Re: Standards

I like that point of view Richard


I think it is honest with "no axe to grind" sort of view point.
Everyone seems to knock MS for a list of reasons a mile long (including 
myself who has made fun of MS from time to time)


But I think MS has done alot for the industry even though it has held the 
industry back a bit in some areas with its
bully tactics

Whe I mena it has done a lot of the industry i mean with VB, it has allowed 
alot of people, to be build programs with ease,
and now with ASP.NET 2.0 web developers will be able to build web 
applications in .net to xhtml 1.1 standards

also everyone seems to complain about winXP and how it falls over all the 
time, my version has never fallen over, which i find funny...

I think that MS are atleast trying to fix and improve their softwaver which 
is better then some developers eg Macromedia

just my view point

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Beton, Richard" <richard.beton@roke.co.uk>
To: <www-validator@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: Standards


>
> Tim Jackson wrote:
>
>> <snipped>
>>
>>As a general rule, Mozilla and Opera are by far the best at rendering
>>things according to standards. They are both pretty good. IE sucks
>>extremely badly and has some huge bugs which only serve to demonstrate the
>>utter incompetence and ignorance of the people who developed it. Just to
>>make life even harder for you, the ways in which it sucks vary
>>considerably between versions and even between platforms (IE5 on Mac is
>>substantially different to IE5 on Windows, for example. In fact, they're
>>pretty much different browsers.)
>>
> <snipped>
>
> I find myself surprised that I am inclined to defend Microsoft (well parts 
> of that large organisation at least, and only to a limited extent).  It 
> seems to me the MS problem is cultural and commercial rather than 
> technical.  It's a bit rich to label them as technically incompetent, when 
> clearly /some/ things they do suggest evidence to the contrary.
> My reading of the situation is this: IE6 implements a particular set of 
> features and MS consider it adequate for many of their customers.  They 
> take this further and don't spend the money fixing the problems (viz web 
> standards) because they don't see that as giving them a pay-back.  Worse, 
> better standards compliance probably erodes the IE6 near-monopoly.  That 
> would be commercially unwise, from their point of view.
>
> So please don't describe MS as incompetent. Arrogant maybe.  And very very 
> frustrating for the rest of us, especially anyone like myself who thinks 
> that web standards are a Good Thing.
>
> Here's something to illustrate this.  I once spoke to a MS CTO, someone 
> responsible for FrontPage development.  I asked him why, out of the box, 
> FP has all the non-standard options enabled.  Why doesn't it generate 
> web-standards-compliant code by default, with options for others to depart 
> from this if they see fit.  His answer was illuminating but annoying: FP 
> does what it does because it is bought by large corporate buyers who want 
> it this way.  His answer didn't mention that this behaviour also serves to 
> promote IE over other browsers, but he wouldn't admit that, would he?
> It's about customer lock-in.  Which is why the rest of us have a duty to 
> advocate [web] standards for the benefit of all customers who shouldn't be 
> locked in (monopolies are not good for customers).  Likewise, the growth 
> of competing products (for examples, Mozilla Firefox and Linux) will give 
> MS cause to treat the standards more seriously.
>
> My own personal view.
> Rick
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Visit our website at www.roke.co.uk
>
> Roke Manor Research Ltd, Roke Manor, Romsey, Hampshire SO51 0ZN, UK.
>
> The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is 
> confidential to
> Roke Manor Research Ltd and must not be passed to any third party without
> permission. This communication is for information only and shall not 
> create or
> change any contractual relationship.
>
>

Received on Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:55:12 UTC