Internet Explorer 7

Slightly off-topic, but Firefox 2.0 went final yesterday.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Thanks to Microsofts incompetence, any IE discussion automatically becomes a Firefox, Opera or Safari discussion. It's not like people who do the actual coding on the IE are narrow-minded, web-standards-defying morons (quite the contrary, from what I've heard), but the company just does not see the need to take the necessary steps for actual improvement. According to the Halloween documents a few people at Microsoft are indeed worried about open-source and Linux and since fear, uncertainty and doubt are working both ways by now, maybe they should rethink their stragedy.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by evilboris

I can imagine that IE will catch up and beat Firefox feature wise.

Even if it becomes the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink champion in the web browsers category (which I believe is Opera right now), how exactly will features torpedo the concept of a lean core program and tons of optional add-ons/extensions? Especially since FF does not suffer from the grave security issues of the IE and it never will (due to not being deeply interwoven with the operating system and a more advanced development model, namely open-source). And why do people still consider web standard compliance to be a nice extra of sorts? Open standards and formats are quite important for the future of computing, as they will save most of us a load of cash and effort.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Exactly how many IE-specific eccentricies are webdesigners still facing now anyway? Or in other words, is Microsoft still trying to defend its fading web browser monopoly by employing Embrace, Extend & Extinguish? Any comprehensive articles or first hand experiences yet?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Sure, Active X is as useless as a third leg but I was thinking more towards standard compliance in general. A colleague recently showed me the source of a site he created, which had an elegant design coupled with some nice eye candy. The source was already fully W3C standards compliant and didn't look dramatic at all. What did look dramatic was the potion which he had to add just to make this sucker show up correctly on the IE6.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by evilboris

They had to fix 5 years worth of bugs and security issues first. And they had roughly a year to do it.

So we're supposed to get down on our knees, thanking Microsoft for providing the bare minimum? Bugs are effectively addressed with short release cycles, a robust mantainance team (which didn't exist throughout the IE6 era) and/or a more adequate development model (read: open source) ... not by investing most of the effort put into the next major version jump.

By the way, Firefox 2.0 does not pass the Acid2, a few early 3.0 builds do though. But arguing that every browser which does not pass this test is no better than the IE in terms of standards compliance is like accusing paintings by Caravaggio and Munch of not being completely lifelike.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?