IE: The lowest-common denominator


MacUser ("free" registration required) reports that Safari developer David Hyatt has a bone to pick with Microsoft and Internet Explorer (IE) web browser. In fact, he emphatically believes that IE is holding back web standards and preventing further development of Apple's Safari web browser. Hyatt's assertions are listed in his weblog.

The programmer claims that Microsoft's sloppy coding and poor error handing results in websites that merely fit this lowest-common denominator standard. Hyatt pointedly states that:

"The whole reason nearly all Web pages on the Internet are malformed is because browsers let Web page authors get away with it. As long as browsers are permissive in their error handling and recovery, Web authors will continue to produce invalid Web pages, because they won't even have any idea the pages they are authoring are invalid!"

Another day, another Microsoft global-scale kludge exposed.

Editor's note: Here's a slogan I just coined that roughly encompasses my computing world view -- "The Mac is the ultimate Windows patch!"

What's your take?