[development] What does IE8 mean for Drupal?

[Adrian Simmons]

Rowan Wigginton wrote:
> Do you think the changes announced [1] by Microsoft could have a 
> significant impact on Drupal's (or any CMS's) progress?
> 
> [1] http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx
> 
IE8 isn't even out yet and given the controversy[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] 
surrounding this suggested meta/version-targeting feature it may yet change, 
so lets not worry too much about this right now. It could be applied at the 
theme level or even the server level (outwith Drupal) when the time comes, 
*if* the time comes.


In the meantime, don't be suckered by Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman's 
support for the idea - get educated. Here are some links to read around this 
idea:

[1] Drew McLellan points out that - despite what's said on the IEBlog - the 
Web Standards project is not 100% behind the idea, several members were only 
aware of the proposal after the publication on ALA and seem quite miffed:
http://www.webstandards.org/2008/01/22/microsofts-version-targeting-proposal/

[2] Andy Budd on why this would be a bad thing for microsoft in the long run:
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2008/01/has_internet_ex/

[3] John Ressig (of jQuery) on why it would be bad for javascript:
http://ejohn.org/blog/meta-madness/

[4] Ian Hixie has a bit of a rant too:
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1201080691&count=1

[5] Robert O'Callahan on why we'll never see this in Firefox:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/01/post_2.html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/01/slipping_the_ba.html

[6] Maciej Stachowiak on why we'll never see this in Webkit (Safari)
http://webkit.org/blog/155/versioning-compatibility-and-standards/

[7] Anne van Kesteren (works for Opera) also thinks it's a bad idea:
http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/01/ie-lock-in

[8] James Bennett has a good follow up to his "Fire and Motion" post of why 
Microsoft is having to do this:
http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2008/jan/23/legacy/

[9] Jeremy Keith on why the execution is flawed, and how it can be fixed:
"I think that the X-UA-Compatible header is a great idea. It’s great for 
Microsoft. It’s great for Microsoft’s customers. But the default behaviour 
is wrong, wrong, wrong! This should be an innovative feature, not a 
mandatory part of the process of creating a document on the World Wide Web."
http://adactio.com/journal/1402/

IMNSHO Jeremy Keith has the right answer, it's a good idea badly implemented.

-- 
Adrian Simmons (aka adrinux) <http://perlucida.com>
e-mail <mailto:adrinux at perlucida.com>