That Red-headed Monster Next to You? Yeah, that's Anger.
I’ve just paged through the comments on Aaron and Eric’s articles on version targeting, and I’m absolutely amazed at the amount of anger and frustration conveyed at the mere suggestion of this change.
The comments thus far are varied and range from the helpful and specific (“I understand, but…”) at the top end, down to the baffling and unfounded (“What a load of … How much did you get paid for bedding with Microsoft?”) at the bottom. Yet, despite what we think, an opinion is an opinion and editorially it has to be taken into consideration regardless of what the editorial staff personally thinks.
Yet, when left alone with my own thoughts, I just wish that the initial response to new ideas was not so entirely hostile. Is it okay to suggest change? Is it okay to think outside of the four walls of our cotton-lined cubicles and try to see what it is we are railing against? Can we step outside of our meta tags and hex values for a moment? Okay, enough of that.
Change is good. Say it with me. Change is good. You may not like it, you may not understand it, but put down the hostility for one minute and ADD your voice to the discussion. Contribute your positive, constructive criticisms. If you have problems or concerns, great. Let them be voiced and a solution will hopefully be addressed. Perhaps you will be the one to come up with the solution. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but taking in all of the commentary and mulling it over might lead to the answer in the next week, month or (given the current state of decision making in the web standards community) year. But don’t shout into the Abyss only to hear the echo of your own voice. It doesn’t help in the long run.
I’ve read the original articles, I’ve read the commentary on Wasp, on Snook, on adactio and a variety of other sites that have chimed in, and I’m still not sure what I think about version targeting. But what I do know is that all the positive change we have seen in this field has come not from one, mass, collective decision to move in a singular, unified direction. If that were the case we wouldn’t be here talking about how to enlighten people about web standards. There would be no need. No, change has come from a few individuals who have proposed new ideas (that were generally not well accepted) and fought, kicking and screaming to get us to where we are today. That is change, plain and simple.
And yet, I cannot help but wonder whether this method would have gotten the torch treatment if the word “Microsoft” had not been in the equation?
Thank you. It’s no exaggeration to say that this post restored some of my faith in the community.
Clearly among the more thoughtful posts on the topic. I agree with Eric’s sentiments.
“And yet, I cannot help but wonder whether this method would have gotten the torch treatment if the word “Microsoft” had not been in the equation?”
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).
To some extent I think the frustration is not about change, but the lack of change. Right now the status quo is that web developers need to know several sets of html: what is a specified standard, what the standards compliant browsers implement, what works in IE7, and what works in IE6. Far from changing anything, this proposal locks that in. Instead of seeing a future in which browsers drift towards a common center, we now see a future that this is indefinitely locked in.
The vitriol comes from not only a dislike of Microsoft and their browser record, but also from fear and uncertainty. The fear is that MS’s near-monopoly in browsers, combined with version-targeting’s bias towards backwards-compatibility will halt progress.
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.
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“And yet, I cannot help but wonder whether this method would have gotten the torch treatment if the word “Microsoft” had not been in the equation?”
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.
I agree with Rob (#6), this is an issue that only affects Microsoft really, I don’t see the need for other browsers to do something similar. And if they don’t do it then it does kind of make IE seem potentially more fussy and fiddly to support properly.
Wouldn’t it make sense to, as a previous commenter suggested, lock in a page to a specific browser version, for example: