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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">By now, everyone has heard that IE8 'passes' the Acid2 test, but (To paraphrase Jeremy Keith: </FONT><A HREF="http://adactio.com/journal/1402/"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://adactio.com/journal/1402/</FONT></U></A><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">) won't render pages with the new standards-compatibility unless you explicitly tell it to with this meta tag:</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">--i.e. it actually won't pass Acid2 because the test doesn't have that meta tag in it. I agree with Jeremy that this is a mistake. One of the reasons I write standards-compatible code is so that my websites will work in future browsers when they support new/better features. All such webpages are effectively locked into IE7 now, and won't get any benefits of the newer browsers unless I add this new meta tag. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The example from the article is generated content. Since IE8 isn't out the door yet, I wonder if we can't do anything about this to prevent a bad situation for years to come. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">My thought is this (and I'm hoping other people will come up with better ideas). Give HTML the ability to declare specific technologies that it uses, such that if a browser supports that technology, it makes use of it. Sort of like using object detection in javascript instead of messing with the user agent string. For example, assume an amazing new image format comes out called AwesomeImg--Opera 11 supports it, but you're not sure when IE will. Maybe IE10. But you don't want to lock your site into IE10 mode because it might break in IE10, or IE10 might still not support all your features but IE11 would have.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">There should be a way to tell the browser it can implement your technology without locking your website into a specific version. A website can then avoid the use of the "edge" attribute, which might cause future breakage, but also would avoid being locked eternally in the limitations of a specific browser version, be it IE7, IE8, IE9, etc.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">If we get this into the spec soon enough, Microsoft might incorporate it in IE8 before it releases. What do you think? Whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, I feel that the whatwg needs to address this issue somehow.</FONT></P>
<P><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Trebuchet MS">Brenton Strine</FONT></B>
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