Imagine this scenario… You walk into a library to find a book on programming in PHP. You head to the card catalogue (ok, if you are looking for a programming book, you are probably going to use the library’s computer to search, but work with me here) and start thumbing through the cards. You notice something odd. The cards are sorted by the base colour of the cover of the book. You look around for another index, perhaps based on subject matter, but only find one based on number of pages in the book.

If you are really determined, you wander through the bookshelves in hopes of finding the Computers, Programming section. Instead, you see Blue, Green, Red, Mauve, etc. . . . In despair, you drag yourself out the door and head for the nearest bookstore. At least they sell good, albeit expensive, coffee.

This would never happen because libraries follow standards for organizing card catalogues. The system has been in use for many years and although it might be cumbersome to find something, it works. Period. Granted, the book you want might not be at the library, but you cannot fault the card catalogue for that.

Standards become standards for a reason. They make life easier and more consistent for those who need to use products and for those developing the products. There are standards for all sorts of things. For example, there are NEMA standards for power outlets and plugs. It’s well thought out and defined. If you go to your local appliance store, you don’t have to ask “what sort of power outlet do I need for that toaster oven?” The NEMA standards have solved that for you.

Sometimes, as standards are in the process of being developed, prior to being ratified, manufacturers will produce products based on the draft standard. This is tricky because the final standard might not be compatible with the draft and may therefore render the product obsolete before its time. We’ve seen this happen with networking and communications equipment many times. If you are an early adopter, you expect these problems to crop up. It’s just simply the cost of being on the bleeding edge.

As an IT manager, I love to try out (send me equipment if you want a review) new and experimental products, but NEVER in my production environments. My home network, on the other hand, is rather intense. I am an early adopter and I am a long-time holdout (I hate to part with things even after their utility is far from certain). I realize that I might end up with incompatibility issues, but that just goes with keeping up with my relevancy.

What bothers me is when a standard exists for an extended period, but a manufacturer decides to ignore the standard in their products. Today, I am particularly annoyed with Internet Explorer. Web browsers have been with us for many years. I recall the first time they came around (remember Mosaic?). The pages then were so spartan, but they were a step up from gopher, my main way to surf the Internet up to that point. Standards did not really exist yet, but soon HTML 1.0 was to become the norm. Then 2, 3, 4, XHTML 1, CSS 1, 2. . . Well, you get the picture. We have standards, but there have been many revisions.

Here’s where my anguish comes in. HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1 have been around for a long time. Their are newer revisions in the works, but these are here now and have been for years. One would think that to ensure that your browser is useful, you would make every effort to completely support these standards. If you wish to make your own proprietary enhancements, then so be it. That is up to you, but make sure that any web page that is compliant with the standards works in your browser each and every time.

I’ve been battling a couple issues with the appearance of my site in Internet Explorer. The template I am using for Wordpress is based upon one called black-hat by Nicki Faulk. I really liked the cleanness of the original, but I needed a bit more sophistication and a slightly more antiquated look. I did my changes and because of some very handy addins in Firefox, did my initial testing with that browser. Great. Then I loaded it into Internet Explorer. Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot? Things looked quite ridiculous.

I spent quite some time checking both the php and css files, but could find NOTHING that would do the particular weirdness I was encountering. I made some tweaks, had a friend look it over (he also does web development), but neither of us could find anything that was wrong. Well, I changed some padding here and there and suddenly most of the weirdness went away (ed: It’s back). All, but an issue with transparency on an icon. I spent hours trying to fix that one, but to no avail. Finally, I removed the transparency and things were good again.

I’ve heard that IE8 comes much closer than previous iterations at supporting the current web standards, but so many people still use old versions. What truly amazes me is just how many people still use IE6 (or earlier) when they don’t need to. Upgrade to IE7 or Firefox, for crying out loud!

Unfortunately, there are circumstances when one must stick with an older version. I have a system running Windows 2000 that I use as a server of sorts. I can’t put IE7 on it, let alone IE8. That sucks. I can, of course, put Firefox on it, but did I mention I use it as a server? I only use the browser on it to check how my web pages look in IE6. Dear Lord, what’s that with png files and transparency? Ugh. Back to the drawing board I went.

Please, Microsoft, here my plea. Learn to embrace the standards, not fight against them. Oh, and while you’re at it, how about making Internet Explorer support the Internet?