IE8 passes the ACID 2 test
HEXUS' own web wizard, Steve, often resorts to pulling out large chunks of hair when he tries to develop websites with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 in mind. That'll probably never change Steve but the good news is that Microsoft has 'web standards' in mind with its forthcoming Internet Explorer 8 and all signs point to a browser that won't break the web.
In a blog post on the official Microsoft Internet Explorer Web Blog, general manager Dean Hachamovitch says "As a team, we’ve spent the last year heads down working hard on IE8. Last week, we achieved an important milestone that should interest web developers. IE8 now renders the “Acid2 Face” correctly in IE8 standards mode."
Whilst that may not mean much to most of us, I can imagine Steve giggling away as he reads this. Acid2 is a simple looking test designed by the Web Standards Project to identify web page rendering flaws in browsers.
Internet Explorer 6 and 7 have come under much scrutiny from web developers due to the fact that a website that renders well in one of the browsers, may not do so in the other. In regards to this compatibility problem in particular, Mr Hachamovitch states "With respect to standards and interoperability, our goal in developing Internet Explorer 8 is to support the right set of standards with excellent implementations and do so without breaking the existing web."
It isn't very often that Microsoft gets to show off compliance with web standards and to highlight the point, an entire video emphasising the fact is available on the channel 9 homepage.
One comment left on the channel 9 blog reads "Holy CSS compliance batman! That's fantastic!". I couldn't have put it better myself.
Source: IE Blog
