Re: CSS is doomed (10 years per version ?!?)

Kris@meridian-ds.com wrote:
> Orion Adrian,
> 
> [...] Specifically, MS has refused to comply with any
> standard they didn't invent.  This is painfully obvious in IE, especially
> concerning CSS.  Just because MS hasn't done it does not doom the product
> in question. [...]

You cannot accurately predict the future based on history. MS might 
have ignored many standards in the past but you cannot really say 
that they have ignored all standards and much less that they will do 
so in the future. In contrary, MS as a company has displayed 
surprising agility changing directions once it has understood that 
its current strategy would be an error. Whitness the fact that MS 
first thought that this "Internet" thing wouldn't last and intranets 
build on MS technology would instead take its place. Later they 
designed to build IE and the rest is history...

> MS Obviously doesn't care about standards at all.  I say this because MS
> publically had no plans to update IE at all until Firefox started kicking
> their pants in the new "browser war".  And the only reason that IE7 might
> support the standards is because a serious % of users are using Firefox for
> specifically that reason (not to mention that it blocks the whole Spyware
> issue)... with that in mind, I submit to you that we'll be lucky to see any
> CSS implementation over what which we've got currently.  Is that CSS's
> fault?  No it's MicroSoft's, and until they're willing to actually adhere
> to the standard (which they'll never be) IE cannot be our litmus test.

Think how quickly the web changed from NS Navigator only sites to 
MSIE only sites. The real issue was, IMHO, that content authors / 
web designers / web developers viewed MSIE as better browser. 
Mozilla/Firefox now has DOM Inspector, View Selection Source, Live 
HTTP Headers and many other pieces that developers find interesting 
and helpful and IE has none of those.

Once the authors change to Mozilla/Firefox it's only matter of time 
until a big percentage of users are using Mozilla/Firefox too. This 
is because I believe that these authors are NOT going to change 
their habits and will test with only ONE browser in the future, too. 
And the browser they test with is the browser they use. And users 
have to use the same browser to access the content the way the 
"developer" designed.

A browser without a content to browse has no use.

-- 
Mikko

Received on Friday, 1 July 2005 08:58:09 UTC