In a column entitled Browser as orchestrator I waxed optimistic about the notion that we'll be able to leverage standards-based browsers to compose and remix services client-side as well as server-side. Not long afterward, though, I found myself in that same old place, trying to sort out which features of various standards are supported in Internet Explorer. Worse, the cause of the headache was IE7.
So I tempered my optimism. Then, last week, I was surprised and delighted to hear from Microsoft's Chris Wilson in response to that posting. He wanted to know why I cared about an admittedly obscure CSS feature. I pointed to the use case I discovered last month, which to me suggests a whole class of interesting applications. I don't know whether or not this particular feature will make it into IE7, but it's great to see that the team's radar is tuned into these kinds of issues.
The following comment, attached to Chris Wilson's inaugural appearance on the IE blog, sums things up nicely:
IE 6 only seems so bad now because it is 5 years old, and that lapse is due to MS's strategic error of thinking it was big enough to freeze the web. Management seems to have moved out of that phase, and that is worth celebrating. After all, as much you might want it, IE's share will never drop so low that you can afford to ignore it. Anything the IE team does to make our lives easier should be encouraged.Amen and +1.
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/03/06.html#a1401