Jul
7
Why can’t I view Event Seek in Internet Explorer? What do you mean I have to download Firefox or Safari? Why don’t you just make it work in IE?
Such a simple question with a slightly more complicated answer.
A brief history of the web to explain what I’m talking about. When the web was created, only a few groups were using it and everyone had to agree on how the computers would talk to one another. They created a set of standards for the communication so data could be passed seamlessly. This simple conversation eventually began one of the most powerful and interesting groups around today - the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The W3C “develops interoperable technologies to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding.” If you take out all the fancy words, these guys basically create the standards that continue to make the web possible. One of the biggest tasks of the W3C is continuously updating the standards that make websites possible. These guys are responsible for HTML, XHTML, CSS and a host of other technologies that our browsers use to display webpages.
Basically this group gets together, creates a standard for how browsers should read the information underlying webpages and then advocates their changes to anyone who will listen. Browser builders like Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple then integrate the newest changes into their browsers. All the cool things that webpages can do now that they couldn’t do three years ago are all thanks to these guys.
Firefox and Safari are excellent about taking the standards suggestions from the W3C and implementing them into their browsers. This means that when you sit down to create a web page, as long as you follow the guidelines set forth by the W3C it will look and act beautifully in Firefox and Safari. Should make developing easy right? It does - once you know the language, you can make a browser do just about anything.
ENTER MICROSOFT.
Surprise, surprise, Internet Explorer does not play well with others. Microsoft chooses to follow the guidelines sometimes. And sometimes they choose not to. What does that mean? It means you have two languages - one for Firefox and Safari and a host of other browsers, and one for IE. Shouldn’t be too bad except that you only get to have one webpage. Try talking to a German and an Italian at the same time with the same words and having them both understand you and you’ll know what it is like making webpages on the Internet today!
Developers have resorted to creating what are called “IE hacks” that are little tricks that they use to make IE able to understand the language everyone else uses. While these can be useful, they are inconsistent and can generate problems for other browsers. Think of it like whispering to the Italian and hoping the German doesn’t hear and get confused.
If Microsoft’s browser is such a pain, why does everyone still use it? Why wouldn’t web users just complain and force Microsoft to switch?
It’s amazing how much dominance you can have when you pre-load your browser on 93% of the world’s computers (and people are lazy). Remember a few years ago when an anti-trust lawsuit was filed against Microsoft? Yep it was about this issue exactly. It’s amazing how much dominance you can have when you provide the operating system for 93% of the world’s computers…
So, what does all of this mean? It means you have to hire very talented programmers, who are well versed in the challenges created by this issue. Give them enough time and they’ll figure out a way to communicate with Germans and Italians at the same time. It’s pretty amazing to watch, but it does take some time. Tomorrow we’ll be releasing Event Seek so that it works in Internet Explorer 7 and will spend the next few weeks working on IE 6. At the end of the day, we cater to you and will converse with you in your natural language - that is our responsibility. It’s just going to take us a bit of time.
At the urging of our development team, I’d like to say: If you’re using Firefox or Safari or some other standards-compliant browser, thank you! If you’re using IE 7, we don’t mind you too much. You’re at least easy enough to talk to. If you’re still using IE 6, please for the love of all things that are good, upgrade to IE 7!
Seriously though, continue to enjoy Event Seek, I’ll make sure you can enjoy it in any browser you like, although it make take a few years off the development teams’ collective lives…
Posted by: Connor Fee
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One Response to “What’s all this jazz about standards compliant browsers?”
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“If you’re still using IE 6, please for the love of all things that are good, upgrade to IE 7!”
This is the only sentence I disagree with… I would have said:
If you’re still using IE 6, please for the love of all things that are good, upgrade to Firefox! (Your web pages will thank you, plus as an added bonus you’ll get the features of IE 8 about a year early)