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Internet Explorer The Internet IT

MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7 406

Posted by Zonk from the the-end-times-are-coming dept.
Mike Savior writes "Eweek has a story stating that Microsoft is telling web site developers to prepare their sites for IE 7. From the article: 'One area that Microsoft has clearly articulated as being one in which developers can start work now to prepare for IE 7 involves the UA (user agent) string. First discussed in the company's Weblog in April, the code change prompted a reminder on Wednesday to developers, telling them that Microsoft continues to run across Web sites that are not expecting Version 7 of the browser, and urging them to test their UA strings. '"
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MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7 More

MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7

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  • If you use Firefox... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...the terrorists have already won.

  • Shut 'em out (Score:4, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:46AM (#13086155)
    Oh yes, gotta prepare all those sites out there so they don't shut out IE7, like they do non-MS browsers. Personally, I think it would be refreshing for IE7 users to see something like: "We are sorry, but we don't support your browser. Please upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer. We don't believe in standard HTML."
    • True. They should just replace IE with MS Word and get it over with.
    • "Personally, I think it would be refreshing for IE7 users to see something like: "We are sorry, but we don't support your browser. Please upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer"

      +1: Funny. I might actually program a message like that into my website...

  • user agent (Score:5, Informative)

    by BoldAC ( 735721 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:46AM (#13086156)
    If you are depending on the user agent string, your web site design is flawed already.

    Sure IE is broken... but you just have to format to fit the lowest common denominator.

    Trying to detect the browser type for the majority of web designers is just silly.

    • Re:user agent (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gronofer ( 838299 )
      I suppose if want to support MSIE users, and use a lot of Javascript or CSS, then you probably need to detect MSIE to work around some of its problems.

      But the user agent string is probably the worst way to do it.

    • Re:user agent (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's good that browsers like Firefox have cleared the path for Microsoft, by forcing web developers to create web pages that work with any browser, instead of working with just one or two browsers.

      I wonder when Microsoft will send their thanks to Firefox team.
      • That is certainly true!
        On the other hand, had Firefox not been there they would not have had a compatibility problem in the first place... there would be no IE7, and by the time Longhorn would come out with a new browser it would just support only "MSIE markup language" and no W3C standard *at all*...

    • Re:user agent (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      typically the looking for user agent string is used by wanna-be or poser web designers who's knowlege of HTML DHTML and Javascript does not exceed frontpage and cut and paste from a scripts site.

      Yes, many BIG company websites are designed and maintained by posers who act like they know what a website is and does but in reality know absolutely nothing.

      This is typical in the web developer world. they want someone who can make pretty graphicsand do not give a shit about good scripting, good html markup, and
    • Simple, write to the subset of HTML, CSS and JavaScript supported by IE6, IE7, Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape 8, and Safari.

      If you do that, you have most of the web.
      The rest are then people using outdated tech
      (like Netscape 4.x, IE 4/5 etc)

      • Re:user agent (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Decaff ( 42676 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @11:23AM (#13087019)
        If you do that, you have most of the web.
        The rest are then people using outdated tech
        (like Netscape 4.x, IE 4/5 etc)

        Most is often not enough. If you are developing and supporting a website that has tens or hundreds of thousands of users, and even a few percent are still using old browsers, your complaints department will be swamped by annoyed users. Simply telling them that they are out of date is not good enough. I speak from harsh experience.

        Checking the user agent string is often an unfortunate necessity.
    • So you don't see the use in having a web site that can work correctly and bug free in both IE and the others even with the differences in design, or a small format website designed for PDAs and mobile phones or even a text web page designed for text browsers?

      Unfortunately, the tags in the lowest common denominator are probably fully described in the Allowed HTML for slashdot. Believe it or not, people may browse the web in a browser that doesn't include IE, KHTML or Firefox, and there may be web pages t

  • Let them release first, then we'll see (Score:5, Informative)

    by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:47AM (#13086161)
    "I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue, owner of Norwich, Conn.-based development firm KidoImages. "We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."

    Same for me. Our website uses standard CSS and it needs a hack (csshover.htc) to make it work on IE. Maybe IE7 no longer requires it, maybe it does. Who knows?
    Until then, the conditional stylesheet inclusion for IE has to remain there.
    • As Donna said in that article, most wed devs worth their salt code to standards, then worry about fixing browser-specific bugs.

      More often than not, it's plugging all the box model errors and strange rendering quirks of IE. Too bad they still think pure CSS2 is a 'flawed' standard.

      Naturally there are times where local intranets don't want to ditch old technology yet and want to use IE-specific code. But generally speaking, this shouldn't affect the rest of us. IE7 will still display pages poorly and the

      • Re:Let them release first, then we'll see (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:24AM (#13086274)
        Our website was built by a "website design bureau". We told them it had to be standard, so it would work on Mozilla as well.
        What they produced was an absolute mess. CSS boxes were built to IE handling, and rendered incorrectly on Mozilla, which they consistently referred to as "Mozarella". They believed all problems seen on Mozilla were Mozilla bugs, and they added browser detection and workarounds.
        Of course it still failed on Opera and Konqueror.
        They used an awful piece of Javascript to make dropdown menus.

        When they were done, maintenance was handed over to me and I gradually changed all their work to make a standards-conformant site that still rendered the same way. It was a lot of work, starting from the dire state it was in.
        But finally, it renders OK and the menus work on most browsers without using javascript.

        Exceptions:
        - CSS menu only works in IE by including csshover.htc (conditional inclusion using <!--[if IE]...). maybe IE7 will support :hover on list items?
        - IE4 and below don't quite cut it, fallback to javascript code using serverside UA string detect. these are dying anyway, probably I will remove this support when IE7 appears.
        - bug 234788 in GECKO means the menu disappears when mouse moves over scrollable text area. this bug has been fixed in GECKO but Mozilla and Firefox keep releasing new versions based on the broken GECKO for over a year.... We want Firefox 1.1 and Mozilla 1.8!!!

        What I learnt: use a website design bureau only to make a site design. Don't allow them anywhere near HTML coding. They just use successive approximation towards the "browsers they test with", and try to impress managers with "browser utilisation percentages" instead of standards compliance.
        • IE4 and below

          That should have read: IE5 and below (IE5.5 is first version that works reasonably)

        • Re:Let them release first, then we'll see (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Sven The Space Monke ( 669560 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @09:17AM (#13086434)
          I recently had an oddly similar experience. The rather small company I work for contracted a web-dev. Guy was a total mess. Wasted time trying to convince me to switch the LAMP server I set up to an IIS-based one, trying to convince me to buy him a $4000 server manager package (can't remember what it was called, but it was meant for large hosting companies, not single-server rigs like ours), etc. For weeks, I kept telling him to make sure he's building to standards (as well as pleading with him to test in firefox). He kept saying that it was 'unimportant'. Eventually he relented and said he'd start testing in firefox as well as IE.

          A few weeks into the project, I get my hands on a copy of his experimental beta site. I try to load it up in firefox, and nothing. Nada. The flash he spent so much time on that comprised almost all of our site wouldn't load - it was a broken link. Worked fine in IE, so it wasn't that the file was missing. I didn't have time to look at it anymore, so I told him about the error and let him stew on it for a bit (he tried to blame it on the version of the flash plugin I was running). A few days later, I check again. Still the same problem. I talk to him about it, and he says he'll work on it. He spends 8 freaking hours on it, then tells me that "firefox can't support transparancies, so the site won't work in firefox ever".

          This doesn't sound right to me, AT ALL. So I check his html code. Well, there it is. In his EMBED tag, he ref's 2 different file names - one exists, the other doesn't. IE picks one, firefox seems to have picked the other. I'm honestly surprised that it even loads. I fix his mistake, save the file, and load it up in firefox. The site looks like ass (and as I later found out, is mostly running stolen copyrighted code and code from tutorials he read, but that's a story for another time), but it works. Time taken: litterally, without exaggeration, less than 5 minutes. Probably less time than it took to come up with that lame-assed excuse about why he couldn't do it. To this day, I'm still too scared to check the site against the w3c standards.

          Offtopic, I know, but I just had to rant (he's lodged a complaint over non-payment of wages against us recently, so I'm kinda cheesed off). Sorry, all.

        • Aint it a bitch when you pay $100 for a website and get a dog's breakfast instead.

        • Our website was built by a "website design bureau". We told them it had to be standard, so it would work on Mozilla as well.
          What they produced was an absolute mess. CSS boxes were built to IE handling, and rendered incorrectly on Mozilla...

          When they were done, maintenance was handed over to me...

          Waitasecond... they ignored you and built something that didn't meet the requirements you had laid out up front... and yet you still paid for it and used it?

          This is the reason the web development industry

        • Re:Let them release first, then we'll see (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17, 2005 @09:52AM (#13086579)
          What I learnt: use a website design bureau only to make a site design. Don't allow them anywhere near HTML coding.

          Actually, I had the absolute opposite results when I had a website design bureau design our site. They did the design great, the HTML was standards compliant and they actually tested all pages on IE, Mozilla, FireFox, Safari and Konqueror, even in multiple languages and OSes, and were open and admitted where things would have rough edges with the older browsers, and how they worked around to make sure it worked, just not worked beautifully. It was a very pleasant experience.

          Then our in-house web-app coding team butchered the HTML to pieces, re-coded parts of it that looked fine in IE6 and crap on everything else. The final HTML code that the web app spat out did not resemble anything like what was originally made. It was terrible.

          To make things worse, the web app coders told their manager that the HTML coders were to blame for the problems, and the manager didn't bother to check the facts when he blamed the web design bureau. The designers were (rightfully) pissed off, and basically told us we were not welcome back as customers again.

          So... YMMV on either side of the story.
        • Dont tell me, I was makeing websites dynamic where the design was basically produced by an ad agency. Well the designs visually were excellent, but they lacked the aspects which were needed to make the sites dynamic. 50% of the time was wasted to alter their html to the state so that you can fill in data and alter the design during request cycles. One time I kicked a mess of 5 nested tables entirely and replaced it with a few lines of CSS code, which broke some old browsers but actually were maintainable.

  • UA strings! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Freexe ( 717562 ) <serrkr@tznvy.pbz> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:48AM (#13086163) Homepage
    Surely Microsoft have learnt by now that UA detection just doesn't cut it anymore.

    I really hope IE7 has improved its standards compatibility so I don't have to change to much of my code! (Hopefully none of it, if MS have done a good job)

    We can only cross our fingers and hope it will pass the acid2 test (at the very least have improved some of its css)!

    • Surely Microsoft have learnt by now that UA detection just doesn't cut it anymore.

      I really hope IE7 has improved its standards compatibility so I don't have to change to much of my code! (Hopefully none of it, if MS have done a good job)

      We can only cross our fingers and hope it will pass the acid2 test (at the very least have improved some of its css)!

      heh... someone mode the parent funny!

  • Stupid......IE Tricks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .nokrog.> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:48AM (#13086164)
    First off, anyone using the user agent for ANYTHING is stupid. It's so easily changed in browsers other then IE that I can get into sites intended for IE with any browser.

    Second, why should this type of warning even be needed? Because Microsoft themselves are guilty of telling developers to ONLY code for thier browser....something no other browser asks developers to do. Microsoft has definitely shown yet again that they want people to ONLY use their stuff and they want a web that ONLY works in thier browser.
    • I don't think most people who use the UA for validation do so in an attempt to foil those want to get around it. It's more of a support issue. If the site was designed to run in IEx and you're running Lynx they're just letting you know up front that it may not work properly.

      To your second coment. Probably because fewer people will complain (or at least have reason to complain) if MS provides a warning. Sure there will be people like you and I who feel it's obvious and unnecessary, but there are more people
    • First off, anyone using the user agent for ANYTHING is stupid

      Not true; I use it on my personal website to display a "public service announcement" urging the user to switch to the far more secure Firefox if it detects that they're using IE of any flavour. ;-)

      (The message is hidden by default if they're using anything else)

    • Microsoft doesn't just *tell* them to use it. They hardcode it into their web design tools. If you've ever dealt with FrontPage or other Microsoft tools, you'll see them "embrace and extend" their features right into userland where the site owner or their secretary are expected to integrate address changes, and it gets sold to them as a "managed package".

  • hum... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Evan Meakyl ( 762695 )
    "Developers should ensure that their sites are ready for the IE 7 user agent string and treat IE 7 just like they would IE 6,"

    I hope not. IE6 is not totally standard compliant, I would be more pleased if they ask web developers to treat IE 7 just like they would Firefox or Konqueror (at least for HTML, CSS and Javascript...).

  • uh, yeah.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by towndowner ( 813250 ) <danNO@SPAMtowndowner.com> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:49AM (#13086170) Homepage
    my web site's been prepared for IE7 since 1996 or so.

  • Choice quote from TFA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Uber Banker ( 655221 ) * on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:50AM (#13086177)
    "I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue, owner of Norwich, Conn.-based development firm KidoImages. "We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."

    Oh, so true, Firefox is also my main testing and QA platform, though I do try to code to standards then adapt to the quirks of a single application, even Firefox has the odd lack of compliance.

    [sarcasm]Looking forward to IE7, Firefox has dominated the browser competition for too long [/sarcasm]!
    • I actually do the opposite. In my experience IE is a much quirkier browser than Firefox (or Opera). In general, if a design looks alright in one browser, it will look alright in another, but 90% of the time, if a design looks fine in one browser and not in another, IE is the browser that doesn't render it right.

  • Checklist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Boss, Pointy Haired ( 537010 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @07:53AM (#13086186)
    Valid HTML/XHTML..... Check
    Valid CSS.... Check

    READY!
    • Valid HTML/XHTML..... Check
      Valid CSS.... Check
      READY!

      Not that I disagree -- but your site specifically won't work with IE then. :)
      This can be a good thing though -- I specifically have sites that refuse to render to IE (on purpose). Just because ... I can. Not selling widgets on them (though a few have OS X widgets for free :), nor are they geared towards any Windows user.
      • Not that I disagree -- but your site specifically won't work with IE then. :)

        And I disagree with that.

        Having written a fair share of webapps I've found:
        1. Valid HTML may render incorrectly in any browser. While rendering correctly in others, even in IE.
        2. Valid HTML may render correctly in IE6, as long as you know the limitations of the browser.

        Thus all my output is valid HTML and renders properly in all the latest browser versions, without sending them (or tricking them into reading) different output.

        • Re:Checklist (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Zaiff Urgulbunger ( 591514 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @10:08AM (#13086664)
          What with all the concern about the UA string above, and everyone saying using the UA string is dumb, I'd just like to add:

          What about all of us "standards based" designers who have to exploit browser bugs for functionality? As far as I'm aware, pretty much _every_ designer who codes for standards (uses Firefox or something to build) and then tests and patches for other browsers (MSIE), we all use CSS work arounds [incutio.com].

          **We don't know these will work!**

          Will IE7 be fixed with respect to the CSS issues, but still respond to these CSS hacks, or vice-versa (CSS hacks don't work, but CSS is still buggy)?

          It is entirely plausible that "standards based" websites will need some work so they render correctly in IE7! Of course, we can't tell until we start testing, which in reality, is true of all web browsers since they all contain a few bugs!
  • TFA says it all:
    "I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue...."We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."

    So if MS is standards compliant with IE7, there should be nothing to worry about. Of course we all know that that is NOT going to happen. IE7 might be standards based, but expect sweet and fattening IE7 only extentions in HTML pages that will break other browsers rendering.

    I suppose this is why MS is calling for developers to pay attention to the new IE UA. IE7 might be rendering in a totally different way to IE5/6 and so will need to be treated differently to other browsers. In other words, MS wouldn't need to bother to mention this if IE7 was standards compliant. I'm smelling a hoard of compatability problems in the near future dragging us all back to the dark ages similar to the following.

    However, Champeon added that he builds sites from the ground up to work in any Web browser, by following the set of principles known as "progressive enhancement."
    Uhhhgghh!! I've met "progressive enhancement" once before. You've never seen such ugly, malformed, duplicitous code. Non standards compliant web site code that tries to be cross-browser is most of the reason I decided not to get into web development.

    • Re:Back To The Status Quo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @09:18AM (#13086437) Journal

      Uhhhgghh!! I've met "progressive enhancement" once before. You've never seen such ugly, malformed, duplicitous code. Non standards compliant web site code that tries to be cross-browser is most of the reason I decided not to get into web development.

      Perhaps you're thinking of a different 'progressive enhancement' than I'm used to. When I think progressive enhancement, I think of the method I (and those I know) use to construct websites.

      1. Write your content
      2. Mark your content up using semantic markup
      3. Once the content is marked up, do the design (or have a graphic designer do this parallel to the first two steps
      4. Convert the graphical design to CSS and apply to site
      5. (optional) Add Javascript to enhance the functionality of the already working site

      Where a lot of developers make their mistakes is that they use things like Javascript and (to a lesser extent) CSS for the main functionality of their site - for example, a navigation bar of non-links with dropdown menus of links. If, however, the javascript doesn't work in your browser, you get no links and cannot browse the site.

      The proper way to do things is to build a site that works before even adding CSS. Once you have your content in a presentable manner, then you add CSS. This ensures that your HTML will be usable across all browsers (e.g. w3m). Once that is done, you add CSS to style it. This makes it a lot easier to work around crappy IE bugs, because you're doing it one step at a time and don't have to worry about putting hacks into the HTML or using nonstandard tags.

      Only after one has a working site should one add Javascript - the rare exception can be said to be 'web applications', where the functionality of the site requires client-side scripting. Regardless, adding Javascript last means that your site will work without Javascript or without the Javascript implementation you're used to. This is important.

      For an excellent example of these principles used, specifically the use of Javascript as an extension of the page, and not as a component of the page, take a look at the Happy Spork image gallery [happyspork.com]. Play with it with Javascript on, and with Javascript off, and notice that the functionality is exactly the same - just accomplished differently - in either case.

      That is what I think of when I think progressive design. Maybe I'm thinking of something different than you are.

      • Re:Back To The Status Quo (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17, 2005 @12:18PM (#13087247)
        Nice fantasy land you live in.

        Here's the real world of site development.

        1. You already have several thousand pages of content output from a database that includes HTML directly in the dataset.

        1a. There is no additional developer resource to modify the database and/or the database itself serves other clients who want it the way it is.

        1b. Understand your site is going to be "invalid" from the get go.

        2. Mark up your new *framework* code using web standards.

        2a. Discover that the interplay between the "good" mark-up and the "bad mark-up" is causing problems in multiple browsers.

        2b. Don't bother fixing just yet - the design process will also gave an impact on structure whether you like it or not - unless you are one person doing everything in which case you don't have these kind of problems - equally bragging on /. about the "right way" is laughable - it's like a guy who once put up a shed trying to critique an building engineer.

        3. Once the framework is marked up meet with the Interaction designer, the Brand manager and any other stakeholders.

        3a. Discover they've already got a brand design in mind. It's contrarian to the way you coded your framework. Understand they're also professionals and have a point. Realise you can't force them to do it your way because arguments about semantic mark-up and clean code matter little versus the vast amount of cash they've sunk in the brand identity over the life of the company.

        3b. Go back and stare at your framework and sample output.

        3c. Try some things.

        3d. Rinse and repeat.

        3e. Arrive at framework that pretty much supports the interaction and branding requirements.

        4. Convert the graphical design to CSS and apply to sample content - testing as you go - the fact you don't control all the mark-up makes you swear a lot. You drink coffee. You do the best you can and document the hacks and exceptions in the vain hope that those come after you may finish the job properly.

        5. (mandatory) Modify existing Javascript to maintain the exsiting functionality of the site users have been using for three years plus.

        5a. You may need to go look at that framework again some.

        6. Test, test again, test some more.

        6a. Release.

        7. Spend futile debrief meeting begging for the additional budget to migrate the database content to proper separated semantic mark-up and content.

        7a. Accept management will look at you blankly. Then refuse the request. Then start making plans for additional features instead.

        7b. Make occasional acerbic posts on /. when cretins claim it's just as easy as ABC.

        This coward works for a large media organisation you all frequently claim is one of the best in the world.

    • Uhhhgghh!! I've met "progressive enhancement" once before. You've never seen such ugly, malformed, duplicitous code. Non standards compliant web site code that tries to be cross-browser is most of the reason I decided not to get into web development.

      I don't know what you think progressive enhancement is, but it's got nothing to do with being non-standard.

      Take this example:

      <a href="foo.html">bar</a>

      It works pretty much everywhere. Now this:

      <a href='javascript:windowopener("

    • I've met "progressive enhancement" once before. You've never seen such ugly, malformed, duplicitous code. Non standards compliant web site code that tries to be cross-browser is most of the reason I decided not to get into web development.

      Wrong "progressive enhancement", the ones he's talking about is layering your website and building each layer on top of the previous fully fonctional one. This means that each layer yields a fully usable website by itself and merely improves on the previous ones, aka if

  • Let's see, IE7, SQL Server, Longhorn, new versin of .NET, etc -- we developers have a lot to prepare for.
    It's a wonder we can get any work done. Looks like we'll just spend all of our time getting ready for 27 new versions of Microsoft products.

    HP To Lay Off 15,000 Workers [whattofix.com]

  • Get Ready!? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) * on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:09AM (#13086237) Homepage Journal
    This just makes no sense. A website that is properly designed should not have to get ready for any version of a web browser, since it should already support most browsers on the maket, including, but not limited to: Safari, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, IE and Konquerer. Sounds like MS is encouraging the development of shody sites, which are IE centric, which is VERY bad.

  • A better idea... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <(rodrigogirao) (at) (hotmail.com)> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:13AM (#13086253) Homepage
    Validate with the World Wide Web Consortium [w3.org]. If the site breaks on IE7... put a disclaimer on the main page, telling your viewers whose fault it is, and that there are other, better, standards-compliant browsers out there!

    • Re:A better idea... (Score:3, Informative)

      by abdulla ( 523920 )
      More standards-compliant, but still flawed. Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox and KHTML, but there's still so many holes in their support for CSS and other standards. I hear KHTML is rapidly closing that gap though.
    • Validating your HTML/XHTML code is a good idea, but the professional web designer should test his work on any popular browser out there.

      Putting a disclaimer such as the one you are proposing, is offensive and amateurish. It's not the users who should adjust -- it's the designers.

  • The difference in User Agents (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kamiza Ikioi ( 893310 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:17AM (#13086263)
    IE6:
    Mozilla_4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0)

    IE7:
    Firefox_1.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0)

    • That would be:

      Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4 (compatible; MSIE 7.0)

      Good luck to anybody still trying to use the UA string.

    • Internet Explorer 7.0 running on Longhorn will have a user-agent string of:
      Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0b; Windows NT 6.0)
      according to the IE Blog [msdn.com]. Presumbly, Internet Explorer 7.0 running on Windows XP will have a user-agent string of:
      Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0b; Windows NT 5.1)

  • This question must be asked: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:19AM (#13086266)
    What can we (in the Linux world), who comply to standards do? What strategy must we follow to have M$ kind-of stab themselves in the foot by the selfish/greedy actions they might take in regard to IE7?

    I think that if a major PC buyer - read government, decided not to let systems with non compliant browsers be marketed in the country, M$ would listen to some extent. However, for this approach to succeed, many governments must do the same...not just one. The EU could do this. So could Russia and China. Is it time to lobby these governments on this just like was done on the software patent issue? But again, as an individual, I want more...ie...to be able to completely remove all traces of IE on my PC and let any browser specific component be handled by a browser of my choice. What about that?

    • only intelligent comment in thread
      yet again, the /. community doesnt get it - its about marketing, not technolgy; technology has nothing to do withit
      until people stop buying MS IE, ms will have incentives to screw others - its biz 101

      NO major company is ethical - companies are darwinian beasts that evolve to make money; if making software that excludes others works, they will do that. complaining about it is like complaining that humans have only 2 legs. Its just the way it is.
    • I don't think that it's acceptable to have governments legislating on the issue - that smacks a bit too much of governmental micromanagement, which never ends well (for example, would lynx be banned for not doing css?)

      However, it would be both acceptable and a damn good idea for governmental institutions to put their money where their mouth is and stop buying products that break standards in a blatant attempt to lock in consumers. This would hopefully do enough damage to certain monopoly interests that it
      • You do not get it! All governments have what are called "bureaux of standards". These bodies define what is allowed into the respective governments' jurisdictions. That's why, on many electronic devices, it's written: "this device complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules..." This makes the buyer expect a reasonable standard. Heck, it's a matter of legislating as thus: "All PC operating systems must meet such and such criteria..." With necessary clauses in place , M$ nonsense would be eliminated.
        • At the moment, I really wouldn't trust government to produce legislation of that form. What's the betting that the proposed 'standard' would a) most closely resemble the behaviour of Microsoft Windows and b) incidentally require the use of concepts that, oh so regrettably, MS owns patents on?

          As we've seen in the software patents travesty, the current rulers of Europe will tend to take the lead from individuals such as Mr William "Bill" Gates Esquire. I really don't think it would be a good idea to let said

    • What strategy must we follow to have M$ kind-of stab themselves in the foot by the selfish/greedy actions they might take in regard to IE7?

      Change absolutely nothing. Your strategy is as simple as that. Continue to develop for W3C standards, and make the usual pragmatic concessions to allow for IE 5 and 6. Make no special attempt to accommodate IE7 whatsoever.

      This strategy is a clear winner for one simple reason. The only reason MS gets a lot of developers to code for IE is because it's big. When you

  • QUOTE: "We're not going to waste our time specifically addressing any one browser when we can address them all instead, using faster development techniques that don't favor one platform or browser over all the others," Champeon said."
  • Many websites check the browser version from the UA string to account for older browsers(browsecap). Poorly wirtten code would not account for newer browser versions. This could also impace Mozilla.

  • Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:45AM (#13086336) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft should be urging developers to follow standards, so long as people adhere to accepted guidlines such as those laid out by w3c consortium people *will* be prepping themselves for IE7. That is of course unless Microsoft are planning to ignore them and produce another browser that has a crapped out implementation of the DOM with added non-standard extensions.

    Nearly *all* the web developers I know that are worth their weight curse regularly at the bag of bile that is IE. Firefox is just a better browser , plain and simple. Just what does IE offer (that is not a proprietary IE only extension) that is going to change things for the better?

    nick ...

  • feedback post on the original article's forum (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rufus T. Firefly ( 142270 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:53AM (#13086368) Journal

    Most /. readers already know not to use user-agent string evaluation to conditionally server content (it's lame to do so).

    However I tried to persuade the readers of the original forum where the article was posted with a post. I adopted a rational argument and hopefully it will influence the non-slashdot audience with what I hope is an eloquent statement against this inane (but perfectly understandable from the vendor's perspective) advice.

    original article [eweek.com]

    And here's my post there:

    Subject: Microsoft is deadly wrong about this advice

    First, I am a strong Microsoft supporter and have personally benefited from the use of their products. However, the most important reason for the web's creation -- and its primary value -- is to allow hitherto incompatible content formats to be seamlessly integrated according to internationally accepted standards, e.g., HTML, XML, HTTP, CSS, etc. No single vendor can lay claim to any of these languages or protocols, i.e., they are standards, not proprietary systems, owned and controlled by a single vendor. By conditionally serving content based on a single vendor's proprietary user agent (IE 7, Firefox, or Opera, for example), you not only reveal a profound misunderstanding of the web's great communicative power, but you will paint yourself into a corner from which you will find costly to extricate yourself (I know, I already made this painful mistake once, in the last decade).

    In summary: build your content according to standards (not ipso facto, ephemeral market-share ideology), and let the browser vendors do what they're supposed to do: innovate while simultaneously and rigorously adhere to W3C standards.

  • Coding for standards is too expensive! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @09:13AM (#13086422)
    "Coding for all browsers is expensive and increases our development and support costs".

    That's the BS I usually hear from people who develop only for one browser - typically the "corporate standard" browser.

    Interestingly enough, I have the opposite experience. We reuse our proven code to make sure that our sites work properly with all modern browsers. Pretty standard stuff for all serious software development professionals.

    We use a lot of fancy features, support a fancy text editor, calendar widgets, hierarchy controls... basically, everything that people want out of a modern browser interface. And do you know what? Our resulting software works and looks great with IE, FireFox, Opera, Konqueror, and more.

    We have tens of thousands of "very active" users per day, and we never get a complaint about our software not working with a less popular browser.

    We have a very small software development staff. As the manager of this organization, I can say with confidence that supporting all browsers versus just one costs us zero dollars.

    It's all about good design and management practices. If you do some planning for the future by making good, solid, reusable code the first time, you actually end up saving a ton of money. Save time, money, and sanity.

    Sadly, most software development organizations just can't handle doing their job right. They don't bother to build good reusable code, resulting in a tedious, unreliable, never-ending tweaking effort whenever the next service pack is released.

    No wonder why so many companies have outsourced their development to the 3rd world. Lousy software development practices, such as coding for just the one corporate standard browser, is prohibitively expensive.

    • "Coding for all browsers is expensive and increases our development and support costs".

      That's the BS I usually hear from people who develop only for one browser - typically the "corporate standard" browser.

      No, it's true. Try developing a website using CSS 2. It'll work in Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Safari just fine. Now check it in Internet Explorer. Whoops!

      If you want your website to work in all browsers, then you have to either forget about CSS 2 (meaning slower development) or hack arou


    • We have a very small software development staff. As the manager of this organization, I can say with confidence that supporting all browsers versus just one costs us zero dollars.



      Really? If anyone is occasionally testing to be sure everything works on all browsers, you have a cost. If no one is, I find it unlikely things work perfectly in all major browsers. There do seem to be a number of weird issues out there.

  • if MS would just make exploder work properly and not force web page developers to write custom HTML for each and every version of IE so things display consistently.

    MS made this mess, and now they're freaking out because the whole world isn't going out of its way to cover for MS's mistakes.

  • MS can suck it! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Every, and I mean EVERY website I've designed since 1993 has been fully standards compliant. I have had to hack around IE since the mid-1990s and I'm sick of it. If IE7 is not standards compliant, TOUGH! I'm not changing a damn thing in my websites. I've checked my web server logs, a major percentage (more than 50) of browsers that hit my sites are standards compliant browsers. If users can download the latest FREE version of IE, then they can just as easily download the latest FREE standards compliant

    • Re:MS can suck it! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @12:29PM (#13087290) Homepage
      Every, and I mean EVERY website I've designed since 1993 has been fully standards compliant. I have had to hack around IE since the mid-1990s and I'm sick of it. If IE7 is not standards compliant, TOUGH! I'm not changing a damn thing in my websites. I've checked my web server logs, a major percentage (more than 50) of browsers that hit my sites are standards compliant browsers. If users can download the latest FREE version of IE, then they can just as easily download the latest FREE standards compliant browser, and blow me! I'll quit before I have to change the SIX different websites, with over a thousand pages, that I built and maintain. IE users can get bent. Bitter? DAMN RIGHT! and with good reason too.

      Shortly after this outburst, Mr.Coward was fired from his job maintaining Microsoft's corporate website.

  • the biggest change in IE7... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @09:53AM (#13086586)
    ...will obviously be: developers can start work now to prepare for IE 7 involves the UA (user agent) string, just so you know. I would be much happier if they had ever began warning web "developers" to change their codes to conform to html/xhtml and css2 standards. Instead they warn to check for the new IE version string, probably to be able to write yet another customized hack for your pages to work.

    Hell, last time of such a hack [regarding IE6] happened when I rewrote a javascript menu into a quite simple and clean css version: it was pretty in firefox, konqueror, mozilla and opera, but it didn't even look like a menu in IE6 (w/ xpsp2). It took me 2 hours and about a dozen customized lines of code especially for IE, to make it look like it did elsewhere, in real browsers.

    I don't care how high levels of enlightened self-interest [ :] G'Kar if your friend ] drive MS as a company, and how lame-proof they want to make their OS and software. Make software that 1). is good, 2). that works, 3). isn't bloated [does it's function, nothing more, but does it well], 4). doesn't cost a fortune [at many places on this planet].

    Sometimes MS reminds me of good old OCP from Robocop movies: it's so big and it's so alone that you have no choice but to live with it.

  • MS: "Dear Developers. We would like to thank you for the bastardisation...uh...continuing effort towards open standards. Thanks to you, most sites will only render correctly with IE. That pesky Netscape is now rarely used. Alas, our work is not done! In our ongoing effort to push open standards (author chuckles) we now have to turn our efforts to stamping out Firefox. To this end we strongly encourage you to start coding to IE7 standards. We understand the temptation to code to Firefox as it's the hip new t
  • I've been working on web stuff as of late and am always utterly amazed at the strings that come out of browsers. Why is it that in the land of arguments over standards on HTML, CSS, etc there is never any gripe about standardizing the UA string? (Yes I know that most browsers are forced to lie because of moronic web sites, but can't we spoof a standardized string?)

    Take handhelds to start. Blazer, on the Treo 600, for the most part claims that it is Windows 95, with handy addition of tacking on the screen

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