Today, I finally got around to reading the brouhaha over IE 8 and it’s version-targeting system. The last blog entry I read was Jeffrey Zeldman’s In defense of version targeting , a response to Jeremy Keith’s Broken — and I started to write a lengthy comment. At some point, I realized the comment would make a better post here at JeffCroft.com. So, what follows is the piece that began life as a comment over at Zeldman.com.
This whole debate echoes what, at least to me, was the primary topic of discussion in the Web standards world in 2007: pragmatism versus purism. After the war for Web standards was effectively won, the community started turning on itself, debating the pedantics of perfection versus good enough in the “real world”.
IE8’s version target mechanism clearly and understandably bothers the purists in the crowd, whereas the pragmatists see it as a solution, which, while not perfect, is plenty good enough (and pragmatists tend to recognize that perfection is sometimes not possible in the the face of external factors).
In 2007, purists and pragmatists went to war over iPhone-optimized sites, CSS frameworks, naming of markup’s classes and ids, HTML 5, CSS3, whether or not “browser wars” could actually be a good thing, and more. While these are all healthy debates when kept low-key and professional, too often they devolved into personal attacks, anger, and FUD. In short, everyone started to forget the simple fact that we’re all on the same team, here. I know I was personally involved in a lot of this, and while I never got into these discussions with the idea of them becoming heated, personal arguments: they did, and I regret that.
In the end, we’re all standards-oriented developers trying to do things the “right ” way, and the notion that having (mostly) slayed the browser dragon means we must now break into denominations (like pragmatists and purists) is flawed.
If you want to be Catholic to my Protestant, that’s fine with me. After all, we both read the same bible.
001 // Leslie // 01.26.2008 // 2:50 PM
amen brother!
002 // Emil Bjorklund // 01.26.2008 // 3:35 PM
Hmm… I would say Jeremy’s approach actually is pragmatic rather than purist - going with the solution that I percieve that he (and I) deems the one likely to cause the least problems - perhaps not in the short term perspective of those maintaining sites and intranets “locked” to IE7, but in the larger, long term perspective of websites being created now and in the future.
So I don’t really see it as purist trying to advocate a solution that creates minimal fuss for other browser manufacturers, web developers coding to standards, javascript library developers etc… Yes, there is a tradeoff working against sites today that might not work in the IE of tomorrow, but there are tons of potential sites in the years to follow that might suffer from this not being opt-in. The number of sites not working in IE7+ will continually diminish, but the number of sites not needing a switch will continue to grow, basically.
003 // Emil Bjorklund // 01.26.2008 // 3:43 PM
BTW: It would seem that your django installation doesn’t like the umlaut in my name… Running pre-unicode merge, are we? :-)
004 // Jeff Croft // 01.26.2008 // 3:46 PM
@Emil: First off, this post isn’t really about debating Jeremy’s position versus any other on the IE8 issue — it’s about the fact that we should all be able to co-exist peacefully despite subtle differences in the way we think things should be done in our industry. So far, the IE8 debate has seemed relatively peaceful, but it’s pedantic nature reminded me of earlier debates which didn’t stay so calm, so I was compelled to make this post.
I don’t know where I stand on the IE8 issue. I’m fairly disinterested, I guess, in getting out there and voicing a strong opinion on how specs should be written and standards should work. I’m more interested in doing real world work with the standards once they’ve been created, I guess.
And yes, this version of my code isn’t too happy with Unicode (it’s actually not a pre-Unicode merge of Django, it’s problems in my app). I’ve been working on a new version that deals properly with Unicode. My apologies. :)
005 // Andrew Ingram // 01.26.2008 // 4:32 PM
I know you really like using the word “pedantic”, but I don’t think it really fits in this case. Is it really pedantic to debate the benefits of something that could have a significant effect on our industry in the relatively near future? Especially when right now we have no idea whether this effect will be good or bad.
This isn’t like CSS Frameworks where one person using them literally has no impact on whether you have to use them as well, this is something that affects every web developer. The future of browser compatibility is an important issue but it’s unfortunately one that’s already clouded in misunderstanding and confusion.
The real question is simply this: Has our debating/arguing/flaming/whatever over various topics related to web standards in the last year stopped any of us making good websites? The answer is almost certainly no.
006 // Scott McCracken // 01.26.2008 // 4:33 PM
Well said, Jeff. Debate is an essential part to any healthy community. But when those debates turn into pissing contests, like most of the heated web debates last year, neither side seems to make much progress at all.
Luckily, as you mentioned, the debate over version-targeting hasn’t reached that level yet—and let’s hope it stays that way, because when things turn ugly it’s often finding a resolution to the original topic that suffers.
007 // Jeff Croft // 01.26.2008 // 4:46 PM
I definitely do not believe this will have a “significant effect on our industry in the relatively near future.” If you do, then our definition of “significant” is very different. This is, ultimately, a minor detail that won’t stop anyone from building great websites (no matter how it’s resolved), and the definition of pedant is “a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning.”
But, ultimately, you missed my point. I wasn’t talking about IE8 here at all. I have no opinion on that matter, currently. Rather, I was talking about how our community, lately, insists upon fighting with itself over minor details when we all agree on 90% of this stuff. Can’t we all just get along?
008 // Jeff Croft // 01.26.2008 // 4:48 PM
@Scott McCracken: Thanks for seeing the point of my post, rather than focusing on the IE8 debate.
009 // Andrew Ingram // 01.26.2008 // 4:56 PM
I rather think we are getting along, we just happen to like debating too. Not all of us have our dream jobs yet and these debates help keep us interested in the world of web development.
010 // Matt Wilcox // 01.26.2008 // 5:28 PM
There’s a reason for this, and it’s because of the success of web standards. What used to be a niche populated in the majority by professional people with a passionate agenda and the patience and intelligence to debate properly, now has a lot more people living in it. And as with any group the more people you get the more noise you get and the more likely it is that someone somewhere will not treat the issues in question in a professional manner. The nicely thought out respectful tone starts to become the minority rather than the majority.
That’s just life, you can see it in effect anywhere there’s open discussion. It’s why YouTube is full of moronic comments and flame wars. It’s why big forums are almost always unpleasant. It happens plenty in the real world too.
This attitude is a symptom of success, and I’m afraid there’s little that can be done about it bar getting the calmer types breaking away into some sort of secluded elitist society.
011 // Jeff Croft // 01.26.2008 // 6:20 PM
@Andrew: This post was a reflection on times in 2007 when everyone definitely wasn’t getting along.
@Matt: Sadly, you’re probably right. :(
012 // Matt Robin // 01.26.2008 // 10:09 PM
Well said Jeff!
This nicely sums up very similar thoughts I was having about the whole (new) situation with IE8 and it’s version-targeting tactics.
In fact, by the time I read the first thing I could about all this version-targeting stuff…there were instantly five or six other long, great articles written by other Web Standardistas (including Jeffrey and Eric Meyer among others) - everyone all saying much the same thing, and announcing what everyone else was thinking about too! Feedback for these articles have been extensive with 50-60 plus comments just for starters…so, even if I did write a long, wordy, well-considered reply, no one would read it anyway because they wouldn’t get that far!
I’ve made a brief message over on my friend Steven Clark’s site, and this comment here, and will have to write up something soon-ish on my own site too - because the topic is obviously significant enough to merit its own article rather than a fistful of comments scattered about the interwebs.
I can see why the IE team would propose the version-targeting approach….and it definitely seems to be a move intended to flatter the vocal Web Standards movement’s requests from the past, and try to side-step the errors that cropped-up with IE7. So, the version-targeting is a solution, of sorts - it just doesn’t satisfy a big amount of Web Standards purists - who see it as a Microsoft move which could break the Web, and something that relies too heavily on web developers to be aware of it (which they should be anyway).
Another reason I haven’t written much about this yet is a sentiment also shared by Roger Johansson in his own article (Standards mode is the new quirks mode) - “…Now, this is one of those subjects that if you have an opinion on it, it doesn’t matter what that opinion is. It will be the wrong opinion to a lot of people anyway, and people will become rude and call you names.”
When IE8 launches - the Web will not break and Web Professionals worth their weight in coffee-beans will still be able to make great web sites for IE8 and other browsers too…
And yes Jeff - 2007 was filled with over-agitated articles/comments about some quite substantial topics…I don’t think 2008 needs a repeat of the mud-slinging when we should all be focusing on making the most of the tools we’re using (and the future tools we’ll use too), and getting back to what we like about the web and less about the things that piss us off.
Matt: So true!
013 // Chris Grocki // 01.27.2008 // 5:14 PM
I was reading election news and came across a Obama quote from earlier today, in reference to the way politicians tend to behave present day: “We’ve gotten into these bad habits and we can’t seem to have disagreements without being disagreeable.”
I can see your point, Jeff, that the community is (perhaps in typical form, as Matt says above) perhaps getting a little mean with our rhetoric while trying to debate issues that clearly have several facets and should generate differing opinions.
Maybe it’s an American thing to make sense of this fighting by drawing [artificial?] distinctions that divide people into two camps: purists and pragmatists in this case. The problem is the division superficially makes sense, and then people start to get pigeonholed into those roles… as you did to Jeremy before you edited yourself and removed those comments.
There’s too many facets to these issues for an Us versus Them labeling. Let’s not encourage or support presumed divisions. When it comes to that work, let’s leave it political experts, and subsequently, to Stephen Colbert to make fun of said political experts.
014 // Adrian L. // 01.29.2008 // 7:46 AM
I am so tired of debate about the tiniest of things.
The ‘war’ for web standards was won a while ago. Anyone still building sites the old way is going to continue doing so whether we piss and moan about it or not. All the rest of us are doing our thing.
What we’ve got here is pretty much web dev utopia when viewed from an early 2000’s perspective.
But we humans aren’t happy when things go well. We seem to thrive in less than ideal conditions, so when they don’t exist, we go and create artificial controversy.
I don’t care much about the IE8 debate. I’ll deal with it when it becomes an actual issue. Until then, I’ll go about making web sites that work in the real world. The ones that pay the bills.
And then, when I’m done doing that for the day, I’ll go home and spent time with my girlfriend, or my kids.
015 // Jeff Croft // 01.29.2008 // 8:03 AM
Well-said, Adrian! :)
016 // Andy Stratton // 01.31.2008 // 11:21 AM
I agree with Jeff here. There has definitely been multiple splits in the industry, yet we’re all working towards the same end point.
Better time could be spent finding patterns to solve our common problems instead of complaining about complaining.
I’m also not very confident that my online cries will provoke the response I want from Microsoft, ever.
I do think our lives should be made a bit easier, but I can appreciate the ability to use a possibly cross-browser meta tag or HTTP header over no official options at all.
@Jeff: its ironic how this post is recursively exemplifying its point.
017 // Noel Hurtley // 02.02.2008 // 6:19 PM
Adrian is right on the money. Besides, we should be celebrating the fact IE8 passes the ACID2 test. This a large step forward towards richer and more interactive websites.
018 // Matt Wilcox // 02.06.2008 // 9:20 AM
“But we humans aren’t happy when things go well.” - well that’s one way to view it. I prefer to think we’re very happy when things go well, but that it’s human nature to strive to make all things better than they already are. It’s not about the size of the problem, it’s about the fact that there is a problem.
It’s not like anyone saw the wheel and thought “sweet, that’s good. I’ll stop trying to improve it now”, despite the fact it was great. Instead someone criticised it and attached an engine.
You’ll never get people stopping arguing and criticising. It’s just the arguments more further down the line.
019 // Ritz // 02.06.2008 // 8:42 PM
I think there’s been tremendous advances and love this discussion and hope it continues. I also have a little bit of worry that people think we’re winning or have already won with standards.
I still get slapped across the face a couple times a month with how many people who still call themselves web developers or designers still resist standards and some still don’t even know it exists.
Makes me chuckle sometimes that there are so many heated discussions about things that, I’m guessing, five percent of web designers are even aware of…
I recently saw teachers of a very big university still teaching tables for layouts!
Wow… Sad… But we gotta keep moving!
020 // Jason Rutherford // 02.10.2008 // 3:15 PM
I can actually see both sides of the argument. No matter which way the IE 8 team decides to go it will effect me both good and bad and at the end of the day it’s just comes with job. It may not be the perfect solution for everyone, but it is what it is and all us professionals will make the adjustments and move forward.
021 // Peter Darrow // 02.12.2008 // 9:54 AM
Jeff - the contact feature on your site isn’t working (nothing appears, except your bio) so I’ve decided to post this here. http://Lost-theories.com has been down for the past day or so with the error ‘502 Bad Gateway.’ Any idea on when it will be back up?
022 // Arik Jones // 02.13.2008 // 10:47 PM
Do whatever it takes to get the job done on time and with excellence. If that requires tables, then use tables. If 80% of the users visiting a site are IE users, going into hysteria about web standards and how IE sucks isn’t going to make all 80% of those users switch. Maybe at the end of the day, when we all finally shut up, something might get done.
023 // Paul Annett // 02.15.2008 // 11:45 AM
You’re right, the fact that we’re all playing for the same team is an important one to remember. However, I do agree with Emil’s comment. I often play pragmatist to Jeremy’s purist, but in this case Jeremy’s argument isn’t based on any purist tendencies, but on a genuinely strong belief that what Microsoft are proposing is to the detriment of the web as a whole.
024 // Natalie // 06.22.2008 // 3:54 AM
Healthy debate is always a good thing (as Martha would put it). I just hope that all major browsers developers will come up with crossplatform standarization.