David, Herman and Mighty Mouse vs. Goliath

October 10, 2003 8:11 AM

Developers gripe about IE standards inaction "Seeking to goad Microsoft into action, digital document giant Adobe Systems last week unveiled a deal to bolster support for CSS in its GoLive Web authoring tool with technology from tiny Web browser maker Opera Software..." ( via Stopdesign )
posted by poopy (17 comments total)

They've obviously mistaken MS for someone who gives a shit.
posted by tommasz at 8:19 AM on October 10, 2003

Currently reading:
"designing with web standards" by Zeldman

Personal gripes about IE:
- bad PNG support
- bad CSS support
- no plans to support SVG, except via Adobes plug-in
- no real XHTML support

Actually, as a hard-core geek developer (not designer), I really hate mucking with Web interfaces - main reason why I do not run a blog (or hell even a company website) - however now that Plone lets me get something up that is easy on the eyes, usable and conforms to Web standards without having to muck with XHTML/CSS/PNG overly much I am finally building something.
posted by jkaczor at 8:20 AM on October 10, 2003

As a hard-core geek developer I love web interfaces and have built tons of my own to keep track of CDs, books, movies, etc. What's your beef?
posted by xmutex at 8:35 AM on October 10, 2003

If Adobe wants to goad Microsoft let them port Photoshop to Linux. That should do the job.
posted by jfuller at 9:04 AM on October 10, 2003

Adobe could even do better, they make it so that if you ever bought a copy of anything by Adobe, Opera (ad-free version) would be free. Gotta get it out there, provide alternatives.
posted by panopticon at 9:34 AM on October 10, 2003

Forget Opera.

How about Mozilla Firebird?

2/3rds less fat than the old Mozilla. It's a lean, mean, standards-compliant machine.

First brower to really give IE a run for it's money in a while. And it's free with no ads.
posted by hipnerd at 10:25 AM on October 10, 2003

>What's your beef?

I like graphical user interfaces - I like to use the power of my PC locally, not be spoon fed everything via remote server.

Let me know when you use a web-based word-processor, a web-based IDE, a web-based office suite every day all day without cringing.

Your examples cry out for a local program, something that may integrate with the web, but ultimately something that could take better advantage of your host operating system. If I want to keep track of things, I may want drag'n'drop, I may want to have different sorts,filters & views - I may want to import from other applications. Sure, XML & XSLT may allow you to do this, but 'cmon it is painful, time-consuming and headache generating.
posted by jkaczor at 11:47 AM on October 10, 2003

I don't know if it's strictly standards-compliant,
but SlimBrowser has long been my chosen web client.
posted by troybob at 12:04 PM on October 10, 2003

" They've obviously mistaken MS for someone who gives a shit.
posted by tommasz"

Haha! Great post! And true!

Welocme to the bizarro world of multinational monopolistic corporations where governments are bought and paid for with YOUR money!

Whiney proles! Thank Dear Leader that the chocolate rations have been increased!
posted by nofundy at 12:35 PM on October 10, 2003

People who use IE deserve what they get - whining to MS is like making a deal with the devil, then complaining that you got screwed.

On preview: The spellchecker suggest "die" as replacement for "IE" - how appropriate.
posted by spazzm at 2:34 PM on October 10, 2003

IE is the de facto standard. When 90+% of PCs ship with IE as the default browser the rest of us will have to suck it up and work around IEs bugs.

I wish Adobe and Macromedia's inclusion of Opera would make a difference in this battle. But we're talking about Microsoft.

What would cause Microsoft to give a shit about the w3c standards would be if Google, Yahoo, Amazon, ESPN and all of the other really high traffic sites would not work with IE.
posted by birdherder at 3:20 PM on October 10, 2003

really high traffic sites would not work with IE

That wouldn't really be standards-compliant, would it? Assuming you feed IE 6 the proper DOCTYPE, it plays fairly nice with standards. There's plenty of stuff it still doesn't support (universal min-width/height would be a good start), but I can't imagine a 100% standards-compliant site that did not render in usable fashion in IE6. Not without doing more work than it would take to be cross-browser compatible.
posted by yerfatma at 3:54 PM on October 10, 2003

There should not be, nor should there ever have been, any such concept as "cross-browser compatible." To use that phrase is to admit that there is a possibility things could be otherwise -- and things should never have been otherwise.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:37 PM on October 10, 2003

How about Mozilla Firebird?

Somehow, I have a hard time seeing a company like Adobe working with the Mozilla Project. I'm sure they are much more comfortable dealing with a corporate-owned browser.

Another point about MSIE: As Peter-Paul Koch has pointed out, it may be that Microsoft is not simply unwilling but unable to fix the bugs in it's MSIE browser -- that perhaps the code base is so hoary that it would be easier to start from scratch. Any C++ programmers out there want to comment on this possibility?
posted by moonbiter at 5:41 PM on October 10, 2003

It's unlikely. No matter how hoary a codebase, it can always be refactored. It's much more likely that MS has correctly identified IE as a spoiler product, that makes no money, and is now in minimal maintenance more. Much like Outlook Express.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 7:16 PM on October 10, 2003

So, they won the "browser war", and now decide that once they are there, that it really wasn't worth it.....
posted by Eekacat at 9:25 PM on October 10, 2003

For the first time, my latest design for my web flog looks more like I had intended in Moz/Firebird than it does in IE (and no it doesn't validate worth a damn, so I am talking out my ass to some extent, I am aware).

Even though I love MyIE2, an IEcore-wrapper I use as my primary browser, the day grows closer when I will make the switch....
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:19 PM on October 10, 2003