I thought I would never say this but on tests of CSS used with the <hr> tag, IE performed best:
Even more notable – this is Internet Explorer 6. In contrast all the other major Windows browsers – Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Opera 9 – all of them flubbed simple horizontal rule options like color: red; or size: 3px and others.
This is part of the frustration of Web development – W3C and other Web standards are accumulating at an ever increasing rate and at the same time as software vendors, particularly Redmond, are doing their own thing. In the case of Microsoft, it has become worse than during the so called Browser Wars. Redmond is either deliberately thwarting standards and proposals such as SVG, XForms, XUL, JPEG2000 – or offering up its very late and proprietary substitutes such as JavaScript/Atlas/Ajax or XAML on a take it or leave it basis – and with minimal direct Microsoft support on platforms other than Windows. XAML is a classic example. To get it to work in Linux and Mac users will have to rely on Novell and other third parties (not Microsoft) to deliver key enabling software and APIs.
But even the major browser and other software vendors are complicit. Not one of the major software vendors protested when Microsoft stopped updating IE for 7 years even failing to meet W3C standards promised from 1997-98 era. In addition, Apple, IBM, Mozilla, Opera, Sun and others are remiss in their CSS and JavaScript standards implementations. Also only recently have they started to move W3C standards along again – this coming after the emergence of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
So as a Web developer I resent the hit or miss Web Standards support and delivery of the major IT software vendors almost as much as I loathe the sanctimonious “we are trying to meet standards; but cant endanger users who have adopted our proprietary extensions” (the latest Redmond excuse for its Gross Web Negligence). And then IT executives, who are the primary cause but well above the dirty consequences, wonder why Computer Science enrollment and graduate work is plummeting. Yeah right – go get 5000 HP1B visas instead.
(c)JBSurveyer 2007 If you liked this, let others know:
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