JeffCroft.com: Do we need a return to the browser wars?

Comments

001 // Andy Clarke // 12.16.2007 // 6:56 PM

I thought you weren’t going to write about this kind of stuff anymore? You publicity whore you! ;)
002 // Kelsey Ruger // 12.16.2007 // 6:59 PM

Hmm. The browser wars were also part of the reason why IE was so different than the other browsers. In other words just because one of the manufacturers implements something, it doesn’t mean the others will. Agree totally with your assessment of the standards community. I think sometimes we don’t focus too much on validate standards instead of simply encouraging their use. You and Alex are play Jerry McGuire today ;)
003 // Sara Flemming // 12.16.2007 // 7:08 PM

I wish there were a better phrase than “browser wars” but, yes, it would be nice to see new shiny more frequently. Stagnating in standards is starting to get old.

So when are you going to put “Compliance is fucking boring” on a shirt? (:
004 // Jeff Croft // 12.16.2007 // 7:13 PM

I thought you weren’t going to write about this kind of stuff anymore? You publicity whore you! ;)

I wondered who’d be the first to say that. :)

Apparently, I just can’t help myself.
005 // Colly // 12.16.2007 // 7:17 PM

All I know is that I’m losing the will to do this job at the moment. Whilst people won’t always agree with outspoken chaps like Clarke and you Croft, by gosh it makes me happy to read posts that let off a little steam. The recent shift in focus back to the “working” groups and various bodies, and the talk of higher stakes in browser battling has me considerably less than thrilled.

Me, I’m fed up of the hidden groups and bodies, and all the stuff that goes on behind closed doors. I’m fed up of the glacial pace of ‘progress’ within the web standards cupboard. I for one have lost any sense of what secret Jedi councils are doing what, where, and why. We, the foot soldiers, are out in the cold as usual.

I don’t really agree with you Jeff when you talk about the “war being won”, but Jeez I do love it when you “go off on one” as we say. What’s cathartic for you is cathartic for me, and I sure wish I could get myself, you and Clarke in a pub right now to have a bloody good rant about our stretched and contorted industry.

I’m at the stage where I can’t keep up with where things are headed, and I’m frustrated that so many can. The number of people who must just sit and read mailing lists, agendas, tech specs and 10,000 blog posts a day scares me. I run a business, and I can’t do that level of scrutinizing and in-depth research any more.

Somebody, somewhere, please simplify this whole darned thing. Create a webiste that explains who does what, who is making the decisions, and explode the hierarchy of groups and bodies please. Also, give us a clue if we can do anything or get involved in any way, you masonic swines.

The most frustrating thing is feeling like one of the many who can’t do anything about any of this. As I said on a mailing list earlier, I personally feel I have no influence whatsoever, so I just wait to be dictated to by the great and the good about what I can and can’t do. Some of you will not agree with that statement about having no influence, but show me a door, and I’ll walk in. Otherwise, I’m forever sitting outside.
006 // Adrian L // 12.16.2007 // 7:21 PM

Jeff, our exchanges have often been of the disagreement type, but I have to say that I agree with you 100% on this and the subject you touched on about tools.

Good on you, man.
007 // Rob Goodlatte // 12.16.2007 // 7:21 PM

As long as a base level of compatibility is maintained for basic essentials like layout (and I feel it is today), I’m all for crazy experimentation by browser producers.

The Web has been stagnating in terms of the power delivered by raw markup for several years. The only way to push forward is by throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what can become a standard.
008 // Stephen Caver // 12.16.2007 // 7:23 PM

Building something that works for people, solves their problems, and can be used in a multitude of ways isn’t boring. It’s exhilarating. For this world wide web thing to really make a dent in helping people improve their lives in significant ways we need to exercise a bit of caution. We can’t lose sight of the big picture.

I’m all for new and shiny, and I applaud the WebKit team for trying some amazing things. I would love to see some competition in this area. But until these new shiny toys (and all the shiny new toys to come) are able to be worked into a standard they should remain on the sidelines. Especially when the web as we know it has become vital to the daily lives of billions of people. This is not something that we can fool around with at our every wide-eyed whim.
009 // Grant // 12.16.2007 // 7:24 PM

Do we need the browser makers to return to their one-upsmanship in order for the rendering engines to power forward with new features? Or, are we better off with rendering engines that try to faithfully adhere to W3C specs…

In a way, I think the answer to both questions is yes. I agree 100% with you that innovation will NOT come from standards bodies, coalitions, consortiums, alliances of the mundane & tedious, etc., but from the browser builders. I just have a reservation saying that it’s either/or. We’ve still got one particular browser that I would love to see play by the rules better before its creators go off and create something proprietary and new, like active-z controls or something. ;-)
010 // goodwitch // 12.16.2007 // 7:26 PM

(imagining you wearing a blue beanie and nothing else)

Your message reached the rebel in me. But I wonder if the browsers are even the place for the “next thing” to occur. I want to think so far outside the box, that browsers are boring!
011 // Dan // 12.16.2007 // 7:50 PM

It’s funny - I attended BarcampAuckland on Saturday, and the ‘Browser wars’ thing came up.

I do wonder if we’ve taken the whole ‘standards’ thing a bit far; I mean, I think that the standards groups are now so diverse, bogged down and slow-moving that the browser developers are just going to start making up their own stuff. I think that what the WHAT WG is doing is in repsonse to this, and HTML 5 is looking good, but how long will it be before we can use it in production? (although I guess that’s also up to the browser manufacturers, too.)

At BarcampAuckland, Robert O’Callahan was talking about the future of web standards, particularly as they relate to Firefox 3 and beyond, and they’re doing some really cool stuff, like the ‘video’ element, and in-browser GPU scripting for 3D graphics (Frickin’ fast!) and stuff.

So, if it means we get cool stuff faster, them I’m all for the browser wars. I only hope that the standards groups are responsive enough to work with them to help maintain some sort of order.
012 // Andrew Diederich // 12.16.2007 // 9:01 PM

I think the innovation is more likely to come from the browser companies, rather than standards bodies. The drive to innovate “cool stuff” is going to come from those who have incentive to innovate. The people who write the browsers are going to be that group, rather than standards bodies.

While some great developers and designers may be in standards bodies, they’re there as a secondary, not primary mission. Going straight to the standard bodies is like wanting to be a bureaucrat when you grow up. The people with the best ideas will be heading for development first, where they can try out their ideas.
013 // John Faulds // 12.16.2007 // 9:05 PM

Opera and Microsoft have basically not taken advantage of the namespacing at all.

But Opera are at least pushing the same kind of envelope as Safari by including features of CSS3. I think in terms of CSS if we can use progressive enhancement to add in new, unofficial features without messing things up for the browsers that don’t support them, then the browser makers should go ahead and add them in.
014 // Rob // 12.16.2007 // 9:18 PM

…the more that self-identified web developers focus on how standards >compliant things are (or aren’t), the more we loose the sense that it can get >better.

I would never reference an article written by someone who doesn’t know that lose is spelled L-O-S-E.

At one time, RCA and Westinghouse had different standards for television broadcasting and it was a nasty scene until the NTSC standard was developed and everyone had to follow. Until then, viewers couldn’t watch some TV stations and it was very frustrating.

Standards do not have to mean no innovation but a common groundwork must be formed to stand on. Then you get color. Then you get more channels and then you get high-def.
015 // Jeff Croft // 12.16.2007 // 9:25 PM

I would never reference an article written by someone who doesn’t know that lose is spelled L-O-S-E.

So if it’s not 100% compliant, it’s worthless and can’t possibly contain good ideas? Typical standardista.

> Standards do not have to mean no innovation but a common groundwork must be formed to stand on. Then you get color. Then you get more channels and then you get high-def.

I understand that. But we’re dealing with what is largely a stalemate. No one is pushing for real innovation. The W3C thinks they are, but they’re moving so incredibly slow and in such small increments that it feels like no innovation. The browser vendors, by and large, aren’t really innovating, because the standards movement taught them that they were never to implement anything that wasn’t spec’d and approved by the W3C.

The reality is somewhere in between. We need the W3C and other standards bodies to be coming up with good baseline specs that are realistic and implementable, and we need the browser makers to execute them. But, we also need the browser makers to help push us forward by innovating with new features, and then we need the W3C to be receptive to including those features in their specs.
016 // Andrew Diederich // 12.16.2007 // 9:29 PM

A caveat to my comment: while I believe development comes from individuals and small groups, rather than standards bodies, that doesn’t follow that development needs to be closed. I’m a fan of jabber / XMPP. It started out small, pushed by an individual, but heavily documented and open to extensions. Now it covers (several) RFCs, as well as keeping separate XMPP Enhancement Proposals (XEPs).
017 // Brycej // 12.16.2007 // 10:14 PM

“Bowser Wars” isnt that what got that football player in trouble :-)

My one concern with what you are proposing is that Mircosoft will focus their “innovations” on the enterprise space which could create work and play browsers.

I do agree with what you are saying but that is what I immediately thought.
018 // Nathan Borror // 12.16.2007 // 10:28 PM

Why would Webkit and Mozilla implement -webkit-border-radius and -moz-border-radius instead of just border-radius? What’s the harm in implementing the draft naming conventions?

If the browsers would just start implementing the CSS3 Draft it would push the W3C into solidifying it as standard. Apple essentially does this with the 802.11x spec. They were implementing 802.11n way before the standard was approved.
019 // Jeff Croft // 12.16.2007 // 10:39 PM

Why would Webkit and Mozilla implement -webkit-border-radius and -moz-border-radius instead of just border-radius? What’s the harm in implementing the draft naming conventions?

I think the harm is that as long it’s a draft, there is potential for it to change. If WebKit/Mozilla release an engine with support for the draft and then it changes, you’ve got browsers in the wild with two different implementations, thus causing chaos/hacks/etc.

If the browsers would just start implementing the CSS3 Draft it would push the W3C into solidifying it as standard. Apple essentially does this with the 802.11x spec. They were implementing 802.11n way before the standard was approved.

This is more or less what Alex Russell is advocating, I think, and it’s also exactly what I’ve heard Andy Clarke and Jina Bolton say is a really bad idea. I’m not quite sure where I stand on it. On one hand, you’re right — it would probably push the W3C into solidifying the spec. On the other, there’s always this possibility:
1. Mozilla implements something.
2. WebKit implements the same thing, but in a different way.
3. Both companies think their way is better, so they lobby the W3C to standardize on their way.
4. The W3C takes years to pick a side, because that’s how they work. In the meantime, no one can really use the feature, because it’s ambigious as to which way we should be doing it.
5. The W3C finally decides, and picks the Mozilla way.
6. WebKit is forced to change to the Moz implementation. Now, older versions of WebKit behave differently than newer ones, and must be hacked around.
To me, the safe tactic is for these browser vendors to implement these features using the hyphen-renderingengine convention. By doing so, they’re raising a red flag to designers, basically saying, “this is here for you to play with, learn from, and test — but be forewarned if you choose to use it for production: it may well change.”

Once the feature is complete, they can move/alias it over to the non-prefixed property name.
020 // Rob // 12.16.2007 // 10:47 PM

But we’re dealing with what is largely a stalemate. So then we are lacking leadership. We need someone to step in and say, “Look, this is the way we are going to do it from now on.” I heard it suggested Tim Berners-Lee could be such a person. Some have said there is a lot of bullying toward web developers who attend W3C meetings by the browser vendors. So no one is taking the reins.

Typically, I think, stuff is created, then someone says, “Someone write this down!”, and it becomes the standard. If someone comes up with a good idea, they implement it and submit it to the standards committee which then votes to include it in the published standard. The standards committee doesn’t do the innovating, the vendors do.

That’s how NTSC, as I mentioned above, came about as many other such things. Since the government isn’t doing, at the moment, someone must step up and and put things straight.

And if elected, I will not serve.
021 // Bridget Stewart // 12.17.2007 // 12:35 AM

Here is a snippet of the comments from my own blog post regarding the comments made on this one:

Jeff also said (emphasis mine):

Once in a while, we should be saying fuck standards and trying something out of the box. Obviously, that site you’re working on for a major client in the education sector probably isn’t the time to try this, but we do need to find the time. It’s the only way to move our industry forward.

Where should we do all of this experimentation? On our personal sites and blogs? I mean, I don’t really understand where the appropriate place is for displaying and/or parading this kind of alleged web-coolness.

In the era when Target is being sued because people are hindered from making purchases online and the days when Opera is filing claims against Microsoft for lack of standards support and monopolizing the market, how is moving away from standards compliance supposed to make things better?
022 // Ryan Berg // 12.17.2007 // 12:55 AM

Problem is, I’m not so sure typical market forces of competition apply here. The end user of most web browsers doesn’t know what a z-index is, so forget about -moz-border-radius. Us web developers will hop on the best tool with which to do our job, but even if certain browsers pushed forward to implement CSS3 specs on their own, the web browsing public needs incentive to make the upgrade. Does that come from the browser companies, or do web developers have to find a way to educate the general public on what they’re missing out on, and what flaming hoops they’re making us jump through to get rounded corners and shadows?
023 // Jeff Croft // 12.17.2007 // 1:32 AM

Where should we do all of this experimentation? On our personal sites and blogs? I mean, I don’t really understand where the appropriate place is for displaying and/or parading this kind of alleged web-coolness.

Sure, personal sites and blogs might be one place to do it. Another might be locally, on your computer, and not on the web at all. I know I have mountains of failed experiments and crazy ideas that will never see the light of day.

Not all personal projects have to be personal sites, either. When I wanted to learn Django, I built lost-theories.com. If you want to experiment with something, find a project to build around the idea.

In the era when Target is being sued because people are hindered from making purchases online and the days when Opera is filing claims against Microsoft for lack of standards support and monopolizing the market, how is moving away from standards compliance supposed to make things better?

I’m not exactly suggesting moving away from standards compliance (although I ca certainly see how “fuck standards” might have made you think I was). I’m still very much in favor of web standards. But, if all we ever do is use the specs that exist today, and we never try anything out of the box, we’ll never move forward. All I’m saying is that once in a while, we should try something different. We should think to ourselves, “here’s this problem — I can’t solve it with web standards, but I do see a way I can solve it, even though it’s invalid. Maybe I should go ahead with the invalid solution.”

…the web browsing public needs incentive to make the upgrade.

They do. In my opinion, the web browser vendors should be forcing the issue a lot more. Maybe upgrades shouldn’t be optional. Web browser makers should be looking at Flash, which has totally solved the penetration problem.
024 // Hone Watson // 12.17.2007 // 3:01 AM

Most of these whizbang bells and whistles add nothing to the bottom line which is what its all about.

Most flash and flex etc really sucks. It adds nothing in terms of forcing someone to open their wallet and buy a product or service. Designers may get together and pat themselves on the back with some kind of industry awards, but is the customer actually making any extra money?

Are flex and silverlight actually helping people make faster more intelligent buying decisions?

Designers should innovate in their own time, otherwise stick to what brings sales.
025 // Alex Russell // 12.17.2007 // 3:20 AM

If anyone designs the “Compliance is fucking boring” shirt, I’ll buy stacks of them just to give away. Brilliant.
026 // Alex Russell // 12.17.2007 // 3:31 AM

Rob:

There are LOTS of words I can’t spell, or accurately, don’t spell correctly on a reliable basis. I’m a shame to my family and a blight on my community. Dogs bark as I pass and parents cover the eyes of small children to keep them from crying. Frankly, I wonder how I live with myself.

;-)

Regards
027 // Michael Schuerig // 12.17.2007 // 5 AM

I’ve watched the first Browser Wars only from the sidelines. First and foremost I’m an “ordinary” (read: server-side) programmer and only got into front-end stuff about 3 years ago.

I learned quickly that the state at the front is plainly appalling. The specs, CSS in particular, are completely inadequate for web applications. Implementations are inconsistent and buggy. It is almost a wonder that anything like highly interactive web sites and apps is working at all. It’s a testament to the determination of the developers.

What I’ve been missing most of all when I’m working at the front-end, is any indication that things are getting better. For one thing, progress of W3C specs has been way too slow. How long have they been working on these specs again?

Apparently the working groups are stuck in the mire of a serial, drawn-out process. I’m not sure how this is even supposed to work: When finishing a spec takes close to 10 years, how long will it take until compliant browsers are pervasive in the field?

Would renewed browser wars improve on this? At least they could shift the mode of operation into a more agile gear: Implement a new feature (thereby demonstrating that it is feasible); give front-end developers a chance to vote on it with their feet; clean it up and make it into a spec.

Yes, this would obviously lead to inconsistent feature sets among browsers. Well, somehow I’ve gotten used to that.
028 // Maaike // 12.17.2007 // 7:21 AM

Hey Jeff,

Great post, I mostly agree. Though I’d prefer if browser makers would first, say, all start to support css 2.1 consistently, and then, in addition to that, give us all sorts of shiny new things to play with.

Most flash and flex etc really sucks. It adds nothing in terms of forcing someone to open their wallet and buy a product or service.

Hone— you don’t actually believe that ‘forcing someone to buy’ is everything the internet is all about, do you? Because that would be pretty sad.
029 // Rob // 12.17.2007 // 7:51 AM

Alex, Yes, I have my own weaknesses. For me it’s Worste…Worcet…I just can’t type Worcestershire.
030 // Martijn // 12.17.2007 // 7:58 AM

I just want simple things, like multiple background images and rounded corners. A fix for transparent png images in IE6.
031 // Nate Klaiber // 12.17.2007 // 9:12 AM

While I understand the frustration, passion, and desire - I am much like Brigest asking “What is considered ultra cool and where should we really implement it?” I like doing cool things just as much as the next person, but I can’t just let my mind wander and build sites that are ‘cool’ to mean, but useless to anyone visiting (not that this is the case). The web is our medium, and sometimes I think we have to live with those constraints, as much as we hate it.

Building something cool is subjective. What is cool for you might not be so cool for me.

I appreciate what you are saying, and I agree with many of the others that the state of our profession looks so grim when you look at the present and the future. Not only do we have to wait for the W3C, then we have to wait for Browsers, then we have to wait for our users to upgrade, too. The adoption rate is slow across the board. How can we deal with that, while also being forward thinking?

I also agree with Simon C that it is tough to keep up with all of the different working groups, not working groups, semi working groups, our own special groups, the kids next door, and the W3C. I don’t have enough time in my day to read archaic mailing lists or scour through several websites. How are we supposed to manage that?

Anyway - just me continuing with your rant…back to work.
032 // Keith // 12.17.2007 // 10:22 AM

I’m not sure I’d be in favor of new browser wars, I remember back when I had to code two sites for everything and that really sucked. However I do generally agree about not worrying so much about standards compliance. Compliance is an ugly word that implies a rigid way of thinking that has no place in my world.

Standards shouldn’t be about compliance. Standards should be about doing quality work. As well, I don’t think standards are at all a hindrance to innovation, as long as you know when to bend and/or break the rules (again think quality of work instead of compliance.) To do that you should understand the standards well and always start with a mindset of doing quality work. Start with standards and go out side of that if the situation calls for it.

As with everything we do it depends on what you’re doing; what your specific problems are, who your audience and stakeholders are, etc. There is a place for innovation in all of this and I think a good problem-solver (a good designer) knows when he needs to go outside of “standards compliance” when needed to do what is right for his or her particular situation.

For many of us, this might only be appropriate for personal projects, but Jeff makes a good point. We can’t just sit by and let others hand-cuff us, we, as designers, developers and problem-solvers need to do what we can to push things forward.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting we ditch standards. Only that we avoid the rigid standards-compliance-or-nothing mindset so that we can push this medium forward (and maybe along the way pave the way new standards that better enable us to solve problems.) If we have to break the rules a bit to do that, well, then that’s what we’ve got to do.
033 // Stefan // 12.17.2007 // 10:27 AM

I like new ideas and technologies and think we should play with them. But keep in mind, the web should be free for everyone. There must not be a seperation between people of different wealth (or technology level). The web doesn’t need to look the same for everybody (cols, text-shadows…) but content must be available for everybody. Hence we should be suspicious with all ideas/technologies going against this goal.
034 // Matt Wilcox // 12.17.2007 // 10:28 AM

While I agree with a lot of the points you make, and find them a refreshing way of looking at the situation, I think the proposal of ‘back to browser wars, away with standards!’ is a case of throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.

There is absolutely no denying that the Standards thing, managed by the W3C, right now, does not work. Everything that’s coming into contact with that organisation is grinding to a halt, and it’s pissing off everyone that relies on the work output by that group. But that in no way means that standards do not work. We need standards now for all the same reasons we needed them in the past and will continue to need them in future.

What we should be angry about is not standards themselves, but the people and processes who are in charge of producing them at the moment. It’s not standards that make things slow, that tie things up in endless debate, that stifles progress - it’s the people and the process those standards are written by that is causing us such a pain in the ass. There is a world of difference between “W3C” and “Standards”. They are not the same thing, one merely adjudicates and authors the other. The problem is with the W3C. You could make claims that it’s browser vendors too - but if the W3C had a strong leader and sound strategy and a good relationship with the vendors and the public, then there wouldn’t be a problem there.

“Me, I’m fed up of the hidden groups and bodies, and all the stuff that goes on behind closed doors. I’m fed up of the glacial pace of ‘progress’ within the web standards cupboard. I for one have lost any sense of what secret Jedi councils are doing what, where, and why. We, the foot soldiers, are out in the cold as usual.”

Absolutely spot on. The revolution now isn’t against standards - it’s against the practices those standards are written in, because they are for all practical purposes utterly broken.
035 // Jeff Croft // 12.17.2007 // 11:14 AM

Matt, I agree with you completely. I’m not at all suggesting we ditch standards, just that browser makers should be encouraged to innovate in their own private namespace alongside their standards implementations.
036 // Rob // 12.17.2007 // 11:22 AM

Yep. I may not have been clear in my previous post but that is what I alluded to. Agreed.
037 // Helen // 12.17.2007 // 12:01 PM

“I just want a return to making cool shit. I’m so tired of everyone being compliant all the damn time. I want to see some people running around with no pants on, already. Compliance is fucking boring. Let’s try something crazy once in a while.”

This certainly goes to Web Design Quotes: December’s Best ;)
038 // Matt Wilcox // 12.17.2007 // 12:54 PM

@ Jeff

Ahh, you’re employing the old ‘dramatisation’ strategy, I see. Well in that case I am in complete agreement with your thoughts on the matter. Let’s get some shiny shit on the go!
039 // Joe Sak // 12.17.2007 // 1:27 PM

I agree, because I am a huge fan of Safari’s support for input type “search” it is way too cool and yea it’s not standards compliant but who cares it’s innovative and easy to use.
040 // Joe Clark // 12.17.2007 // 2:40 PM

“Everyone” is not “compliant all the damn time.” Compliance is an outrageous exception to the rule of assholes who do everything in Microsoft and think their site is hot shit because it works fine in IE6, the only browser they’ve ever used.

Now, why don’t you advocate for krazy new shit in environments where krazy new shit is desirable and nice attractive functional sites everywhere else? Just off the top of my head, personal portfolio sites are in the former category (typically a mess of tables, frames, and half-assed Flash today) and essentially every informational or transactional site is in the latter. You the artiste wouldn’t particularly care if your portfolio site didn’t work in a browser you’d never heard of. You the developer of the informational or transactional site very much should care.

You can’t get around the philosophy of Web standards here: Your site should be written according to spec so it stands a chance of working for everybody. Only a minority of sites do not fit that mould.

I’d say you’d have a stronger case if you argued that developers should be using vendor-specific extension more often as long as it’s on top of a solid code base, and things like Flash as long as they’re usable and accessible (the latter a tricky proposition to establish with Flash). Start with using the available tools to do krazy shit. Then start asking for more tools.

Incidentally, I commend your ability to rephrase “Web standards ain’t all that” in ever-more-creative, long-winded, and profane ways.
041 // Jeff Croft // 12.17.2007 // 2:48 PM

“Everyone” is not “compliant all the damn time.” Compliance is an outrageous exception to the rule of assholes who do everything in Microsoft and think their site is hot shit because it works fine in IE6, the only browser they’ve ever used.

That a good point, but it doesn’t apply to the community I run with. Within the scope of the people I talk to and the websites I visit, compliance is pretty damned prevalent.

Now, why don’t you advocate for krazy new shit in environments where krazy new shit is desirable and nice attractive functional sites everywhere else? Just off the top of my head, personal portfolio sites are in the former category (typically a mess of tables, frames, and half-assed Flash today) and essentially every informational or transactional site is in the latter. You the artiste wouldn’t particularly care if your portfolio site didn’t work in a browser you’d never heard of. You the developer of the informational or transactional site very much should care.

Joe, that’s exactly what I did advocate for. Didn’t you read comment 23?

You can’t get around the philosophy of Web standards here: Your site should be written according to spec so it stands a chance of working for everybody. Only a minority of sites do not fit that mould.

Agree completely. I just miss that minority, as it seems to have mostly disappeared.

I’d say you’d have a stronger case if you argued that developers should be using vendor-specific extension more often as long as it’s on top of a solid code base, and things like Flash as long as they’re usable and accessible (the latter a tricky proposition to establish with Flash).

That is what I’m in favor of, even if I didn’t state it explicitly. My readers know that I’m a standards advocate and I thought this point would be obvious to them.

Incidentally, I commend your ability to rephrase “Web standards ain’t all that” in ever-more-creative, long-winded, and profane ways.

Heh. If you think my point is “web standards ain’t all that,” then there has been a communication breakdown. I am a firm believer in and advocate for the general philosophy behind web standards. I just think that web standards are a means to an end, not the end itself — and if once in a while I have to break out of standards to reach my desired end, then I absolutely will do so.

We’re both in the religion of web standards, Joe. We both read from the same bible. It’s just that you are part of the Purist denomination and I’m part of the Pragmatists. But basically, we have the same beliefs. Don’t try to make us out to be more different than we really are.
042 // Baxter // 12.17.2007 // 2:48 PM

Jeff, you know where I stand on this… we had conversations a year or more ago where I said I miss the browser wars. That said, I think the argument may be largely irrelevant. I suspect one browser vendor or another is going to figure out that implementing X is a great way to leapfrog the other guy and win the hearts and minds of developers.

At one point, X was standards compliance, and I think that’s how Firefox got to where it is today. Nowadays, I think everyone more or less has acheived some level of standards compliance, so it’s not X anymore.
043 // Jeff Croft // 12.17.2007 // 2:49 PM

Well-said, Baxter. :)
044 // Dan // 12.17.2007 // 3:03 PM

I’ve been thinking about the “browser wars” some more, and as Keith mentions above, we don’t want to go back to coding two (or more) sites to cater for browser variations.

But I remember back in the day went the ‘coders’ largely did as the ‘designers’ told them, that there was the expectation that sites were pixel-perfect across all browsers platforms. You’d be given a PSD or even a Freehand file, anti-aliasing and all, and have to cut it up and put it into table cells. And this often meant some fairly intensive browser-sniffing and code duplication.

But today there isn’t that expectation. You can make a site look good and work 100% as intended, but not have to make it look absolutely identical across all browsers. Progressive enhancement, Hijax, usability, and accessibility are better understood and more carefully considered than in the days of yore.

So I think, if there were (or is) a new browser war, then it shouldn’t result in broken or one-browser-exclusive sites. People using the more advanced browsers will simply get a better user experience.
045 // Jay Fienberg // 12.17.2007 // 9:40 PM

Many designers in the dot com era were mostly obsessed with a style of design that came out of print and multimedia (CD-ROM), and which translated very painfully and very poorly to the version 4 and earlier (IE and Netscape) browsers. During that era, everyone knew that money was going down the drain trying to achieve certain visual aesthetics in the browser. So, that level of focus on design aesthetics, IMHO, drove agreement about the urgent priorities for standards that eventually appeared and became effective in the version 6+ browsers and CSS 2.

One of the fallouts of the dot com crash was that a way less aesthetic / less page layout oriented style of web design became popular (e.g., the 37sginals style)—in reaction to all those designs associated with dead dot coms, and also because companies stopped investing in aesthetic web design. That actually worked out pretty well—to the degree that designers shifted into doing good information, interaction and user experience design, etc.

What’s missing now is a widespread drive towards a new visual aesthetic and style of interaction that is way beyond what browsers can do. What we achieve now could be made a lot easier, e.g., by CSS 3. But, easier isn’t required by the market.

(And, note: look at the new aesthetics and interactions happening in the iPhone, and how much of those can be handled on current browsers.)

When the market needs that unbelievably neat design style to work cross-browser, but it’s only possible in software X that less than 80% of the people use, then maybe we’ll get another big push going in the browsers.
046 // Dan // 12.18.2007 // 1:10 PM

As if by magic, as a PS to my comment above, I discovered this website: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?.
047 // Stuart Langridge // 12.18.2007 // 1:58 PM

Opera and Microsoft have basically not taken advantage of the namespacing at all.

Indeed. I have no idea why Opera haven’t. I suspect that Microsoft haven’t because they don’t want web developers to realise that there are browsers other than IE and that there is a web other than what works in IE. Implementing “-ie-border-radius” would lead some web developers to think “hang on, this is an Internet-Explorer-specific thing? What’s not included, then?” rather than thinking that “what’s defined on MSDN” and “what the web is” are the same thing.

They do. In my opinion, the web browser vendors should be forcing the issue a lot more. Maybe upgrades shouldn’t be optional. Web browser makers should be looking at Flash, which has totally solved the penetration problem.

Speaking as someone who uses a platform (64-bit Linux) that Adobe haven’t bothered to support with Flash, I believe I’d disagree there, unless “solved” means “well, mostly solved, and everyone else is welcome to buy a Windows machine” :-)
048 // Lauch // 12.18.2007 // 2:16 PM

Ok, isn’t this what beta testing was about? Nowadays, beta testing is just another way to say “look at me..I’m new and shiny”.

Why not set up a site for testing new implementations of browsers. All vendors can join in the fun and release their “betas” to the developers. On the site, a list can be made of new innovative features for each “beta” and areas can be set aside for people to test them out. Developers can place feedback, vendors can make a note, and vendors can take their recommendations to the W3C accordingly.

That would be open source, as all web designers/developers will have visibility, if they so choose, and each vendor can see what the other is up to.
049 // Matt Wilcox // 12.18.2007 // 5:01 PM

Here’s a random thought:

I wish all browsers implemented their own version of Conditional Comments. Makes perfect sense to me, the cleanest way of tidying up browser quirks I ever saw - and it’s allow me to sort out some of Safari’s little annoyances (like rendering light text on dark as too heavy a weight - stupid anti-aliasing algorithm!), and Opera issues that come up every now and then.
050 // Jeff Croft // 12.18.2007 // 5:09 PM

Matt, I agree completely — I’d love it if all browsers has an implementation of conditional comments.
051 // Tim Oxley // 12.18.2007 // 8:03 PM

People have the impression non-standards means disorganised and ‘hacking’ but it’s not necessarily true. The point should be made that there is a difference between non-compliant development to gain access to additional features tat should probably be standards and non-compliant development to support lazy/sloppy/misinformed coding.

Any non-compliance should extend or improve upon the standards already in place rather than deconstructing them to save time typing in that closing p tag.

Additionally, if you are going to support some non-compliant technology, please make some moral judgment about where the technology is going. Is the technology reliant on too much proprietary/specific software or can it be generalized? Ask yourself whether the technology is there to provide something missing or whether it’s there to create a monopoly fueled on incompatibility.
052 // mattur // 12.19.2007 // 4:15 PM

I’m not sure I’d be in favor of new browser wars, I remember back when I had to code two sites for everything and that really sucked.

To be clear: that was an (IMHO sub-optimal) design decision you chose, not one that was forced upon you by the browser “wars”.

Browser innovation does not mean having to code 2 versions of a website (c.f. xmlHttpRequest) and never has. I’ve been building cross-browser compatible websites since 1995 and have never had to code 2 versions of a website.

The W3C’s WHATWG-inspired change of tack is attempting to capture new browser innovations as they happen. I’m optimistic HTML5 will finally result in some substantial innovations to HTML - some of which I’ve been waiting for since 1995 ;-)
053 // Antoine Butler // 12.20.2007 // 7:52 AM

Dan, your right the answer is no, but if the question was to be “should websites try to look as close to alike in every browser” the answer would be yes! Just from a business standpoint. If my audience uses ie6 well dangit, I want my site to work in it. Besides that site in ie6 is horrid. not to be a snob but a grey png on a pink textured background, gag. If all sites took that blind of an approach it would seem like the browser wars were going at full steam. But to be fair it’s looks rather classy and clean in Firefox ;)

And Jeff, your comments are great, there is a time and a place for experiments. I won’t be calling for non complaint, feature crazy, proprietary browser just for the sake of trying something new. I mean sure it would be nice, but that’s life. Work with what you got, and when you can - do something great.
054 // Rimantas // 12.21.2007 // 4:42 PM

If you cannot make “cool shit” that’s the problem with you, not the standards.
055 // Lou Quillio // 01.01.2008 // 3:41 PM

I don’t disagree, Jeff. How about extrapolating a bit further.

To paraphrase Bill Cosby, “What is AIR?” (here meaning Adobe AIR). It’s a known-good runtime environment for the client end of a network client-server application. I can hear it now: “Get AIR and start enjoying the Wow! of the Web.” (“lean forward” experiences, blah, blah.)

What’re these Adobe jokers doing? Normalizing the client, thereby pulling an end-around on the client-side inconsistencies you lament.

Maybe herding user-agents to standards is a game for suckers. Maybe what we need is Mark Finkle’s Prism.

We build client-server applications, really (translation: cool shit). We can kick and scream about how clients are unreliable and not standards-conformant, or we can provide a known-good, conformant client runtime with our apps. Or not. Regardless, Adobe will.

LQ
056 // Kevin // 01.02.2008 // 12:20 AM

Though you make some great points, the ideas expressed in this post are utterly useless. The reason things do NOT look the same in all browsers is because of non-compliance. IE decides to add one feature, and firefox decides to add the same feature — because the decisions were made independently of each other, the results will be different. This is what makes coding so hard. There is NOTHING you can not do with a good combination of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Absolutely NOTHING. So, no, we do not need to return to ‘browser wars’. What we DO need to do is FOCUS on building HTML renderers that meet standards instead of creating their own. If you build a website according to W3 standards, it will almost ALWAYS work in all browsers. I find it funny that people need to complain about features like conditional commenting. How about we make all browsers render sites in a standardized way, instead of creating something that encourages non-compliant code?
057 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:25 PM

“the more we loose the sense that it can get better”

And the more I see people use “loose” when they really should be using the word “lose,” (and I’ve seen this error hundreds of times; it’s becoming almost a standardized misspelling) the more I weep for the future of humanity. Let’s work on our spelling first, people.
058 // Jeff Croft // 01.02.2008 // 6:33 PM

And the more I see people use “loose” when they really should be using the word “lose,”…

And the more I see people focus on typos, misspellings, and unencoded ampersands, instead of the big picture, the more I weep for the future of humanity.

I’m a grammar nerd myself, so I understand the annoyance — but if we can’t overlook people’s silly mistakes long enough to appreciate the point they’re trying to make, we’re becoming the kind pedants that make the web standards world such a fucking miserable place.
059 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:37 PM

Now if somebody makes a cool site and it works great and looks great for at least 99.9% of the users then who is going to give them a hard time if it’s not compliant? Somebody that matters? Somebody that can take said site down? I don’t think so, so what’s to worry about?

Now if said site was ALSO standards-compliant what reason on earth have we to complain?

I’ve said it before but if you know what you’re doing you will never type a line of code that is not standards-compliant. Creating messy code from the beginning until your site works and then going back and “cleaning up your code” is embarrassingly silly and, furthermore, entirely unnecessary. And what cool thing is there that we want to do that necessitates noncompliance with standards? Such a thing is becoming rarer and rarer as time goes on. If there really is such an instance where you have no choice but to break standards then, hey, go for it. I won’t fine you or think any less of you and nobody else should. If you have to do it though and you yourself perceive that standardistas are looking over your shoulder then take a deep breath, relax, and have the courage of your convictions. Matter solved!
060 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:43 PM

“I’m a grammar nerd myself, so I understand the annoyance — but if we can’t overlook people’s silly mistakes long enough to appreciate the point they’re trying to make … ”

I overlook plenty of such errors and never mention them but I mentioned this is a particular one that I’ve seen hundred of times and also mentioned that it’s unfortunately becoming a standardized misspelling. The one time I mentioned it just happened to be on your blog.

But the misspelling didn’t make me overlook the point that was being made.
061 // Jeff Croft // 01.02.2008 // 6:46 PM

Good deal, Christian. I do definitely agree with your take on the issue. I just get annoyed when people pick apart others over tiny details and ignore the big picture. :)

For example:

Guy one: Hey, I’ve spent hours redesigning my site. It’s got a new layout, a new color scheme, all new content, and…

Guy Two: You’ve got an unencoded ampersand. Your new site sucks ass.

:)
062 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:52 PM

Yeah, in that example Guy Two should be the one taking the chill pill.

For me the ampersand thing is something I’ll encode correctly if and when it’s convenient.
063 // Ben Buchanan // 01.03.2008 // 5:39 AM

What do you guys think? Do we need the browser makers to return to their one-upsmanship in order for the rendering engines to power forward with new features?

No, I think we need the browsers to finish implementing CSS2 and CSS3. That will give us plenty of the new shiny without requiring another round of browser wars! They can play with new toys after they implement the ones the W3C spec’ed years ago ;)

Meanwhile, developers need to suck it up and make their work standards compliant. That’s the job. Plenty of other industries have long since realised that standards are there to force practitioners to get the basics right so they don’t !@%# everything up. Architects didn’t whinge, give up and go home due to building codes, they realised the standards are there for a reason and worked out how to do beautiful things AND meet the standards.

….and besides, you can’t really and properly break the rules until you know what they are ;)
064 // Jeff Croft // 01.03.2008 // 10:03 AM

No, I think we need the browsers to finish implementing CSS2 and CSS3. That will give us plenty of the new shiny without requiring another round of browser wars! They can play with new toys after they implement the ones the W3C spec’ed years ago ;)

All major browsers’ CSS2 implementations are very good these days. They may not quite be perfect, but they’re close. As for CSS3, the spec isn’t anywhere near being complete, so asking browser makers to “finishing implementing” it is crazy. We don’t even know what it is.
065 // Ben Buchanan // 01.04.2008 // 4:14 AM

I think it’s awfully generous to say CSS2 implementation is “very good/close” considering some of the big ticket items that are still buggy or totally unsupported. @font-face alone is going to make web designers wet themselves with excitement, yet not a single browser supports it. We use display every other day, yet there’s a whole range of display properties that aren’t usable. We only have the tiniest amount of generated content and printing tricks and they’d be seriously useful (although, how I dream of a closed environment where they only build for Opera ;)).

Let’s not forget that CSS2 became a recommendation in 1998. That’s ten years in May - a decade to not support @font-face? Come on! :) After ten years we shouldn’t be giving the browser makers praise for being “close”, we should be smacking them about the head for not being done yet! Especially Microsoft - yes their recent efforts are excellent, but their six year hiatus played a huge part in the stagnation that’s boring you so much.

IE is the worst offender in terms of support and the problem there is that it’s the biggest player AND the only surviving browser with a serious history for inventing proprietary elements. Until IE supports something, we can’t use it on any site we’re doing for money (and we’re still chained to the old heavy ball known as IE6). So for example since IE doesn’t support generated content, we can’t use it. But, if they go and invent something new it’ll be hard to fight it. We’re still having to mash together object and embed years after Microsoft and Netscape couldn’t agree ;)

re: CSS3… OK, so hyperbole kicked in re CSS3 :D But even so CSS3 is formed well enough to give plenty of fodder to try new stuff. So the spec isn’t finished - so what? We know where it’s heading and browser makers are free to use their namespace to try experimental implementations.

My point is there is no need for them to go wandering off and start making proprietary stuff again. We don’t need a browser war to enable innovation. We need the existing standards supported fully and consistently, so we can all get back the hours we currently spend bugfixing IE6. With all that time, who knows what cool stuff people will come up with.
066 // Henri // 01.04.2008 // 5:13 PM

What seems to me incredible, is that the open source movement could quickly create new features for web languages, and that what prevent them to do it is that there are waiting for the W3C, who is himself waiting for Microsoft to move to css2. So, in fact, the open source movement is waiting for….. Microsoft !!!! Unbelievable !

Open source movement is saying that you need to wait for the W3C. But in the same time, they create the Open Document standard for softwares like Open Office. Where is the logic ?
067 // kolczyki // 12.30.2008 // 8:05 AM

Nice post
068 // riding lawn mower dude // 01.05.2009 // 1:04 PM

I think that it is great that there is such a war between them.
069 // Mike // 01.08.2009 // 7:36 AM

I think that it is important because if we have concurrency it means that we will get better results. Am I right?
070 // Rhys - Foto Flower // 01.13.2009 // 6:50 AM

I’ve watched the first Browser Wars only from the sidelines. And for me it was really capturing, so if you will start another war for sure I will participate in it!
071 // Scheidung ohne Rechtsberatung // 01.13.2009 // 3:49 PM

Thx Jeff - “What makes them difficult is the browsers (especially one browser in particular).”, made my day :), I’ll print it out and show my boss.

My 2cents: for me as web developer all this browser-war story makes life much more harder, but I’m quite sure that it moves the industry forward. Good example is Flash - Flex - iPaper…
072 // Sliseesoype // 04.16.2009 // 4:57 PM

nice, really nice!
073 // Youth Baseball Bats For Sale // 05.15.2009 // 11:29 AM

The browser wars did us all a lot of good. it forced software vendors to develop better products. We all win when they do battle.
074 // Cheap Bowling Balls // 05.15.2009 // 11:32 AM

i would have to agree we all benefit when compmaies compete for our business. The more they think they need to do to get our attention the better off we are.
075 // Cheap Bowling Balls // 05.15.2009 // 11:32 AM

i would have to agree we all benefit when compmaies compete for our business. The more they think they need to do to get our attention the better off we are. Cheap Bowling Balls
076 // typy bukmacherskie // 08.26.2009 // 7:28 AM

I believe in browser war, it must be a solution for the evolution of technology and applications ! ;-)
077 // Julia // 12.13.2009 // 6:24 PM

Browser wars are beneficial to us a users. A little healthy competition is good and keeps pushing innovation. Web browsers are no different. I am a Mozilla Firefox user myself, but Google Chrome is coming up pretty closely on their heels.
078 // Push mower man // 01.21.2010 // 3:43 AM

That thing with the browser war is a religious war and, beside the design point of view (OK, and behavior point of view in some cases) we forget what’s the point here: information. So we should focus more and more on information than on how browser treat the layout of a page, come on. And it all depends on where you stand: I used to be a IE fan totally ignoring other browsers. I can’t say when I switched but now I am a Chrome boy + Firefox and I can’t stand IE and I can’t even tell when that happened and why.
079 // baja hoodie // 02.22.2010 // 12:50 PM

I think that the browser war is just beginning.

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050 // Jeff Croft // 12.18.2007 // 5:09 PM

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055 // Lou Quillio // 01.01.2008 // 3:41 PM

056 // Kevin // 01.02.2008 // 12:20 AM

057 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:25 PM

058 // Jeff Croft // 01.02.2008 // 6:33 PM

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060 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:43 PM

061 // Jeff Croft // 01.02.2008 // 6:46 PM

062 // Christian // 01.02.2008 // 6:52 PM

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064 // Jeff Croft // 01.03.2008 // 10:03 AM

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067 // kolczyki // 12.30.2008 // 8:05 AM

068 // riding lawn mower dude // 01.05.2009 // 1:04 PM

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071 // Scheidung ohne Rechtsberatung // 01.13.2009 // 3:49 PM

072 // Sliseesoype // 04.16.2009 // 4:57 PM