Working Together for a Better Web
Hi Everyone!
I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Molly E. Holzschlag, and I’m excited to announce that I’ve signed on with the Internet Explorer team on a contract basis to work on standards and interoperability issues. Many readers of the IEBlog will be familiar with the Web Standards Project (WaSP). As the departing Group Lead for WaSP and as an invited expert to the W3C, my work has in the past focused on the creation and evangelism of Web standards. Inan effort to develop proactive, cooperative relationships with Microsoft as development teams ramped up for IE7 and the new Expression Web, I began working closely with the Web Platform and Tools team via the WaSP / Microsoft Task Force.
The Web, as envisioned by its creator Tim Berners-Lee, was always meant to be an interoperable platform. That was the entire heart and soul of its emergence: To provide people a means of sharing information across the world without regard to the computer platform or browser in use. Due to the browser “wars” and what I prefer to think of as the early evolutionary stages of the Web, just how we were going to keep that vision in such a fast-moving environment became a serious concern.
One way to address that concern has been through standards advocacy and evangelism. Another way is to identify the problems in all browsers and tools, prioritize them, and work toward creating a stable baseline of compatibility from the side of software as well as education. I spent a lot of my career working on the first, but now I’m convinced it’s the action and education that’s going to make the long-term difference, not evangelism on its own.
With that, I’m very excited to announce that I will be working to advance standards and interoperability education and outreach. The goal is essentially two fold:
To provide resources to Web designers and developers (including internal developers at Microsoft) as they work toward a more standards-oriented goal - no matter which tools and technologies are being used. To achieve this, our group will be publishing educational material for designers and developers from such noted industry experts as Eric Meyer, Christopher Schmitt and Aaron Gustafson. We’re choosing people who represent the Web professional’s community at large and who are subject matter experts in the technologies about which they’ll be writing. We’ll also be doing hands-on tutorials, continuing with our chat series, and I’ll be blogging a column called “The Daily Molly” which will provide short news, tips and tricks, and items of interest to the community
To work with Microsoft as well as all browser and tools vendors. It is my desire that persistence coupled with diplomacy will assist us all in moving to a time where interoperability becomes the heart of the Web again
Pete LePage, a Product Manager at Microsoft Web Platform and Tools, offers these words:
“I’m very excited to work more closely with Molly, as she excels in creating content for web designers and developers. Her track record of achievements in community outreach initiatives, her independence, as well as her high standards, is impressive and this strength will be of great value to both the designer/developer community and to Microsoft. Molly’s unique capabilities are ideal for this position and I know she will be successful in connecting the web community with us.”
I look forward to this challenging, exciting opportunity! I’m grateful to all the wonderful people at Microsoft, Opera, Mozilla, Apple, the Web Standards Project, the W3C and countless other companies and groups around the world who are working so very hard to advance this evolutionary and wonderful tool we share that is the World Wide Web.
With warm regards,
Molly
Molly E. Holzschlag
Standards & Interoperability Education and Outreach
Web Platform and Tools, Microsoft
Edit: Added link and word edit to first sentence
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Dear Gentlemen: I would be grateful if anyone could tell me what the rank of Cfn. stands for.. in the Canadian Infantry Corps tfd. R.C.E.M.E. in WWII. Thank-you.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Hello. Your site is very good.I like what i can find your site.I say to all my friends about your site.Very interesting and informative site.Thanks!Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Hello. Your site is very good.I like what i can find your site.I say to all my friends about your site.Very interesting and informative site.Thanks!Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Howdy Folks. I was wondering if anyone had any details on the Eastern re-union that is being held in Moncton in 2007. Cheers, DanAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks Nick, it helps when you're a web developer by trade ;)Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Dear Gentlemen: I would be grateful if anyone could tell me what the rank of Cfn. stands for.. in the Canadian Infantry Corps tfd. R.C.E.M.E. in WWII. Thank-you.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Very interesting site, read it all :)Anonymous
January 01, 2003
What is your name? Where do you live?Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Just noticed that my home page needed correcting. Cheers, Dan.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks Nick, it helps when you're a web developer by trade ;)Anonymous
January 01, 2003
What is your name? Where do you live?Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
I look forward to seeing what you hand the team have in store.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
You're a rock star and you know it =) Improvin' the world one team at a time ;-)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Right on! Can't wait to see your work surface!Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Good luck, though you should not need it (except maybe dealing with the MS Office-Outlook people or nailing a stake through their heart ;-) Looking forward to what your team will be doingAnonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Yowser! Didn't see that one coming. I guess Bill liked ya, huh? :)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Yowser! Didn't see that one coming. I guess Bill liked ya, huh? :)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
Good luck with your contracting endevours with Microsoft. I hope your new fangled ideas take well on campus. ;)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
As a web applications developer, I couldn't be happier... even though there's still a ways to catch up in terms of standards support, I'm now looking forward to what comes out of the IE team more and more, especially with news like this. One question: do you know what this means for the likes of the Outlook/Word fiasco (too harsh? how about "change of direction"?) in terms of standards support in future Office versions?Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Get 'em to support data URLs ... please? :) Good job on the IE team nabbing you ... maybe they are serious this time. I guess they did implement PNGs finally. :)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
Standards are good, but only if well enough documented. I suspect that you have a LOT of work ahead of you. Not just adhearing to those standards, but getting people to agree what they actually are.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
That said, welcome to the team.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
This is a good sign from the IE team, I'm looking forward to the future.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
When I saw this title, it made me laugh. IE - A better web? Isn't that an oxymoron? Maybe I'm coming across too strong. However, I am very pleased to read this. I hope you will have an impact on the standards support in IE. I would say that if I could have IE change one thing, I would want it to actually render the MIME type application/xhtml+xml instead of try to download it. Ugh. I hope you will help with IE's issues. PhilAnonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Congrats Molls. Looking forward to seeing what influence you have with the IE team. Can only be a good thing!Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
All I can say is that you have every Web Developers support by trying to make IE a more standards compliant browser. Even though it should have been this 5 years ago, it's never to late for a leopard to change it's spots :) I hope we can strive to reach the "uptopia" that we all dream of!! Good luck at your new job and we wish every bit of success! Very exciting stuff :)Anonymous
January 30, 2007
Seeing you in that team actually restores my hope that there still will be web-standards in the future! Thanks & good luck!Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
Congrats and good luck - and well done to Microsoft for taking you on!Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 31, 2007
LUKE: Is the dark side stronger? YODA: No... no... no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
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January 31, 2007
Can someone tell me where to get support for IE 7 and xp tablet pc. Everywhere I go it tells me my browser is not supported. Even my Microsoft Partner web site. Sorta humerous, but I figured someone has already worked throught the issues.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
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January 31, 2007
Good news, and yet some still have to add in a negative comment. "It is very brave step to move to weakest place of the web to make it better." Weasel words, anyone? "Microsoft should force a big group of its employees to use Opera or Firefox" Don't you think they know what Opera and Firefox are like? Have you ever seen a succesful company that doesn't look at its competitor's products? "I suspect that you have a LOT of work ahead of you. Not just adhearing to those standards, but getting people to agree what they actually are." Who actually thinks that people in Microsoft sit around blasting standards all day? I think it has a lot more to do with backwards compatibility, and time. "When I saw this title, it made me laugh. IE - A better web?" Yeah. It's not like XmlHttpRequest ever did the web any good, or that rotten piece of software called the DHTML editing control.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
Many thanks and Bless You! I know you will do us proud.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
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January 31, 2007
While I also add my congratulations on this news I also am a bit nervous. My concern is that web standards are more than CSS. Microsoft and WaSP has been completely silent on ANY web standard other than CSS in the past few years. Do you support SVG as a standard or will you promote WPF/e as a direct competitor? Will you take a stand on adoption of XSLT 2? XPath? How many web technologies did ACID1 and ACID2 employ? I wish you good luck with this effort but I have to remind you in your post that you mentioned web standards five times and never mention CSS once. I hope this is your perspective. Good luckAnonymous
January 31, 2007
Interesting. I see you care about standards a lot. Now let me ask you a few things, please :-)
- What about OPEN web standards? Does Microsoft genuininely want to advance OPEN standards?
- WPF/E - under what kind of license is the documentation and such available? Would it be easy to make a competitive environment available under the GNU General Public License version 3?
- Frankly, this is the only one I care about myself: please remove any support for "content protection" from WPF and WPF/E. We all know what that means - Digital Restrictions Management. Sorry to sound like such a blind Linux weirdo. I'm not anti-Microsoft or anything, I mostly like a lot of Microsoft products (Internet Explorer, Windows) - I just don't like DRM and such.
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January 31, 2007
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January 31, 2007
This is the best news I've heard about IE in a very long time. Best wishes to you and good luck with the new position!Anonymous
January 31, 2007
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January 31, 2007
"I must admit that Pete's comment kinda bothers me though." I think you missed a spot of tin foil on your hat.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
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February 01, 2007
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February 01, 2007
For me the key phrase is: "To provide resources to Web designers and developers (including internal developers at Microsoft) as they work toward a more standards-oriented goal - no matter which tools and technologies are being used." That brings a great smile upon my face. I hope you can not only educate the engineers of IE, but also the people responsible for creating content on all Microsoft related websites. It would be absolutely marvelous if Microsoft themselves would turn their own websites towards the standards they contributed themselves to. If anyone can do it, you can. We should congratulate Microsoft for employing you.Anonymous
February 01, 2007
This would explain the sycophantic "interview" of Bill Gates. But, good luck.Anonymous
February 01, 2007
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February 01, 2007
I think the real solution to the web is to just make it like television. Could you imagine how irate football fans would react to a server crash problem that canceled the viewing of their favotite team on television. Till the web is more like television only geeks will take it seriously. Another problem is the darned heat factor. You could leave your television on for days without a problem. But run your computer more than a few hours, and you've got big over heating problems. Anyway, I'm very glad you're on the team. You seem very sensible. And I would gladly trade geek for sensible any time. Good luck to you.Anonymous
February 01, 2007
i need to work with internet explorerAnonymous
February 01, 2007
This is great news, and the best of luck in your new role. Congratulations to both you and Microsoft. It's a brilliant call on both your parts and I can't wait to see the results.Anonymous
February 02, 2007
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February 02, 2007
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February 02, 2007
I am wrapping up my week by clearing the backlog of blogging I intended to do but have not had time untilAnonymous
February 02, 2007
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February 02, 2007
Good Luck...but it would be great if they can get someone to fix the issues with TurboTax Web so I can complete a form using IE and not having to install FoxFire. Buggy IEAnonymous
February 04, 2007
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February 06, 2007
Glad to hear good news, good luck!Anonymous
February 06, 2007
I'm glad someone thought of doing this.Anonymous
February 07, 2007
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February 08, 2007
Well, color me jealous... They couldn't have picked a better person for the job, though I think they should have given me a shot for a while, first.Anonymous
February 08, 2007
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February 09, 2007
I hope you can help fix IE's standards support. Perhaps it would be easier if you used the Gecko rendering engine?? What's the point in working on Trident when there's a perfectly good rendering engine that's open source?Anonymous
February 11, 2007
[quote]What's the point in working on Trident when there's a perfectly good rendering engine that's open source?[/quote] That it requires the software to use the GPL licensing for instance. That license gives all kinds of obligations that MS might not want for it's software. Also as a company leading in producing commercial software it isn't a good idea to let your software be to dependant on third party softwaredevelopment.Anonymous
February 11, 2007
hAl, there's no requirement to use GPL with gecko. Quoth mozilla.org; > All of the code which makes up the core Mozilla products is licensed under a MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license > or a licence compatible with all three of those (e.g. the BSD licence). Otherwise your points are valid.Anonymous
February 11, 2007
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February 12, 2007
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February 13, 2007
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March 14, 2007
Web 标准的布道者 Molly 正式加入微软的 IE team，这里是她在 IEBlog 上发表的 announcement。节选部分如下：Anonymous
August 13, 2007
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June 01, 2008
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June 05, 2008
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