Why MS fails to follow web standards



  • I've finally figured out why Microsoft has such a hard time to make their web browser follow the standards. They simply don't know/understand them.

    (This was reported when editing an HTML page in Visual Studio 2005 --- yeah yeah, the real wtf is why would I do that etc. :-))

    Error: Validation (XHTML 1.0 Transitional): Text is not allowed between the opening and closing tags for element body'. 

     Funny, I wonder how where and how they want me to my page contents if not between <body> and </body>

     As a side WTF, the page first generated by VS was using uppercase tags, something their own validation engine correctly marked as incorrect :-)


  • Considered Harmful

    I'm pretty sure XHTML requires you to put text content in a node underneath <body>, such as a <p>aragraph.  Of course, that would still be between <body> and </body>.  Uppercase tags are a clear WTF.  Visual Studio is, however, very configurable in the way it formats (X)HTML.



  • @joe.edwards@imaginuity.com said:

    I'm pretty sure XHTML requires you to put text content in a node underneath <body>, such as a <p>aragraph.

    Ok, then this wtf is more of a miscommunication between me and VS.. although I'd assume that their "design mode" WYSIWYG editor would fix that kind of stuff for me..  



  • i don't know if is "standard" but i had a big laugh when IE7 showed this:

    Internet Explorer cannot display this feed

     

    Internet Explorer does not support feeds with DTDs.

     

    <FONT color=#1370ab>Go back to the previous page.</FONT><NOSCRIPT id=goBack></NOSCRIPT>

     

    <FONT color=#1370ab>More information</FONT><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT>

    This feed contains a DTD (Document Type Definition). DTDs are used to define a structure of a webpage. Internet Explorer does not support DTDs in feeds.



  • VS2005 does not generate uppercase tags.
     



  • @Ice^^Heat said:

    VS2005 does not generate uppercase tags.

    Sure it does. Try right clicking on your c++ project and select Add->New Item and choose Web->HTML page

    So the first thing you see in your fresh document is 9 XHTML validation errors. (I have never configured this behavior - this is a stock install of VS2005)

    Any new tags that are added while editing the document are indeed lowercase.

     



  • I never ran into that behaviour.

    Then again, most web standards are barely implemented by browsers, especially XHTML.

    I am not sure if standards matter...



  • @Ice^^Heat said:

    I am not sure if standards matter...

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 



  • @iwpg said:

    @Ice^^Heat said:

    I am not sure if standards matter...

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 

    They really aren't. Most web pages aren't written to the 'standard' specs and none of the browsers are.

    Instead, the web has been built around the concept of testing your site with the major browsers, and manually adjusting it for compatibility. That may not be how you would like the web to be built, but that is how it actually works. 



  • @asuffield said:

    @iwpg said:
    @Ice^^Heat said:

    I am not sure if standards matter...

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 

    They really aren't. Most web pages aren't written to the 'standard' specs and none of the browsers are.

    tcp, ip, http, ftp, jpeg, png. Just to name a few standards.



  • @Daid said:

    @asuffield said:
    @iwpg said:
    @Ice^^Heat said:

    I am not sure if standards matter...

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 

    They really aren't. Most web pages aren't written to the 'standard' specs and none of the browsers are.

    tcp, ip, http, ftp, jpeg, png. Just to name a few standards.

    That's "internet". He said "web". Not the same thing. 



  • @asuffield said:

    @iwpg said:

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 

    They really aren't. Most web pages aren't written to the 'standard' specs and none of the browsers are.

    Instead, the web has been built around the concept of testing your site with the major browsers, and manually adjusting it for compatibility. That may not be how you would like the web to be built, but that is how it actually works. 

    I said "concept", not "implementation". ;-)

    Seriously, no, it didn't work out as well as it could have.  But still, the fact that different browsers even have a chance of being able to view the same page in more or less the same way has to count for something, right?



  • @asuffield said:

    @iwpg said:
    @Ice^^Heat said:

    I am not sure if standards matter...

    Standards are fundamental to the concept of the web. 

    They really aren't. Most web pages aren't written to the 'standard' specs and none of the browsers are.

    Instead, the web has been built around the concept of testing your site with the major browsers, and manually adjusting it for compatibility. That may not be how you would like the web to be built, but that is how it actually works. 

    I agree grudgingly that web standards are very poorly implemented and that they certainly weren't the driving force when the web was "built" (hell, they didn't even exist then).
    But I still think the worst thing you can do is bury them by stating they are not important.



  • I would REALLY REALLY love to follow web standards, but if they break the site for my target audience (IE6 users) then I have no choice to ignore the standards. If you use XHTML you also run into quirks because it is barely implemented.

    So it doesnt work the way one would want to work.

    So how holy are standards when you can't do anything with them in a practical situation.



  • @Ice^^Heat said:

    I would REALLY REALLY love to follow web standards, but if they break the site for my target audience (IE6 users) then I have no choice to ignore the standards. If you use XHTML you also run into quirks because it is barely implemented.

    So it doesnt work the way one would want to work.

    So how holy are standards when you can't do anything with them in a practical situation.

    That's basically it, yes. Standards only matter if there is agreement between the major players to attempt interoperability through standards - and there just isn't in the web arena, because Microsoft don't want interoperability on any terms. It doesn't matter how many "standards" are created by people like w3c, when the largest player in the market does not care. This sucks, and it may well be rather less than what people desire, but that doesn't make it any less true. Standards are only important as a small part of a larger process of cooperation; alone, they are a waste of time.



  • We still have standards - they are de facto standards



  • @Ice^^Heat said:

    Then again, most web standards are barely implemented by browsers, especially XHTML.
    Opera, Firefox and Konqueror support XHTML just fine. Internet Explorer (even version 7) does not support it at all (by XHTML I mean properly served XHTML - with application/xhtml+xml MIME type, and not text/html, which will cause all browsers to parse it with the HTML engine).



  • You know, I've seen that a million times but I still don't get why that's important.  Could someone post an example of an XHTML page that would require a proper header?



  • @isaks said:

    @Ice^^Heat said:

    VS2005 does not generate uppercase tags.

    Sure it does. Try right clicking on your c++ project and select Add->New Item and choose Web->HTML page

    So the first thing you see in your fresh document is 9 XHTML validation errors. (I have never configured this behavior - this is a stock install of VS2005)

     
    uh... nope. 


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