CSS and why I hate Microsoft

it doesn't display the documents correctly. And the reason it doesn't display it correctly it NOT because of a software bug microsoft is unaware of, or because the webpage uses non-standard or non-valid code. rather, it is because microsoft has gone out of its way to prevent the document from displaying correctly. This hinders on the user's ability to "access and view [the] HTML document" - sometimes preventing them from viewing it at all.

i'm gonna be a stubborn ass on this one, sorry :p
 
Thank The Cheese said:
IMO their 'job' in the context of IE is to provide a web browser. The definition of a web browser is "software that allows a user to access and view HTML document" (University of Guelph definition).

If MS is actively refusing to update their software to support components used by that HTML document, that contradicts the very definition of a web browser. Thus, they are not doing their job.

It's like an automotive company creating a car with no steering wheel.
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Point taken, but you took my comment out of context. I was making the point that when a company does not offer products that people want, they won't use their products, so long as better ones exist, and they know about them. Most Windows users don't know that there is another browser other than IE, and that's the problem. It's also why MS has not bothered to support certain things in their product. They are doing what they think people want. They happen to be wrong, is all. :D
 
yeah, it annoys me how many ppl don't understand that there are alternatives to IE.

Thendis' story about his mother thinking the entire Internet was installed with Explorer is a good example of how the average non-tech person thinks.

*sigh*

I guess we're talking about corporate responsibility more than anything else.
 
Then again, there's a fine line between things. Often. For example: Standards are good. They enable a common ground. But without moving off of old paths, there's no evolution. And why leave all evolution to standards organisations. So you develop something new. It's good. You want to push it towards a standard. It doesn't get accepted. Now what? Kill the product or let it live and thrive?
I'm personally not a fan of Flash-based sites, but without Macromedia, vector content would maybe never (or much later) have found its way into webpages.

Don't get me wrong: I agree that it would be better for the world if Microsoft _had_ that corporate responsibility thing. The way they entered this market (web browsers) however, it wasn't really expected, was it. Then again, at the time, IE 5 for the Mac was the most standards compatible browser ever. And stayed so for quite some time. That it was also a bridge to those pages that could only be viewed in IE for the PC before is also something that the Mac crowd actually welcomed.

I still think that as a web developer you just don't have much choice. You either close out a lot of people or have to base your work on older standards that are supported by more than 90 percent of active browsers. (Although there probably _are_ still people using Netscape 4.78 on Macs running OS 9 - or [gasp!] Mac OS 8.61...)
 
fryke said:
Then again, there's a fine line between things. Often. For example: Standards are good. They enable a common ground. But without moving off of old paths, there's no evolution. And why leave all evolution to standards organisations. So you develop something new. It's good. You want to push it towards a standard. It doesn't get accepted. Now what? Kill the product or let it live and thrive?
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This is a good point if I am interpreting it correctly.

Look at JavaScript for example. IE has a lot of functions/objects that no other browsers support, and it has set some standards that other web browsers have adopted, XMLHttpRequest for example.

A lot of the problems we non IE people have with JavaScript sites we can't blame on Microsoft, because most of their JavaScript implemention follows web standards, they just have some extra functions they thought would be cool that they put into their browser. We really have to blame the web designers that used those features for our issues. A lot of times there are ways to do the same thing that just take a little more work with standard code.

Now once we get into css thing, I don't see a whole lot of innovation on MS's part there, they just missed the mark, worse than most browsers. Not a whole lot of browsers complete the Acid2 test succesfully, including Firefox which just moved to v1.5. That said Firefox is a lot closer than IE.
 
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