by Kyle Weems 4.March 2008 08:56
Either Microsoft came to its senses, or I'm going crazy. I haven't decided which yet, as it's still early in the day and the caffeine hasn't kicked in. In a surprise annoucement Microsoft declared that contrary to their prior decision on the matter they'd be making Internet Explorer 8 support advanced standards by default. Their now infamous meta tag will still exist, allowing a site's developer to choose instead to target their site for an older version (such as IE7), but those who fail to do that will have their sites render in as up-to-date a fashion in IE as they would in any other browser.
Reactions vary, with critics either skeptically stating that Big Blue is doing this due to recent EU legal conundrums or are caving in to mass complaints of the developer community. On his part, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, says "Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles.
Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind,
interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible
is a better thing to do."
Regardless of whether or not that statement is spin, it's ultimately the right thing for them to do. A little part of me is actually dissapointed, but that's because drama is so much easier to write about. I've gotten no less than three prior posts out of the explosion of developers alteratingly deploring or supporting the move to use the meta tag in the first place. I even came out in support of it, as I felt that perhaps it was the right thing to do to allow soccer moms to have their websites still work when IE8 came out.
I guess I'll have to take that statement back, then. I'm guessing a few thousand (or more) sites made by the Joe Averages of the world will shudder and crack when IE8 comes out with it's higher standard compliance. But as Mr. Hachamovitch (I'm so glad I don't have to say that outloud, it's a mouthfull) said "Long term, we believe this is the right thing for the web. Shorter
term, leading up not just to IE8’s release but broader IE8 adoption,
this choice creates a clear call to action to site developers to make
sure their web content works well in IE."
I'm not sure what I'll do in a world where Microsoft is pushing standards awareness as heavily as everyone else. As I've indicated in the past, a good deal of my actual job is fixing all the bugs that crop up in sites on their old browsers. But it's a good thing to know that when IE8 penetrates the market, I'll be able to finally kiss hasLayout goodbye.