History of CSS support in IE

I posted this comment on Slashdot on the history of CSS support in IE:
"Actually, after reading about it and thinking about it for a while,  I 
think the full story with CSS was something like this: IE3 rushed to 
implement parts of CSS1. IE4 rushed to implement parts of CSS2. Note that both was released before the corresponding CSS level became a recommendation at W3C,
 and the final recommendation ended up being different from what IE 
implemented (for example, the box model). For IE 5.x, MS decided to 
force on adding proprietary features, not on increasing compliance, and 
WaSP complained about it. IE 6 introduced DOCTYPE switching, and 
achieved full compliance of CSS1 in the standard mode. Then IE stagnated
 for 5 years, and in the meantime people tried to use CSS2 and found the
 bugs introduced when IE4 rushed to implement CSS2 (and some other bugs)
 and IE6 was despised as not "standard-compliant". IE7 tried to fix some
 of the bugs in it's "standards" mode, but by then some sites were 
depending on the CSS bugs in IE6. IE8 had to introduce another 
"standards" mode, and X-UA-Compatible and "Compatiblity View" to switch 
between the "standards" modes.

Yuhong Bao

Received on Saturday, 29 January 2011 05:54:56 UTC