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Fun fun fun...

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Every day we post something to the IE team blog about standards is a fun day. 

The fundamental point of Markus' post seems to still be getting lost, which was supposed to be "don't use CSS hacks unless you really, really know what you're doing, and are ready to rewrite your hacks every release when bugs go away."  Use something that has a sane versioning story, like conditional comments, or (gasp, dare I say it) Javascript browser detection.

"wondering" wrote: "your company is still evil, greedy, selfish and just capitalistic, with no sense of fairness, justice and humanness at all. ... but for the people that work at microsoft: you guys are the company, and you ppl could do much more good for your own sake and the sake of your company and this planet as whole. "

By doing what?  By making the browser that 85% of your customers use better and more standard compliant?  Oh wait, that's what I'm doing.  Sometimes, I really wish I could just time warp the entire world back to 1997, and leave them to it. 

So let's get to the point.  Why are so many people fired up against IE?  Well, a bunch of them are simply Microsoft haters.  I've never understood the perverse mentality that goes and hangs out on a product group just to complain, but there you go.  Not all of them are, though. 

The SANE reason to be frustrated with Microsoft is because we haven't updated the rendering engine after IE6 shipped in 2001 (though we were the best, most standards-compliant system around on Windows at the time, and had the Mac sewn up with Mac IE).  That's a long time.  Hey, at this point all I can say is mea culpa -and move on.  I understand and empathize with your frustration.  The IE team is running as hard as we can to make it better for everyone now.  IE isn't going to go away as a platform that web designers have to contend with, so help us make it great for you.  (Remembering, of course, that there are limits to how far we can bend time, space, and our team.)  Give us feedback that helps us prioritize, and help remove content roadblocks that prevent us from getting better.  And hey, if you're a good developer, tester or program manager, drop me a resume (cwilso at (where else?) microsoft.com).  We're hiring.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2005
    4 words.

    "Release the PUBLIC Beta"

    As soon as you do this, developers can actually see their options, test their code, and accept this new Browser. At the moment, by hiding in the dark, all you gain is user/developer frustration.

    Every day I hear about companies banning the use of IE, for security issues... the longer you hold out, the harder it will be to convince people to come back.

    Signed,
    All developers
  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2005
    I hear you loud and clear, and I've been trying to get us to do exactly that. There's a lot more to it (impact on support and feedback loops, primarily) than just getting a build up on a server. I still want this to happen, and we're trying.
  • Anonymous
    October 16, 2005
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    October 16, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    October 17, 2005
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    October 17, 2005
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    November 09, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2009
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