Nice Info

Uh, it is because of Microsoft that there is any such method at all. A lot of people seem to like to forget, that half the problems on the web were caused directly by Microsoft. If it weren’t for MS/IE, there would be no “quirks mode”, there would be no required doctype, there would be no need for tens or hundreds of web sites to fix IE, but there WOULD be a Netscape.

But I don’t think the fear is entirely justified.

1. This does represent progress, if not exactly in the way we anticipated. IE 7 behaviour is superior to IE 6, and the switch only takes effect when IE 8 becomes available, which is promised to be better yet. I’d rather add a meta tag than screw around with all of the ridiculous CSS hacks.

2. This doesn’t affect future standards. HTML5 will render in IE 8’s full standards mode. If things go well, then we can start authoring HTML5 before IE 8 is even released.

3. MSIE’s monopoly may be waning. Normal people are starting to use Firefox, and have even heard of Safari. Perhaps MSIE will become the niche browser for cubicles and intranets.

I think version targeting, if it is implemented as planned, represents the next transitional phase in standards adoption. There’s no way Microsoft will keep supporting multiple rendering engines forever. They will encourage developers to move on eventually, and phase out MSIE6/7 over several years, but there’s no way to predict exactly how that will happen.

Uncertainty remains. The traditional picture that browsers will just keep getting better until we are in a standards-everywhere Web is not as clear.

I don’t think the general response would have included as much anger if the suggestion came from someone other than Microsoft. But I *do* think that it would still be perceived as a bad idea. In general, I’d say the web developer community has been angry with Microsoft for years, so the initial reaction we’re seeing is based on a compounded anger. I’d expect the conversation to become more reasonable as the idea has a chance to sink in some but maybe I’m too optimistic. Personally, I like the idea of being able to ‘lock in’ to a particular browser version, but I think Microsoft’s approach is wrong (I shouldn’t need to “opt in” to future versions, rather, I should be able to “lock down” to a current version).