Comments on: Microsoft’s “Super Standards” Mode: Important Facts

By: Led Spots

Led Spots — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:10:47 +0000

IE8 has some bugs too although it is more stable than IE7 and IE6`:*

By: memil

memil — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:09:58 +0000

The term “super standards” is really ridiculous, seems more like “bread and butter standards” to me…

By: Jeff Schiller

Jeff Schiller — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:19:54 +0000

@Keith: You have a point. But if Microsoft CAN make a strong break with their non-standard stuff (via this “super-standards” mode), wouldn’t it be kind of a good thing? With this opt-in approach they can actually do that… (again, I’m only trying to be an optimist here)

By: Keith Bowes

Keith Bowes — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:32:03 +0000

One thing is I don’t think if Microsoft added addEventListener(), they’d take out attachEvent(). That’s not how they operate. After all, they still have document.all, how many years after starting to support document.getElementById()? And have you seen the Windows API lately? A lot of obsolete, redundant functions from the Win95 era.

By: Grey

Grey — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:50:58 +0000

About IE8 turning “super standards mode” on when confronted with HTML5 documents:

As far as I know, IE8 will not support HTML5. Based on this presumption, it is clear to me this leads to catastrophe. If IE, at any later point in time, adopts HTML5, the “default” for all HTML5 documents will be IE8/IE9-rendering. Because implementing HTML5 would mean a lot of change in the treatment of HTML5 documents, wouldn’t it. And MS will have to freeze status in such a case, parallel to what is happening now with HTML4: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0651.html

So I think this is rather negative, unless HTML5 changes (i.e. adopt a “versioned” doctype) or MS policy changes or IE8/IE9 simply don’t get adopted in years. All of which I find unlikely. But I’m always open for surprises.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:42:49 +0000

“If IE8 supports addEventListener() and no longer supports the non-standard attachEvent()”

Is there any indication that if IE started supporting a standard function they would drop the corresponding non-standard function? That doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know, maybe this is something the IE team would do, but this would be a terrible idea. The proper way to preserve backwards capability is to keep these old behaviors- as long as they don’t impose on any standards.

I have found the problems in IE7 to be more along the lines of lack of support for a behavior rather than improper behavior, with a few exceptions. I know it’s likely that I have not dug as deep into CSS 2.1 and the DOM as others have, but nonetheless, I have some serious doubts that IE8 really requires an opt-in method.

By: Jeff Schiller

Jeff Schiller — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:24:29 +0000

@Ian: Obviously I can’t answer your (possibly rhetorical) question other than with speculation. I am assuming that IE9 will by default use its “best effort” rendering (IE9′s “super standards mode”) when confronted with the same DOCTYPE. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. If this is not the case, if IE9 really used IE8′s “super standards” mode, when confronted with the HTML5 DOCTYPE and no X-UA-Compatible meta tag, then I definitely have to question Microsoft on that. I think we all agree that we need to hear more than the single comment from Chris Wilson on this issue.

I’m assuming several factors will affect this decision as well: the market share of IE8, the prevalence of DOCTYPE’d HTML5, the difference in rendering between IE8 and IE9. We might not be able to get answers on these until 2010 at the rate MS is going.

By: Ian Hickson

Ian Hickson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:15:11 +0000

The HTML5 DOCTYPE triggering IE8 mode is all very well for IE8, but what about IE9?

By: Jeff Schiller

Jeff Schiller — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:38:38 +0000

@Lionel: “DO NOT RELY ON BROWSER BUGS”

What do you do when something doesn’t work in Firefox? Do you just say that browser must fix its bugs and Firefox users are left out in the cold until the browser pushes a fix? Or do you try to work around the bug?

By: Lionel

Lionel — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:11:35 +0000

All right, you could use the HTML 5 DOCTYPE instead of a meta tag, but DO NOT RELY ON BROWSER BUGS IN THIS CASE.