[Web4lib] IE 9 and Firefox 4

[Ryan Hess]

Sadly, I think the bugs will never be worked out of IE...the teams behind
the Microsoft Browser have been tone deaf for a very long time. Just as
sadly, too many Microsoft-oriented web designers and IT shops don't seem to
recognize the importance of standards and how Microsoft historically doesn't
keep these in mind (out of a belief that it can do it's own thing and
everyone else will follow...which is certainly no longer the case). The
danger of this, as was pointed out, is how sites built for previous versions
of IE don't work even for some current IE browsers.

In my own library, when these issues come to me, I treat it as a teachable
moment, whether with other staff, faculty or students to point out that IE
provides the worst web experience and that they should choose another
browser. It's good that most places now offer Firefox as one other option.

That all said, from the web development side, the whole standards thing is
getting very squishy again. iOS doesn't play with Flash, Chrome (on Mac at
least) doesn't seem to work consistently with anything (especially Google
sites!), IE breaks all the rules, and now HTML5 is showing up here and there
in many non-standard variations.

So, the takeaway here is that we're in for a period of this sort of thing
until the W3C gets its head around HTML5, and the disaster that comes from
siloed technologies gets sorted out.


M Ryan Hess
Web Services Coordinator
DePaul University
JTR 120, DePaul University, Lincoln Park Campus, 2350 N Kenmore Ave.,
Chicago IL 60614
office: 773-325-7829 | cell:  650-224-7279 |  fax: 773-325-2297  |
mhess8 at depaul.edu 

On 5/12/11 10:01 PM, "Morgan A. Brynnan" <mbrynnan at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> I'll also recommend to our students that they hold
> off on the next great browser until the bugs are worked out and it's proven
> compatible with the resources they need and use.