Mad Web Skills

In browser news, we’ve recently seen the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, as well as the surprising (for me anyway) Google Chrome.

First, IE8B2. I’ve been playing with the new beta on and off over the last couple of days, and I can honestly say it’s actually pretty good. I would say that this release has more right to call itself a beta than its predecessor. I’d always felt that Beta 1 was of “Alpha” quality at best, if not “Technology Preview” standards. There’s still a-ways to go, and I won’t be changing my default browser to IE any time soon, but I believe that IE8 can only do good in this world. (Please don’t prove me wrong, Microsoft!)

Now, the infamous GBrowser has been predicted for years, but finally, and without warning, it’s here. Google Chrome for Windows (with the Mac version on the way) was announced via Scott McCloud comic yesterday. I downloaded it this morning, had a bit of a play and found it to be pretty damn good for a first release. It reacts very swiftly, although Firefox is also pretty quick in vanilla, no-addons mode. The interface is nice and simple, certainly better than IE7+, although it could do with a Firefox-like extensions/add-ons API. In fact, that’s about all that’s stopping me from switching right now. There are just too many awesome add-ons for Firefox that I can not do without. The Webkit rendering engine, which admittedly I’m not too familiar with, is quite good although I’ve come across the odd weird CSS glitch when viewing some my sites, but I think it’s more due to my inexperience with Webkit’s intricacies.

A nice surprise just hit my feed reader. Microsoft has just released the Windows Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit, a micro-site containing download links for IE8 beta 1 as well as useful information for web developers.

I’m not sure, but I think I’m actually getting really excited about this release. While I haven’t installed the beta yet (I’m working on something at the moment, and I know that it’s going to want to make me restart Windows, and that would totally kill me groove ), the features listed on the site look great. I’m especially looking forward to experimenting with the new Ajax navigation options which enables the back/forward buttons through use of the window.location.hash (as I’d always thought it should).

Firefox is still my browser of choice, however Firefox’s stupid crashes, crappy scrolling performance (especially on pages with lots of Flash) and gargantuan memory consumption (eg. this current firefox.exe process is taking up over 400MB) is starting to annoy me. If IE8 had a flexible addon/extension api, I think there would be a tougher decision to be made.

For those who haven’t been following the recent drama regarding the proposed web standards behaviour in IE8, here’s a re-cap:

• Microsoft announces that IE8 can render the ACID2 test perfectly in IE8. Web devs get excited.
• In the name of “not breaking the web” (read: “not pissing off corporate clients that have spent many thousands of dollars on Microsoft CMS, Sharepoint, .NET controls and other web interfaces”) Microsoft announce a version targeting mechanism that allows web pages to be rendered using the IE version of choice. So far so good, however, by default, IE8 will render nearly all web pages exactly the same as if it were IE7. Standards-savvy developers would have to opt-in to IE8′s standards rendering engine.
• The web development community splits into two; those that believe the default behaviour is wrong and goes against the very nature of building valid, forwards-compatible websites; and those who believe it is in the best interest of the internets, protecting Microsoft’s partners who use thier dodgy web technologies and the vast majority of web designers who still use invalid markup, spacer gifs, layout tables and blink tags.

Now, I fit somewhere in the middle. I believed the default behaviour is wrong, but honestly thought it was not big deal. I understood that Microsoft was protecting their own interests. We’ve been accomodating IE since the dawn of time, so why stop now.

Anyway, none of that matters any more.

In Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles and IE8 on the IEBlog, IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch has announced:

In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting “Standards” mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach described here).

I actually thought it was kind of silly that folks like Jeremy Keith were jumping up and down about the default behaviour, like they actually thought it was going to do anything about the situation. Trying to pressure Microsoft into doing anything would be like trying to convince an elephant to walk through a doorway. It just doesnt fit.

So, colour me flabbergasted. Kudos to Jeremy and others like him for championing for the cause rather than (like myself) be prepared to just grin and bear it. Also big snaps for Microsoft and the IE Team for actually listening to the developer community and making the right decision.