If Robert Scoble is right, Visual Studio 2005 will have a stick to standards toggle switch. This switch will alow developers to guarantee that projects will work on different browsers: “The next version of Visual Studio lets you target various different browsers and doesnt take a locked into Microsoft stance at all.” This is a March 18th 2005 posting.
Now this is a significant step. The question is- is it limited to a tiny domain – or indicative of a broader trend? A tiny domain would be only certain parts of HTML,CSS , JavaScript or(not AND) DOM. Where does it leave XML, Web Forms, SVG ECMAScript E4X and other standards where Redmond departs or omits the standards all together ? And of course Java developers will wonder when they can get a Redmond distribution of the latest and Sun compliant JDK as part of the OS or IE ?
We will watch this one closely too. Stay tuned.
(c)JBSurveyer 2005