a fucking clue about the box model". But we would be at "IE8 doesn't support canvas (or proper event bubble)". Microsoft has been using this "network admins don't upgrade from IE6" for too long as an excuse for the mess they keep putting web standards into. A proper solution for Microsoft now would be to completely ditch IE backend and use one of the current available libraries like webkit. And put in place a IE frontend that can have IE6/7/8 tabs and a proper browser (defaulting to a proper browser). Any other move coming from Microsoft is either PR or evilness.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

halo 17y ago

Actually, I'd argue that Microsoft's assessment of Acid3 is reasonably fair. Acid 3 isn't like Acid 1 (sane CSS box model) or Acid 2 (good resiliant consistent CSS2 support) - rather, it tests a whole bunch of random features and JavaScript edge cases. I can perfectly understand why Microsoft would prioritise implementing certain up-and-coming features or improving their rendering speed and stability over implementing parts of Acid3.

wgj 17y ago
> it tests a whole bunch of random features It clearly can't be random if four other major browser vendors independently score over 90%, and if: Firefox 2, a browser released in 2006 and predates Acid 3, scores a 52/100 versus the current IE9 score of 32/100. The only possible explanations are either a) it's an insidious and well organized campaign to unfairly discredit IE, or b) IE, even unreleased IE9, is way behind everybody. No matter which you believe, random is not an option.
- halo 17y ago
  Sorry, but I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. By "random features" I mean that the features chosen are fairly arbitrary in nature, taken from arbitrary sections of a fairly arbitrary selection of standards. That's what makes the Acid3 test different from the Acid1 and Acid2 tests which were rather more specific in what they tested (i.e. CSS), something which is much more fundamental to the web than anything Acid3 tests. Also, the Acid tests are deliberately constructed with browser bugs in mind. That's why IE fails it incredibly badly since it's been designed to make IE fail incredibly badly. There's no conspiracy when the entire point of the test is that it reveals browser bugs. That said, Microsoft are behind everybody else, and no-one has said otherwise. However, given inherent limited resources, I'm not sure if I'd rather Microsoft focus on passing Acid3 than improving other aspects of their browser. Given the choice between good CSS3 support and Canvas or SVG Fonts and SMIL I'd prefer the prior pair, and I'm sure many of their users would gladly choose improved performance and stability over web standards.
  - wgj 17y ago

sketerpot 17y ago

Maybe I'll stop hating Internet Explorer quite so vehemently if they do these things: 1. Faster Javascript. This looks like the main point of IE 9, so apparently we won't be waiting much longer for this one. 2. SVG support. Every other browser does this; why not IE? There's so much cool stuff we could do with SVG if only IE didn't hold us back. 3. How about some HTML5 canvas support? Canvas is a nice, straightforward API, and it's all sorts of useful. But as usual, IE strangles progress. As a user, I can just ignore IE. But as a web developer, I absolutely loathe it for making everybody jump through hoops to support it, and for holding back SVG and canvas.

Periodic 17y ago
It's as the author says: IE glady rides the backseat in standards, and it’s making my life terrible. In the inverse of your problem, I often have to interface with enterprise web applications and help some of our other staff with them. They are only approved to work on Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6 (though I think many have finally moved to IE7 as a supported platform). This causes all sorts of headaches for my Linux users when we have to access the financial system or report time and leave. There was a period of about 6 months where I was logging into the one Windows computer in my group to report vacation because it was the only one with the right version of Java and IE to get it to work.
- xal 17y ago
  Did you have any success with suggesting Chrome Frame?

city41 17y ago

You really can't use MS employee blogs against MS. They are written with no supervision, come directly from the employee with no proof reading or anything. They truly are just blogs.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]