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Standards Compliant IE8 + IE7 Compatibility Mode: Blessing or Curse?
By Mitchell Ashley on Fri, 03/20/09 - 10:23am.Microsoft is heralding IE8 as the first standards compliant browser. But Internet Explorer 8 has to live in a world that isn’t fully web standards compliant, partly because of IE’s own non-compliant and “unique feature” past sins. Implementation of web coding standards seem about as precise as many network protocols; the details, like the devil (as they say), are in the details of vendors’ implementations. That’s why compatibility between vendors with new protocols can take months or years to shake out. Web developers have had to deal with various interpretations of web standards, unique browser features and idiosyncrasies of all web browsers and new upgrades, by programming for those conditions in their display logic.
If you’ve ever developed a web site, web application or web-based product, you know there’s unique code that’s conditional upon which browser is requesting the page; IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and others. It’s always a pain when a new release of a browser comes out because it automatically means you’ve got to test and change your web code to deal with changes in the new browser version. This unplanned change is essentially forced upon you so users of the new software can use your software.
End users either wait to upgrade until web software has caught up to the new version, or just deal with web incompatibilities when the occur. Often end users deal with it by using multiple browsers, giving them a back up option should their primary browser not work. IE8 users now have the additional “option” (or task) of A-B’ing web pages to determine if incompatible IE8 web pages render better in IE7 compatibility mode. I’m sure Microsoft added this feature to ease transition to IE8 where IE8 breaks backwards compatibility with IE7. If it works out well, we may see this compatibility mode feature in future browser versions.
But isn’t this whole process a little bit crazy? Especially as we move into the era of online cloud services and applications, and web browsers are end user’s access to applications, tools and information needed to perform their jobs? We can’t keep tearing up the onramp to the Internet, our web browser, by essentially creating new software that is incompatible with the web every time our browser is upgraded.
Take my own IE 8 experience for example. My first reaction to running IE8 was, oh great, IE no longer displays IE7 pages correctly in many cases. Some of the web-based products I use at client sites (Jira being one, an issue management system used in software development environments) won’t display correctly in either IE8 or IE7 compatibility mode. Next step? Download and install Firefox so I can use this web-based product to do the job required for my client. IE7 worked fine, but the application is no longer usable with IE8, or IE8 in IE7 compatibility mode. We could blame the vendor who created Jira but it was Microsoft’s IE8 upgrade that broke the compatibility with its own previous version.
I’m not trying to split hairs or whine about this one user experience. It may in fact have been an issue because IE8 was in beta. The broader point I’m attempting to make here is that we need to put more emphasis on browser software that increases compatibility with previous iterations of the product, because end users increasingly rely on their browser to perform their jobs and use the web.
Microsoft would likely claim they are doing exactly that by being the most web standards complaint browser, but breaking backward compatibility means a degraded user experience and another period of adjustment while vendors and site creators update their technology to be compatible with a new browser version. Maybe IE8 will turn the page on this problem, by being web standards compliant and reducing IE-specific rendering issues. And it’s IE7 compatibility mode could ease the transition to IE8’s new approach. For all of us IE users sake, my hopes are IE8 is moving toward this increased compatibility.
. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)Like this? Here are some of Mitchell's recent posts.
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- Mitchell Ashley is principal consultant at Converging Network LLC where he provides product, technology and social media consulting to emerging technology companies. A successful CTO and product innovator, Mitchell has created many successful, award winning products in the networking, security, convergence, Internet and IT industries. In addition to blogging for NetworkWorld, Mitchell regularly blogs at TheConvergingNetwork and co-hosts the widely popular StillSecure After All These Years podcast.
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But for how long?
"IE7 worked fine, but the application is no longer usable with IE8, or IE8 in IE7 compatibility mode. We could blame the vendor who created Jira but it was Microsoft’s IE8 upgrade that broke the compatibility with its own previous version."
This raises the obvious question of "whose job is it to make the website work"? Is it Jira's job to keep their site up to spec with the current standards-compliant browsers, or Microsoft's job to keep their browser compatible with poorly written code? At what point does Microsoft stop allowing users and web designers to rely on old 'compatibilities'? Will IE12 include a dropdown that lets me choose whether I want to render the website as IE7 through 11 to match whichever version was available at the time when that site was built? Microsoft had a chance to make the internet a more standards-driven environment by pushing developers to update their sites, but instead they released a browser that plays cripple by default.
Blame the coders
I had to code many work arounds because IE was not compliant, which may break with 8. So the $64 question is which parts of IE8 are compliant and which are not. Those that are not, when will they be? And how much more of my time will be wasted trying to figure out what/how to do things in a "dynamic" enviroment that has "standards".
IE8 in need of a bailout
Most corporations are still using IE6 because IE7 was never fixed, it did not work fine and leaked memory like a sieve.
Now IE8 requires 'Compatibility Mode' to run 99% of all web applications. What are the chances of corporations using IE8? We need a bailout from Obama to fund making all web applications in the world 100% standards compliant. The Congress could do a better job of managing software development than Microsoft.
IE8 fails to render 'non-standard' HTML without any warning. The buttons or whatever they deem non-standard are simply not rendered, ignored. The smallest of Javascript 'non-standard' entries, will kill the application for no reason, many times with no warning. IE8 with compatibility mode is, however, a leap forward from IE7 as they finally fixed their memory leaks.
Microsoft engineers simply do not live in the real world. They live on a much higher plane, in their minds, than the rest of us mere mortals. Their arrogance should have been their downfall by now, maybe IE8 will help them towards that end, or not.
Microsoft's design goal should have been to render anything thrown at their browser and to be fully standards compliant for the first time. Compatibility mode should have been a feature strictly for developers to help move everyone towards standards compliance, not to wreck havoc on millions of applications out in the 'wild'.
But Microsoft engineers are much smarter than the rest of us mere mortals and they must educate us. We must be thankful that they condescended to include 'Compatibility Mode'. This just proves to that they're not ignorant of the problems and could have made is easy on everyone but didn't.
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