IE does not interpret code right -> reasons why (for thesis paper)

[rockscientist01]

Hi ppl,

all coders know the hassle: You code for browsers, and then you bugfix for the IE..
But WHY is that so? What are the true reasons for the sometimes strange - sometimes just awful behavior of the Internet explorer? Why is M$ not following W3C rules and agreed upon guidelines ? How does M$ justify?
I need some facts and if possible printed statements from sophisticated sources for my senior year project.

Thanks
AO

[Charles]

If you really want to know then you'll have to fly out to Redland and start asking questions.

[aj_nsc]

If I owned the world, and didn't like my next door neighbour, I'd probably kill him. How do I justify that? Well......I don't really have to.

Same deal with Microsoft, except they don't own the world......anymore that is. Hence the monumental jump from IE6 to IE7 and (also quite big, but maybe not as much) jump from IE7 to IE8 when it comes to supporting standards.

That's one large (but not sole) reason for why IE was so terrible. It's actually not that bad anymore (but it still has a ways to get there in terms of losing some proprietary JS). What's bad is the slow decline of IE6 (although we're getting rid of that) and IE7, fortunately following the same trend of IE6.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say within 18-24 months, web developers, for the most part, will stop having to worry about the major CSS problems in IE7 and just worry about the minor ones that exist today even between W3C 'compliant' browsers.

http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?date=2009-11-30 <- might be an interesting source for you for something or other.