Recently, I decided that it would be worth while for me to create a seperate blog from Net Twits where I can post items related to more general events, web development and other things. Net Twits will remain, and I will continue to post to it, however it will be entirely dedicated to Twits!
So, for my first post to this new blog, I’m happy to report that the construction of my website is coming along nicely. The stylesheet is taking longer than I would hope to create, however I’ve just been so busy with other jobs, such as rebuilding The Farmshed website. That’s the company I work for — the current site is quite awful, but after the rebuild, due for completion in October, it will, hopefully, be standards compliant and should at least validate.
Other than work, I’ve been keeping up with the latest developments with the WHATWG (as some would prefer to call a Task Force because of the better acronym: WHATTF), though I’m still somewhat undecided as to whether this is a good thing for the web. One thing I’m sure about is that I most certainly do not agree with Ian Hickson (aka. Hixie) that new markup languages should be backwards compatible with IE, but as far as Hixie is concerned, that’s very important for any new language to at least stand a chance of being successful.
I really wish we didn’t have to be compatible with IE. I just see lots of evidence that we do. (The only new Web technologies that have been widely used in the last six years or so are those that work in IE: the parts of CSS2 that are used; Flash, not SVG; HTML4, not XHTML; etc.)
Why don’t you think compatibility with IE is needed?
Well Hixie, it’s complicated. One thing which I know your aware of is that Internet Explorer is the only user agent that is seriously holding back the development of the web, as noted in your recent interview with Digital Web.
http://digital-web.com/articles/ian_hickson/
“Microsoft is dragging the entire industry back by forcing everyone to have to write to a lowest common denominator that is years out of date.”
So, by developing a standard that is backwards compatible with IE, is essentially the same as developing a for the lowest common denominator, which seems like a big step backwards that also goes against the W3C’s motto:
“Leading the Web to Its Full Potential…”
ie. How can we possibly lead the web to it’s full potential by developing specs, which due to their backwards compatibility constraints, automatically have their potential seriously limited.
For these reasons:
1. Standards Compliance
2. Security Holes, and
3. The fact that IE hass has essentially ceased development.
I prefer to treat IE as an obsolete browser, and (just like Netscape 4) serve it unstyled content. However, it really is a Catch-22 situation. Companies won’t allow us to do that while IE remains the market leader, yet IE user’s won’t have a reason to upgrade as long as websites continue to work for them.
However, I figure enough companies already force their users to install Flash, so how would be any different from them recomending they upgrade their browser?
I think it would be more productive if there were a world wide campaign to get users to switch to Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any other standards compliant browser. I realise it would be both difficult and expensive, but if it meant the web really could start to reach its full potential, I’m sure there would be lots of support. If all of us, including individuals and organisations, worked together, with each contributing as much as they could; such a campaign could just be successful.
No matter how big or rich Microsoft is, they can’t compete with the power of many working together for a good cause.