Search This Blog

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Perspective: Acid2, Acid3, and the Power of Default

"Acid2 is a complex Web browser test page that shows a smiley face
when rendered correctly. The test, published by the Web Standards
Project, has been a tremendous success in weeding out browser bugs
that stop Web designers from reaching pixel perfection in their pages.
Safari and Opera ship Acid2-compliant versions, and the upcoming
Firefox 3 will also pass the test. Recently, Microsoft announced that
Internet Explorer version 8 can render Acid2, and it showed a screenshot
to back the claim. The news was received with joy and excitement in
the Web-authoring community. Finally, it seems, Microsoft has decided
to take Web standards seriously. Designers will no longer have to spend
countless hours trying to get their pages to look right in Internet
Explorer while adhering to standards. Unfortunately, I think that the
celebration is premature. I predict that IE 8 will not pass Acid2,
after all... Acid3 will follow in the footsteps of Acid1 and Acid2;
it's a tough one-page test that displays a quirky graphic when rendered
correctly. No browser will pass the test at the time of its release.
All vendors are equally challenged. Whereas Acid2 was a static Web
page, Acid3 will be a dynamic Web application. When browsers are
improved to pass Acid3, it will become easier to write Web applications
that work interoperably across browsers... The IE 8 team has shown
that it can render Acid2 correctly. Now it's time for Microsoft to put
its code to good use."

No comments: