What Does Acid2 Compliance Mean To The Average User?
As a web developer I’ve been asked a few times by average users why everyone should prefer using a standard compliant browser over Internet Explorer. Although it seems obvious to me and other programmers it doesn’t translate all that well to the average Joe. I’d like to change that.
I think the feeling they get out of our conversation is that I’m simply lazy and that “I don’t want to have multiple versions of similar code to make it work on different browsers”.
Can we change that? I propose an easy and short analogy followed (for ears who want to hear more) by a longer and more complete analogy. I won’t be doing conclusions for them. I prefer to let them feel smart about their own choices so I let them them make the choice to switch browsers on their own.
A Car Analogy To Explain Standard Compliance
Navigating the internet with a browser is a lot like driving on streets with a car. If my break lights do not work and I suddenly decide to break people behind me won’t know what I’m about to do. Hopefully they have fast reflexes I won’t cause an accident. Even if they do react fast they’ll be pissed at me.
Thankfully web developer’s like myself can compensate for bad drivers by automating behavior to avoid accidents. It’s not an easy tasks but just like you get an idea of how a driver might drive by his license plate we know by reading a browser’s name and version which infractions they’ll do.
The problem with that is that in some cases their behavior affects everyone and we must make everyone else suffer small sacrifices for them to drive without causing major accidents. What’s really sad about the whole thing is that the good drivers are penalized today because a majority of bad drivers ignore the rules and invent some of their own.
– longer and more complete explanation for those interested only –
The idea that using a non-compliant browser hurts the web isn’t easy to explain because the way it hurts us all is through side effects rather than simple and straightforward ways.
One example I often see in the industry is that of a company wants to publish something they’ll simply convert their information using Microsoft tools. You don’t see a single product from Microsoft create compliant web pages. Microsoft does care greatly about this but not in the I-want-to-be-a-good-webizen way. They enjoy their position of monopoly because it dictates how everyone has to build web sites. If it was standard compliant other players could compete equally but because they are Microsoft “standards” they have to provide a good way for the browser to drive the internet and a ton of work arounds to allow it to work for it to work the Microsoft way.
Web developers decided that they had been fooled long enough. Today a team of great developers built the Gecko engine used in the Firefox browser. As those browser prove more secure people are adopting them but their move isn’t motivated by web standards. The good thing is that Microsoft which had not done any innovation at all on Internet Explorer is forced to do so now because compliant browsers are making their way to people’s computers.
Microsoft by their position of monopoly was trying to discourage developers from doing standard compliant web pages. They even care very little about bugs in their web browser and provide in their knowledge-base non standard ways to fix these problems (usually breaking things for all the good drivers out there).It’s understandable that conscientious web developers today really want to bash the person responsible for making browser such bad drivers. Thankfully to correct Microsoft’s poor driving habits we don’t have to change much. Simply switch browser.