Coming Soon ... get your site ready today
-
Had an email waiting for me this morning ... from Microsoft. It announced the soon to be launced Internet Explorer 8 and how I need to ensure that my site will still be accessable by those that will choose to use IE8. My question to this community is this ... Is this common practice for microsoft to scare developers into downloading and using the latest and greatest browser ... and is this how Microsoft always reports such high initial figures for downloads of thier new browsers? (Ok that's two questions ... tried to make it one ... ) Now I am not a web developer, but I would be very offended at this kind of stratedgy. It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now. I would really like to know what others think of this.
pdelayCA wrote:
It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now.
But it's free :) I get what you mean though... I think they may have been up against a rock and a hard place though when you think about it. Do nothing and allow sites to start to fail or be a bit proactive and scare a bunch of developers that have not taken the time to watch the browser development cycle a bit. People complain that IE has not been very standards complaint but then as things change that means that things that worked before may break as the system gets 'fixed'. Not that I am saying that it IS getting better, I have not tried IE8 yet so I can't comment on that, and I am sure there are those out there that will indicate that nothing MS does will ever be 'good' yadda yadda yadda...
-
Had an email waiting for me this morning ... from Microsoft. It announced the soon to be launced Internet Explorer 8 and how I need to ensure that my site will still be accessable by those that will choose to use IE8. My question to this community is this ... Is this common practice for microsoft to scare developers into downloading and using the latest and greatest browser ... and is this how Microsoft always reports such high initial figures for downloads of thier new browsers? (Ok that's two questions ... tried to make it one ... ) Now I am not a web developer, but I would be very offended at this kind of stratedgy. It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now. I would really like to know what others think of this.
pdelayCA wrote:
It's too much like a car salesman
Welcome to the software industry. If you think that's annoying get some Oracle reps in a room.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
-
pdelayCA wrote:
It's too much like a car salesman
Welcome to the software industry. If you think that's annoying get some Oracle reps in a room.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
-
pdelayCA wrote:
It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now.
But it's free :) I get what you mean though... I think they may have been up against a rock and a hard place though when you think about it. Do nothing and allow sites to start to fail or be a bit proactive and scare a bunch of developers that have not taken the time to watch the browser development cycle a bit. People complain that IE has not been very standards complaint but then as things change that means that things that worked before may break as the system gets 'fixed'. Not that I am saying that it IS getting better, I have not tried IE8 yet so I can't comment on that, and I am sure there are those out there that will indicate that nothing MS does will ever be 'good' yadda yadda yadda...
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell. If I made a site that was viewable/usable in IE7 I would expect it to be still viewable/usable in IE8. I can see your point about trying to fix the standards side of it, and I do understand that not all web developers implement the same standards the same way, but I was offended by the over all tone of the email I received from Microsoft. I can just imagine the results if I sent a similar letter out to my customers. ... hmmmmmm just maybe they have something there!
-
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell. If I made a site that was viewable/usable in IE7 I would expect it to be still viewable/usable in IE8. I can see your point about trying to fix the standards side of it, and I do understand that not all web developers implement the same standards the same way, but I was offended by the over all tone of the email I received from Microsoft. I can just imagine the results if I sent a similar letter out to my customers. ... hmmmmmm just maybe they have something there!
If you site does rely on a bug/nonstandard compliant feature you can add a snip of HTML to tell IE8 to render it using IE7 quirks mode. The default has to be on IE8 mode though, or it becomes far to easy to apathy away from ever doing any sort of update to fix the problems.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
-
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell. If I made a site that was viewable/usable in IE7 I would expect it to be still viewable/usable in IE8. I can see your point about trying to fix the standards side of it, and I do understand that not all web developers implement the same standards the same way, but I was offended by the over all tone of the email I received from Microsoft. I can just imagine the results if I sent a similar letter out to my customers. ... hmmmmmm just maybe they have something there!
pdelayCA wrote:
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell.
Things aren't the same in the browser world. The problem is that there are a very strict set of HTML/XHTML standards. But the browsers don't necessarily implement those standards correctly, and developers don't necessarily follow the standards exactly. Browsers will attempt to display a page, even if the code isn't correct. It's a complex problem. Joel Spolsky has a good article (and strange metaphor) on the subject here[^] There are 2 general camps. The purists who say "make a new browser 100% standards compliant even if it breaks existing pages" and the compatibility-ists who say "make a new browser work 100% with existing web pages, even if the web pages aren't standards compliant". Trouble is, both cause problems. The purist approach would lead to loads of broken web pages. The compatibility approach leads to non-standards compliant browsers, and each browser ends up handling things differently, and it quickly gets complex for developers to keep up with all the different versions. In reality, browser developers end up sitting somewhere between the two. They maintain compatibility as much as possible, but also improve standards compliance as much as possible.
Simon
-
Had an email waiting for me this morning ... from Microsoft. It announced the soon to be launced Internet Explorer 8 and how I need to ensure that my site will still be accessable by those that will choose to use IE8. My question to this community is this ... Is this common practice for microsoft to scare developers into downloading and using the latest and greatest browser ... and is this how Microsoft always reports such high initial figures for downloads of thier new browsers? (Ok that's two questions ... tried to make it one ... ) Now I am not a web developer, but I would be very offended at this kind of stratedgy. It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now. I would really like to know what others think of this.
-
Had an email waiting for me this morning ... from Microsoft. It announced the soon to be launced Internet Explorer 8 and how I need to ensure that my site will still be accessable by those that will choose to use IE8. My question to this community is this ... Is this common practice for microsoft to scare developers into downloading and using the latest and greatest browser ... and is this how Microsoft always reports such high initial figures for downloads of thier new browsers? (Ok that's two questions ... tried to make it one ... ) Now I am not a web developer, but I would be very offended at this kind of stratedgy. It's too much like a car salesman or any other kind of salesperson trying to persuade me into buying right now. I would really like to know what others think of this.
What's the percentage of software developers vs. the percentage of teenage kids using reading Facebook each night? Very small. Hassling developers won't get your browser readership up high. But it will help ensure that people who try to view your site in IE won't ditch IE and move to FireFox if your site doesn't work in IE.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
-
pdelayCA wrote:
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell.
Things aren't the same in the browser world. The problem is that there are a very strict set of HTML/XHTML standards. But the browsers don't necessarily implement those standards correctly, and developers don't necessarily follow the standards exactly. Browsers will attempt to display a page, even if the code isn't correct. It's a complex problem. Joel Spolsky has a good article (and strange metaphor) on the subject here[^] There are 2 general camps. The purists who say "make a new browser 100% standards compliant even if it breaks existing pages" and the compatibility-ists who say "make a new browser work 100% with existing web pages, even if the web pages aren't standards compliant". Trouble is, both cause problems. The purist approach would lead to loads of broken web pages. The compatibility approach leads to non-standards compliant browsers, and each browser ends up handling things differently, and it quickly gets complex for developers to keep up with all the different versions. In reality, browser developers end up sitting somewhere between the two. They maintain compatibility as much as possible, but also improve standards compliance as much as possible.
Simon
I do understand that there is a huge difference between web development and app development (and I really do not envy web developers at all ... I know they have a tougher time trying to make wider audience happy ... but that's another post). I am just trying to understand how web developers and browser makers have come to this situation, and since my life revolves around the app dev side of life, I was trying to put it into a perspecitve that I can relate to. BTW, thanks for the insight ... maybe there is a need for a browser plugin that can interpret non standard sites (allowing browsers to be developed towards standards) and/or website interpreter module that can display sites the same regardless of browser or browser version. Anyway, thank you ... I do understand it a little better now.
-
What's the percentage of software developers vs. the percentage of teenage kids using reading Facebook each night? Very small. Hassling developers won't get your browser readership up high. But it will help ensure that people who try to view your site in IE won't ditch IE and move to FireFox if your site doesn't work in IE.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Well Said!!! Not being a web developer, I have never really concerned myself with the background operation of viewing a web page. If I try to view something over the internet and it doesn't look right or doesn't work at all, I just move on, never to visit that site again. This problem between browsers and web development has been around too long for it to still be in the state it's in.
-
pdelayCA wrote:
But as an application developer, when I make an upgrade to my product I make every effort to make sure that what I change is downwardly compatible. After all I want my customers to buy my new stuff, but if they have to change their work to fit my product there is no sell.
Things aren't the same in the browser world. The problem is that there are a very strict set of HTML/XHTML standards. But the browsers don't necessarily implement those standards correctly, and developers don't necessarily follow the standards exactly. Browsers will attempt to display a page, even if the code isn't correct. It's a complex problem. Joel Spolsky has a good article (and strange metaphor) on the subject here[^] There are 2 general camps. The purists who say "make a new browser 100% standards compliant even if it breaks existing pages" and the compatibility-ists who say "make a new browser work 100% with existing web pages, even if the web pages aren't standards compliant". Trouble is, both cause problems. The purist approach would lead to loads of broken web pages. The compatibility approach leads to non-standards compliant browsers, and each browser ends up handling things differently, and it quickly gets complex for developers to keep up with all the different versions. In reality, browser developers end up sitting somewhere between the two. They maintain compatibility as much as possible, but also improve standards compliance as much as possible.
Simon
Simon Stevens wrote:
There are 2 general camps
And I think that this is the stuff that breeds the virtual environments like Flash and Silverlight. Complete independence of the browser rendering engine all together. In reality, it is the only way I see of 'fixing' this. Business means that you try to gain an advantage over your competition and the browser compatibility issues point to this in a way. MS has done some things its own way to be able to accomplish some things the way it wanted to because it saw the browser as an application platform while the others really stuck to the mindset that a browser is ONLY about the standard rendering of HTML tags and anything else is a side issue.