Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajg1977 | Hacker News Reader

ajg1977

Has IE suddenly become the most standards compliant browser, or is there some subtlety here that's missing?

These are the standards-compliance unit tests that the Microsoft IE team submitted to the WC3. Obviously they're only submitting tests that they already passed, but since they focus on passing standards that they claim are important to web development, the tests are probably worth something when combined with other benchmarks. It doesn't mean that IE is standards-compliant on the whole or compared to other browsers, but it does mean there's at least some evidence (albeit biased) to support their claim that they're focusing on standards they consider important rather than benchmarks. Whether these standards are important for real-world applications is something I can't speak to.

It looks like they are cherry-picking HTML5 features that IE supports, but Mozilla/WebKit don't. But I don't see much of the important stuff like tag support, web workers, geo-location, databases... MS is pretty much full of shit.

I agree about cherry picking but I would not call them full of shit. The reason being that every product when being developed starts with a limited set of features and then goes on to start new features once the old ones are complete. May be they are at the point where they have implemented everything they are testing but not other stuff hence no tests for them.

Note that they never say that they are most standard compliant browser. They specify the tests they are running and the % of them being passed.

Disclaimer: I know I might get down-voted for this but I work at MS(not in the IE team though :) ). Of course, my opinions are my own and not my employer's.

You're more likely to get downvoted for predicting that you'll get downvoted than for disclosing in good faith that you work at Microsoft. People at HN have strong opinions about tech companies, but they're usually not uncivil.

No offense. MSFT (as a company) has always been full of shit, throughout their history, so even if they are not full of shit (in this case they are, as they are comparing out of date version of other browsers with their preview version of IE, on a test that has been custom made for them), its hard to take them seriously or trust their words in any way, shape or form.

I see

Well, Microsoft has created their own tests. They argue that tests like Acid3 are testing edge cases and as such are not really useful to test browser behavior in the real world.

What I don't understand is why they don't use the latest Chrome beta to do this tests - e.g. Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta passes all tests for Dom Level 2 Style.

Presumably their goal is partially to make IE look good compared to other browsers. Comparing the latest beta of their browser to stable versions of their competitors skews the results of their tests in Microsoft's favour.

> What I don't understand is why they don't use the latest Chrome beta to do this tests - e.g. Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta passes all tests for Dom Level 2 Style.

That's a valid question to ask and I'd tend to give them the benefit of the doubt on this. As I understand it they chose the most recent released versions of the other browsers.

If they had of chosen the most recently nightly build or beta versions and a particular test didn't work on that browser but had previously worked, ie it was a regression that would be fixed in the next build, then someone would jump all over them for "cherry picking" their competitors versions to obtain results that flattered IE the most.

Picking the most recently released versions seems to make the most sense from this point of view, though I'll allow that you could make the point that choosing the most recent nightlies of the other browsers would also make sense.

...or is there some subtlety here that's missing?

Nothing subtle about it really. They are only presenting tests in which IE passed.

You are missing things are stated on the page:

IE9 is in "Platform Preview" - meaning "not even beta". It is compared against current released versions of other browsers. They will catch up, and by past experience some will release before IE.

These tests play to IE9's strengths. I don't really have a problem with that since the tests will push other browsers to catch up, but there are other tests like ACID which have different focus and showcase other browsers.

You just used the phrase "catch up" (twice!) to describe other browsers that are far ahead of IE in pretty much every objectively measurable respect.

Clearly publishing a comparison of a "platform preview" (i.e. not even a nightly, it's just the core rendering engine) against the stable, released versions of other browsers is an effective psychological manipulation when even someone who is pointing out that very fact can jump to the conclusion that all these other browsers haven't progressed in the meantime.

Er, the test is an "objectively measurable respect" in which the IE9 Preview is ahead.

Having said that, sorry about the poor wording. And I agree that the released version of IE trails the released version of all other browsers. This has been consistent over several major release cycles. Still, I think MS should be encouraged when they're heading in the right direction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com