[Info-vax] IE8 got me too :-( Sorry Jeff.

[FrankS]

On Jan 14, 8:07 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> And if you are writting web pages that use features of ACID3 that IE
> doesn't do and you competitor is not who is going to pay the price?
> The target should be your desired audience and not some obscure ivory
> tower standard.
>

How do you define "audience"?  Is it all users that need certain
functionality out of a given application, or is it the subset of all
users that need the functionality but are accessing the application
with a specific browser (and/or browser version)?

The expectation (whether valid or not isn't relevant right now) is
that if all browsers render "standard" HTML or ACID the same way, then
the developer can in fact give the user the functionality they want
without worrying about which browser those users choose when accessing
the application.  This becomes more important in the world of "cloud
computing" where the same servers need to provide applications to a
roaming user(s) who may not have a choice of which browser they will
be using at any given location.

Looking at it another way, if you develop an application that works
fine in IE7, Mozilla, Safari, and Firefox, and Microsoft introduces a
change in IE8 that breaks the application, does that become a case of
you not adapting to the user, or the user not adapting to the computer
(to borrow your comment from the other post)?  Who's responsible for
the problem, the user or the developer?  Did you, as the developer,
fail to "target ... your desired audience" by not foreseeing the
incompatible changes that would be introduced in IE8?  Wouldn't it be
better for you and the end-user if all browsers could render some
standard HTML in the same way, not just from one browser product to
another, but across versions of the same browser product?

www.noesys.com