Dax’s free blog

About Internet Explorer 8:

[…] IE8 will support 3 different rendering modes: quirks, that will assure backward compatibility with pages and applications developed for older IE versions; standard, that will deliver the same compatibility level of IE7; and the new super standard, that will allow devolopers to make use of IE8’s higher standard compliance.[…]

Well, I think all of this is crazy:

1. QUIRKS: pages developed for versions of IE? Since when a page should be developed for a particular version of a particular browser? Shouldn’t the net be “neutral”? Like in distributed computing, where the same software sends data over the net following the net’s standard (big-endian), and wherever that software is run it’s its responsibility to convert to/from the local standard (be it little or big endian). Who is the madman that WANTS TO (that’s different from “HAS TO”) develop a site that is readable or optimized for one particular type of client? Don’t tell me that there are things possible only with Microsoft’s browser, if something may be achieved with only one software, it shouldn’t be achieved.
2. STANDARD: delivers the same level of compliance of IE7… but IE7 is not 100% standard’s compliant… what’s standard in this? Only one thing, Microsoft’s firm belief that their software is/should be the standard.
3. SUPER STANDARD: here comes the oxymoron! Anything is or is not standard… a ruler may be straight or curved… it can’t be “super straight”. To me it seems like Microsoft wants to give the impression that IE8 will be a browser more “INSERT HERE AN ADJECTIVE” than what is normal. Well guys, this is not a movie, from an out of focus picture we can’t get fully detailed one, the extra data is not real, it’s an interpolation, ergo, if a browser is 100% standards compliant, it will render a page the way it has been meant to be rendered, it can be as “super standard” as possible, it won’t render the page better, at most it can invent, add what the developer hasn’t written… add crap. Luckily “super standard” means only standard, there’s nothing super… so, no fuss, less marketing and more reality, please.