Well it seems that the Internet Explorer Team is pushing out the news for their latest browser which goes beta sometime this year, summer I believe. However, they set up a triple rendering mode for this browser meaning that Internet Explorer 8 will be able to display website based on different specs on web standards. Meaning that if someone coded really old school circa 1998 IE 8 will be able to display that properly with no quirks mode, they will also render websites during IE 7 run, and of course today's standards as well. To me, I think is the first original idea Microsoft has had in a long time, meaning that regardless how you code a website it would seem IE 8 will render it accordingly and properly. So I would say that coding to standards will be somewhat relax after years of people saying "YOU NEED TO CODE FOR STANDARDS". However, designers and coders will always be coding to standards but if this triple rendering engine concept is successful I see other browsers going for the same concept and thus built better browsers.

I found this quote to be interesting:



All I have to say this is the smartest thing they every done because if they implement the IE7 engine to IE8 I think that will finally kill this browser and make firefox top dog. Due to the fact how bad IE7 render engine has been especially to IE6 users.

SOURCE

Well, the rendering issue is one thing, and as I do some web pages and like many other Designers, I find the IE family of Browsers to be a real problem, for sure, so I am glad that IE has taken the position that Web Coding Standards are important and their new version will recognize them. It will make it easier for us to have a page that works without a ton of hacks.

It will be interesting to see the method they use to 'flag' the page DocType for IE. One thought would be to include an IE Conditional Comment in pages which meet the W3C standards and then IE will use that Doctype for that page. And IE default or Quirks Mode as the fallback like we have now.

This sounds like Microsoft is changing directions a little. 5 years ago, when they were the dominant Browser in the marketplace, they could snub the standards and go their own way, but since Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, Konquerer et al are now capturing a signifigant share of users, Microsoft is not in the same position and will need to recognize that the Market is being directed from outside their smug little world. Hence the development towards the W3C Standards and the Open Source movement.



I agree that a client -server communication link outside of the Browser experience is the next level of Web Design/Interaction. I plan to be learning Ajax soon (already done some reading) and the Flex/Air stuff is similar to that, so, the point to all those who want to stay current in Web 2.0 is to get on top of these methods if you plan on staying in the game.

Next thing you know, they will be making their Powerpoint stuff work in Open Office.

Actually, they probably won't. Their pptx uses the OOXML format, which OpenOffice can't read as of yet. It's basically a zip file containing a lot of xml files that contain XSL and whatnot.

ODF FTW!