Why is that browser so different?

In fact, IE7 is a significant improvement, although it still has a ways to go. But in this and in other areas Microsoft has, I think, shown some good-faith effort to address the concerns of web designers, open source advocates, and compatibility issues. I won’t go so far as to say that the corporation is doing so out of the ‘goodness of its heart,’ but the fact that they are paying some attention to non-enterprise users is encouraging.

As an example, they give away the Visual Studio Express editions, which, although limited somewhat, are powerful and useful tools, especially for the price. Note also that they have hosted Terra Server for a number of years, which does not restrict the use of its images (which were obtained from government agencies, but served up at Microsoft’s expense to the best of my knowledge). They have also allowed significant access to the live local (virtual earth) api, and has not (so far as I know) clamped down on creative usage of the service, in contrast to Google (which is still viewed by many as the ‘good corporation’ in contrast to the ‘evil-incarnate Microsoft’).

My point is not to say that Microsoft is a warm, fuzzy uncle who is just completely misunderstood, but that we are often guilty of overlooking positive actions by people or groups we view in a negative light. I am guilty of such hypocisy myself, but I think we can all benefit from taking a step off the bandwagon and taking an unbiased appraisal of each new development – sometimes, we can be pleasantly surprised.

I wish to thank Eric for bringing IE improvements to my attention, and for reminding us that corporations do include regular people who genuinely care about what they do. And I would also say that when people such as Eric Meyers give credit where credit is due, this is likely to encourage more positive developments in the future. So, GO MICROSOFT!!! . . . and those who can’t see the logic in this perhaps don’t WANT positive change . . .

I am currently using firefox though it too hogs memory (I have used some tricks to scale its memory usage). But I was impressed with firefox every other way. It was smaller install,clean and I was happy as a web developer that it respects standards much better.

I am not sure whether firefox drove IE to fix its standards compliances issues. But if it has then kudos to Firefox. It has allowed the web to have a choice and allow bad kids like IE to grow up in a decent way.

I can identify with all the angst in the web development community for Microsoft though. It has been *five* years, after all, but bashing Microsoft is a complete waste of engery. Most people who indulge along those lines are thinking two-dimensionally, they blindly hate Microsoft and put little thought into all the beuracratic red tape and political battles that surely must go on internally there and the real people fighting those battles for the betterment of the web at large. It’s easier for these people to spam the IE Blog with “Firefox rulz, down with M$” than to actually form a deep coherent thought and consider how much effort the IE team has already made toward giving us something in the way of better standards support.. . er .. wait… it’s another blanket statement! .. the circle is complete… ah, what am I saying, who knows *what* they’re thinking!

Personally, I’m just thrilled that we’re *finally* getting a new Explorer and I can’t wait till IE6 has gone the way of the dodo.

“It”s great that there are developers on the IE team who care about web standards. But why does it surprise you that nobody wants to embrace Microsoft like a big cuddly teddy bear? “

It doesn”t. What surprises me is that so many people still can”t tell the difference between the two.

well, I guess you shouldn’t be surprised at all. People do have a tendency to oversimplify things so that they can understand the world around them. So it’s a natural thing for a user, who discovers that MS software cannot perform exactly the way they expect it to with little or no effort on their behalf (as seen in Star trek), to think of MS as an evil, orwellian, money-grabbing entity. Next logical step is to attribute these characteristics to anyone related to MS. It’s a very superficial point of view, but, hey, is that the mainstream in webland?
Having said that I still think that IE is by far inferior to its competitors, and the IE team has its share of responsibility for that (regardless of their bosses’ agenda).

I guess I should say that while I like the things said by the developers at Microsoft, I still am waiting to see this mystical MSIE 7 that will fix all of our problems so we all can skip merrily through the flowers, not a care in the world.

I digress.

I realize they are people too, and that they more than likely care about the same issues we do. However, once they enter the machine, it’s hard to differentiate them from the actions of their superiors unless you are staring them in the face.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if MSIE 7 fixes the long-standing problems in 6 or introduces a whole new set. As long as the developers are not just glad-handing the community as a way of keeping their sinking product afloat, then maybe there is hope.

Grudge aside, I was really, really glad to hear they had un-frozen the thing and were going to update it. I’m game for any improvements over no improvements at all. The IE user base is just too large to ignore after all and I can’t wait for v7 to seep into the higher percentages of user agent web statistics.

As is noted Eric exemplifies the professional attitude as a leader should. He is a virtual mentor to anyone who’s been pushing CSS for the past few years.

I’ll add that it isn’t fair to blame MS for everything because the web itself has grown faster than any standard could be ratified. It skipped HTML 2 entirely and hopped all over the place with third-party plug-ins and scripting technologies while we discovered what it could do. Now lessons have been learned and the needs are much clearer, and so we deal with the clean up while we build our latest web masterpiece. And though I agree with Eric that there is not a unified voice from the design community, there does seem to be a clear path to standards that wasn’t so clear a few years ago – and the IE team appears to know this.

Microsoft are a profit making organisation and therefore driven by money. Their ‘desire’ to implement web standards comes from the fact that this is where the future of development lies and therefore money. The fact that they have competitors delivering things that they are not and who can potentially lower their profits is a catalyst for their actions.

I have no idea what ‘WPF-driven enhanced advertising technology’ is – I suspect you are tring to blind me with your knowledge of this technology (or at least the terminology); but I’m certain that if they could be sure that custom would not be driven away to it’s competitors (on top of monetary considerations) then they would indeed be investing heavily in it over web standards.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, wore it threadbare, and repurposed it as a cleaning rag.

Pure chuffing genius :)

Irrespective of Micro’$'oft’s (sic) profit motivations, the intoduction of WPF, IE7, Visual Studio 2005 (& associated releases) all point towards a joined-up, developer focused set of production tools that enable web (and Windows) development to meet standards now and in the future from the small scale blogger up to the enterprise developer.

In all the projects that I have worked on (all in the UK) I have never encoutered any difficulties supporting standards, nor have I encountered any employer resistance to these development methodologies. Microsoft DO support standards and, in their latest batch of developer tools, show a clear commitment to them.

No I don’t work for Microsoft.

Yes I fully support Eric in his views. He has hit the nail right on the head and driven it home.

Perhaps it’s time for the Open Source crowd to stop flailing with their hammers (ok the analogy is getting a bit stretched!) and consider what Microsoft have accomplished. I have seen very little to compete in the enterprise and there is nothing that can be achieved with LAMP that .NET wont do.

IE7 is a massive step forward. Well done Eric for once again having the sense to see the situation for what it is.

Back in the good old days Netscape 4 used to be the most wretched browser to develop for; yet without Netscape we wouldn’t have Firefox. Where would the web be today if we all harboured grudges against software companies for one product that caused us grief?

Eric, all the flack you’ve copped over praising Microsoft’s efforts with IE7 is all nonsense. Good on you for continually speaking your mind in the face of such rubbish, and good on Microsoft for taking the steps to develop a better product. I’m not exactly a huge fan of Microsoft, but at least this is something they are doing right.

IE is mainly refered to as “the most popular browser”. It would be better to refer to IE as “the most used browser” in my eyes.

As the world consists of alot more users than designers, the designers should appreciate that IE gets their standards compatibility up from the mid 90′s.

You also have to think about WHY almost everyone uses IE. Firstly it comes pre-installed on almost every new computer. That’s Microsofts fault and not their IE-design team. Secondly there’s only a minority of users who cares what browser they’re using or even know there are more than one.

So, as long as computers comes with IE pre-installed, I’m pleased that they(the IE team) are working on it.

IE7 is far from perfect (negative margins on a element containt in a absolute positioned box makes a mess in IE7 to my surprise. Luckily I have found a work around that leaves IE5/Mac in the cold; but that’s OK. IE5/Mac is discontinued and with a little CSS hackery you get it running in IE5/Mac), but moving into the right direction.

The only thing we have to worry about is that some manager somewhere will decide ‘OK, now you’ve got an updated IE7, let’s focus on something else and take away time and money from the team’. That’s why I really dislike the company; it always seems to produce half-baked solutions and then tells us it is the sweetest bread on the market. They get away with it every time, so who can blame them for doing that? It’s us users in the end that seem to thing half-baked is the standard.