Will IE8 really be standards compliant?

Microsoft announced last week that Internet Explorer 8 passed the Acid2 test. This is a milestone because IE has never been supportive of standards in the past, forcing Web developers to create multiple versions of the same code to ensure their Web sites were compatible with as many browsers as possible. This is a serious issue today as many sites have been developed specifically for IE and therefore exclude approximately 12% of the market who use other browsers such as Firefox.

Personally I think the Acid2 test is a little light. But it does encourage browser vendors to make significant adjustments to at least support a baseline of common standards.

(I purposely kept this post separate to the post that asks Microsoft to dump PICS in favour of Content Labels to enable better search based on trust. If Microsoft adopts Content Labels, it won’t really matter what crap Google servers up in 2008.)

According to the IE blog, Microsoft is very keen to adopt more standards. However, I’m a little unsure what exactly this means. It doesn’t articulate a commitment to the W3C, let alone specific standards.

Out of the entire blog post, there’s one point I’d like to highlight as a concern. The quote I’d like to question is

Now, with all that context, I’m delighted to tell you that on Wednesday, December 12, Internet Explorer correctly rendered the Acid2 page in IE8 standards mode.

I’d be very happy if there was a full stop (period) after the word ‘IE8’. But there isn’t. What they’re saying is that IE passes the Acid2 test when in ‘standards mode’. What does this mean? Does it mean that IE8 fails the Acid 2 test when using the default settings? What does this mean for end users?

I’d like some clarity on this so please let me know if you have any more information.

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Phil

December 24, 2007 @ 4:00 pm

Paul, IE already has a standards and a ‘quirks’ mode which causes it to render sites differently (I think the box model is different, etc). Currently, in order to get IE to run in standards mode you need to specify a correct doctype for either HTML 4 strict or any XHTML. I assume IE8 won’t be any different and that the level of compliance can be chosen by the developer.

I think the correct rendering of the Acid2 test is a fantastic testament to the work the IE team are putting in now!
Paul Walsh

December 30, 2007 @ 10:42 pm

@Phil - don’t you think their claim is limited given that the vast majority of end users won’t use the ’standards mode’? Or am I missing something?
Phil

December 30, 2007 @ 11:31 pm

Apologies for my brief comment before, Paul, I was writing it on my mobile using Opera Mini!

The standards mode in IE is triggered by the correct doctype being included in the head of the HTML document. Developers who included correct doctypes and valid code will be the ones who are creating sites that will appreciate standards mode. Those who miss those details will most likely be providing sites that are not standards compliant and that do benefit from the more forgiving nature of the quirks mode.

As for users, they don’t get to choose the mode at all. Really this is a development, as any improvement in standards support in any browser is, for developers and I, for one, am very glad to hear it.
Paul Walsh

December 30, 2007 @ 11:34 pm

Ah, sounds like the kinda lower-level stuff that my staff will be aware of That said, I think our site needs a revisit in terms of copy and accessibility testing. We’ll do it after we make some design changes to comply with W3C mobileOK. Thanks for your clarification !
Joshua Allen [msft]

December 31, 2007 @ 6:36 pm

Paul is right; the goal is to make sure that sites which inadvertently depend on any bugs in IE7 do not break in IE8.

When we launched IE7, it had such huge gains in standards conformance that it broke many pages which depended on bugs in IE6. We don’t want a repeat of that performance when we launch IE8, and it’s not really fair to blame the web page authors for having conformance bugs in their code. In fact, since IE5 as Paul said, we had two modes to protect people from being broken by future bug fixes, but many web page authors specified that their pages were “standards conforming”, even though they were written to depend on bugs. So, when a page author says his page is standards conformant, but the page depends on browser bugs, we were faced with 3 choices:
1) Don’t fix the browser, since that would break the buggy pages
2) Fix the browser, and try to ge the page authors to fix their pages
3) Introduce another mode per conformance level

In IE7, after consulting with all of the standards advocates and top web sites, we went for #2. But it was very painful for average users who had no idea why some sites randomly broke for them. And it was painful for web page authors who had to rewrite a lot of existing pages to use standards better. In IE8, we are going with option #3 — this puts all of the power in the hands of the web page authors, who can now rewrite their pages at their own pace rather than getting beat up by mad users.
Paul Walsh

January 1, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

@Joshua - I love your honesty when you say “the goal is to make sure that sites which inadvertently depend on any bugs in IE7 do not break in IE8″. Fantastic stuff.

I now understand the method you’ve employed behind your madness. I agree that it’s the best direction to take. I don’t suppose you could get someone to take a look at my other post about IE8 and the possibility of dropping PICS in favour of Content Labels

Perhaps you’d like to comment.

http://segala.com/blog/ie8-is-on-the-way-but-there-is-one-standard-i-want-it-to-drop/

Will IE8 really be standards compliant?

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