Please let me know when you “developers” develop something truly worthwhile or compelling enough that it will be negatively impacted by not being “prepared” for IE8.

You definitely understand that MS may support more standards or new features but wouldn’t cut basic browser features from the next IE. If it does that, your site will still work in Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE 6 and 7. So, what’s the problem there. If your website/app is really popular in such a situation:
A. users will complain to MS to fix basic functionality.
B. you will use some sort of “hack” to make it work.

Someone has already made a strong argument about how even if IE8 is 100% compliant, it won’t suddenly take over from previous IEs. If it’s compliant you’re good to go, as you must have been supporting Firefox at least before that. If it’s still “broken”, you have your “hacks” that you’ve implemented for IE7 etc.

You are still not the only developer around. Hundreds of old IE-friendly pages exist, that are not and won’t be “compliant” even if IE8 is. Then again, some website may only render correct colors in Safari/Opera and IE8 won’t make a difference. Then you still have RGB vs CMYK issues.

Also, what is a standard anyway? I think it is determined by two factors:
A. specification
B. adoption/implementation

e.g. The metric system is specified properly by an International body, analogous to W3C and their specs.
The metric system is adopted by many many countries in the world, some of which gave up their old systems.

Yet you have something like the US, which uses English system. Big user-base with big economic power. They specify and implement their own “standard” and require conversions to exist.

You can argue either way with this: everyone should adopt English system or Metric system. Truth is, both parties have hit a stalemate and agree to coexist.

Such is today’s situation with IE and others.

Another thing is, standards should not hold back innovation. But, if the innovation is good (and exclusive to a product or service), the product gets adopted widely. Then everyone “expects” the exclusive feature to be implemented everywhere. This then becomes a standard, and others have to accept it or “die”.

One can argue that you can implement standards first, then go ahead and innovate. But, look at stuff like Apple dropping floppy disk support back in the day. So, the floppy was essentially a standard. Apple went with a newer “feature” and was praised for it, and then that became a standard by which to measure others implementations. And this isn’t about Apple or Microsoft…you see this everywhere. e.g. when people drop support for SW radio and picked up other features. Or when some portable device drops disk drive and makes it a “plug-in”. Eventually, people may just stop caring to attach the plugin and learn to live without it.

I think you get where I’m going…

By the way Long, your blog has been a good read now and again and I love the name/domain-name too, but some of your recent posts sound too “bitchy”. And I think readers have pointed it out. You can complain and express displeasure, yes. But don’t go out on a limb to justify stuff. Either make it purely an opinion or a well-explained and logical argument. You can’t have both.

*oh and by the way, I posting this comment to my blog (and a link to this post as a reference) as well. (cos my comments are my own words, period.)

Man, does that quote make me think of many game companies which totally ignore their customers.

+10 to Andre and -100 for Long – and yes, I know that it’s your blog and all, Long, but you should know better for even taking that tact.

–ScottK

After reading Dean’s post twice, I feel he like to say something or he is under some pressure. The pressure may come from someone above him and below Gates.

Sometimes, Microsoft can surprise people, in a good way, and maybe this is what IE8 has to be.

Microsoft knows that if it doesn’t shape up a browser, that’s completely blows Firefox 3 out of the water, IE’s going down for sure.

And like usually, Microsoft doesn’t give up that easy. I think competition has finally got Microsoft to realize that they should be making better software as often as they can, not when they feel they have to. So I’m betting IE8 is really something, or they wouldn’t be so hush-hush about it.

Maybe.

They can talk out of their ass if they want to as long as its something useful.

I would have to agree with tino with potentially having 3 major versions to keep up with on top of FF and Opera.

– GoldCoaster

Of course, it is free software which can change the scope of the business part. But i still stick to saying, fuck all you complainers about not seeing shit in action.