Unintentionally Blank

The debate still rages regarding Microsoft’s decision to allow web developers to target which version of IE they want to render their pages in. I have made my thoughts known and follwed up when I learned more. As I have spent some time away from the computer and had time to reflect, I just wanted to make my final thoughts known on the subject.

A Quick Correction

In my last post I referred to “lazy developers” being those that wouldn’t necessarily want to, or know how to, fix their sites if a new browser release broke them. Zeldman put this in a much better way with “the second-grade teacher defense” and I concede that, due to poor writing by myself, I was horribly off the mark and I hope I didn’t offend anyone. Rather than those who cannot be bothered, it is those who create websites for themselves and their close communities, teams or families, those who don’t know what a web standard is or what the difference between Internet Explorer and Firefox in terms of rendering is, those who certainly don’t have a copy of Zeldman’s book at home to consult that will be affected. Rather than their sites falling apart at the mere mention of a new version of IE, they will have some stability and IE users around the world will not suffer when they “upgrade” their browser.

Users, Users, Users

That last point above really is the crux of the issue. Perhaps releasing the information on A List Apart to a bunch of web standards fanatics wasn’t the best of ideas, since the first thing you ask is, “What’s in it for me?”

For everyone who reads A List Apart, there is potentially nothing of any use in the version targeting, especially since we can sidestep the version lock in using the “edge” keyword or unknown DOCTYPES, like HTML5. The real benefit is to users, and Microsoft has a lot of them. The thing is, if a new version of IE breaks a website, any user of that site who upgrades sees or is unable to use that broken site. I had a great conversation about this in the comments of Joe Dolson’s post on the matter, which is worth reading too.

Software Issues

The final concerns I have about the matter are based around IE itself. Carrying rendering engines and legacy code, maintaining and patching them but retaining the same bugs is all going to be incredibly hard to do and Microsoft have their work cut out for them for the future now. I only wonder whether this plan is meant to fail eventually, once Microsoft has had some breathing space and managed to finally catch up with implementing the standards that we have already. Then the consideration is whether someone invents another switch or whether there should be one final hit, one more “breaking the web”, before we can view IE as an equal with the other browsers and we never have to switch anything again.

In Conclusion

This is the last I have to say on this issue for now, unless something truly groundbreaking comes along. I don’t mind the switch, I hope it keeps the web intact for those that need it while I look forward to seeing IE support more and more standards, from Acid2 to, hopefully, CSS3.

Finally, I just wish the news had been broken using lemurs. I think there would have been a lot less hassle and everyone would have understood much quicker. Maybe something to think about for the A List Apart editors!

A whole lot more has been said about meta tag browser version targeting unveiled on yesterday’s A List Apart. Digital Web has quite a few reactions, a list which is worth going through if you want to see what the top people in the industry think of all this.

I have tried to keep up with as much of the conversation as I can and after some revelations today I am actually a lot happier than I was at the end of my post yesterday. Here is the way I see it now.

Continue reading “Version Targeting, HTML5 And The Other Browsers” »

There is a lot of serious discussion going on regarding yesterday’s announcement about version targeting in IE8, so I thought we could take a time out, an short break in the heavy thinking with this brief interlude.

The UK has been slipping behind in broadband speeds recently and it looks like it will cost a lot to catch up and install the upgraded fibre that we need. That is, until the BBC reported today that it is possible to lay these super-fast broadband cables in the sewers to save money.

Is it just me or does this sound a lot like a scheme Google announced in April last year? If my toilet can give me a 100mbps connection, I’ll be happy. I’m just glad I won’t be the one laying the fibre!

Now, back to the debate!

Change is afoot. Every web developers’ favourite publication, A List Apart, has split the split them into three groups today, the content, the annoyed or the confused. The cause of this: Aaron Gustafson’s introduction to Internet Explorer 8’s version targeting feature and Eric Meyer’s thinking process in response to the idea. In a nutshell, from IE8 onwards the inclusion of a meta tag (or server setting) will be necessary to target the version of IE to use to render the page, defaulting to IE7 rendering if no meta tag is found (please see the article for more detail).

This has thrown the developer community into disarray as everyone tries to work out whether this is madness or genius. Jeffrey Zeldman, Jonathon Snook and Eric Meyer think it is a good thing, Jeremy Keith doesn’t, Drew McLellan distanced the whole Web Standards Project from the decision and Andy Budd thinks that IE will be the one to feel the force of the mistake. Here are my thoughts as I pass from the confused camp to one of the other two.

Continue reading “Version Targeting For IE8, Developer Wars, My Thoughts” »

Come on, everyone has done it, putting your own name into Google to see what appears in the results or whether your blog is first. OK, so maybe I have had a slow Sunday as I come to write this, but I am pleased with my current results in the world’s biggest search engine. For a start I have had the top results for searches for Phil Nash for quite a while now, however there is a greater prize at stake. Taking the top spot for just a first name is quite a challenge and something I (quite excitingly!) find myself moving closer to every time I check.

So, I am even more pleased to say that I am one of the top 100 Phils in the world according to Google, appearing at 69 on Google.com, 32 on Google.co.uk and number 8 on Google.co.uk when searching for “pages from the UK”. To make it to the top will be tough, I will have to beat Phil Collins, the UK number 1, and Dr Phil for the coveted spot on Google.com, but I reckon I have time on my side and the patience!

Of course, the real aim is to to achieve something that amounts to high levels of geek cool like Matt Mullenweg’s business card (which reads “1. Go to google.com 2. Type in “Matt” 3. Press “I’m feeling lucky”).

One day I will have that! One day!

Have you googled yourself lately?