MSIE passes the test because Microsoft used this test [LWN.net]

MSIE passes the test because Microsoft used this test

Posted Oct 23, 2004 17:59 UTC (Sat) by jhouchin (guest, #2966)
In reply to: MSIE passes the test because Microsoft used this test by pdc
Parent article: How to kill a web browser

I think that IE passes the test because it has to be able to handle all the malformed HTML produced by all the MS Frontpage users. :)
Probably a part MS's embrace and extend. :)

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MSIE passes the test because Microsoft used this test

Posted Oct 23, 2004 21:03 UTC (Sat) by mly (guest, #2171) [Link]

Well, if the competing browsers would have rejected the bad HTML in a controlled way, you could have viewed it like that...

Having worked in projects where C++ apps were coded in Visual Studio with Solaris as target environment, I've certainly seen Sun's compiler complain quite correctly over obvious bugs which Microsoft's "friendly" compiler happily swallowed. A sort of "he must have meant..." attitude.

As a programmer, I certainly prefer a compiler that rejects my bugs over one which tries to guess what I intended...but it wasn't difficult to understand why MS did it like that, and I certainly felt that it was a bad thing for the programmer, and a reason not to use Microsofts development tools. (As I returned to that site four years later, it seems everybody stopped compiling anything on Windows before moving to the target platform. :)

In the browser case, whether you see it as "embrace and extend" or not, it certainly speaks in favour of Microsofts browser. (But that still doesn't have tabs, does it?)