Internet Ignorer 8 and the 'Super Standards' meta tag

OK So everytone is blogging about IE8 and the new "Super Standards" meta tag so we thought we'd jump on the bandwagon and throw our two-pence worth into the ring.

What's "Super Standards"?

Microsoft wanrts us to include a new metatag: <meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8"> to show that the browser wants IE8 to act in a certain way to render the page. Great hey? Well ermmm no.

Since web standards took off developers could focus on CSS for styling their pages and doctype declarations to determine how their code should be interpreted by a browser. Hence the underlying XHTML would be platform (or browser independant) with a range of css hack's (I know, I know, but who's actually got a complex design looking perfect without them?) and, with the arrival of IE7, conditional css statements.

The scary thing is that Microsoft actually worked in tandom with WaSP (the webs standards project) to come up with this idea.

So what's the problem?

Well think about it... IE7 is going to be shipped as an automatic update any day now (although MS deny they would ever do such a thing) either way all the stats still point to IE6/5.5 being the most popular versions with users therefore we're writing yet another check for IE with this new meta tag. Microsoft even insist that we should leave it out as standard and only include it for pre-IE8 pages... Great there's the IE7 busting pages thing all over again as we have to go back and hack about with old websites when the clients kick off (don't you just wish they'd think before opening their big gobs?).

Anyway the big question is... Why don't IE just stick to the W3C and WaSP recommendations and get their new browsers to comply with strict/transitional DTD's like everyone else?

So Microsoft - if you're listening: fix the damned loopholes for hacks such as the Harvey Morse Code css hack, and the underscore hack so that the new browser behaves like a "proper" browser... IE7 and below will still work with the hacks and you can actually start to claw back some of the market cos you have a browser that developers can actually code for.

Failing that (WaSP we're pointing the finger directly at you here - how dare you side with the billion dollar bung man at Microsoft!) how about we actually push a new version of CSS?

CSS3 has been kicking around the archives at the W3C for what a decade now? Let's get browsers to comply with CSS3 have a conditional statement to include it if browsers support it otherwise they revert back to pre-IE8 hack-you-like-it CSS?

Here's something original... How about Microsoft ask the developers that struggle to cope with the shit it produces what they would like in the new browser???

Nah forget it what a stupid idea.