Tim Bray ongoing

Tim (can I call you that?) has a response (Browsers and CSS, Again)to his early Not Rocket Science essay. Several quick observations :

1) Tim's frustration with how poorly IE implements the CSS spec's is understandable.

"The problem isn't that CSS is too hard. The problem isn't browser incompatibilities in general. The problem is specifically that Microsoft Internet Explorer is a mouldering, out-of-date, amateurish, out-of-date pile of dung. Did I say it's out-of-date? As in past its sell-by, seen better days, mutton dressed as lamb, superannuated, time-worn. It's so, like, you know, so twentieth-century."

The lack of progress with IE borders on criminal, and there doesn't seem to be any hint comming out of MS that that will change that. If anything the news that IE SP1 will be the last standalone version confirms the gloomy view. I wish more and more that the anti-trust had taken the browser from the rest of MS.


2) Browser still matter and the lack of good standard implementation will hinder how the internet is used in public and within companies. Thin clients have great advantages. Although richer pugs have promise (data driven Flash apps, Xforms or .net), we need a working standard based thin client platform or accept the costs of non-innovation like the Fatal html bug. Again from Tim Bray :

"They Just Don't Get It. Every ambitious web designer in the world is investing their customers' and employers' money in arcane, complexified, kludged-up hacks to work around IE's broken box model and pixel-font weirdness and sub-one-em microscopism. Failing that, they're doing like me and sizing in pixels, with adverse effects on accessibility."

3) On a more personal note :Even with all the documenting and proposal writing I've been doing over the last little while, I've got a long way to improve (I'm not even talking about spelling!). Tim's essay (both the technological and personal) are a pleasure to read. I want this to be more than a list of links. I've going to keep trying, those who know me know I'm prone to tangents, but I'll try it keep things here (at least) polished, focused and powerful. (I hear my inner Yoda saying : Do not Try, Do! ...Yes, Master Yoda)


4)Following the Technoratia link I stumbbled apoun Gimle. Great Layout!! another list to the hoard.