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Clashing Scores In the HTML5 Compatibility Test Wars
Andreas(R) writes "Microsoft has published a set of HTML5 tests comparing Internet Explorer 9 to other web browsers. In Microsoft's own tests, IE9 performs 100% on all tests. However, the Internet Explorer 9 HTML5 Canvas Campaign has published results that show that Internet Explorer gets 0% on all their tests." The results reported here are selected with tongue in cheek: "Therefore, we'll also present shameless results from tests which have been carefully selected to give the results that the PR department has demanded."
...with MS HTML# 5.0
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Well, let knowledgeable slashdotters point us novices to a set of a "standard" HTML5 test site to which we can run and establish the fact.
Ohh wait, I forgot that there is yet to be any agreement on the HTML5 standard itself! This is why I think Apple is just bluffing with their campaign against Flash. It also demonstrates the weaknesses we all have to work around.
Indeed. However, Microsoft has a poor record of interoperability which only improved recently. So it needs to regain trust. The way to regain trust is to actually improve interoperability and standard conformance, no mere marketing and public affairs campaign. Real credibility stems from real achievements. I am sure Microsoft is able to become an interoperability leader.
...that they benchmarked IE trunk against OLD versions of other browsers. They didn't even use Chrome 5.0!
In some places it's a significant difference.
I also did some benchmarks of my own on non-Microsoft controlled sites. See the first comment on that page for results. Suffice it to say IE9 has improved since IE8 but still has a ways to go.
No, at least not before we have a real HTML5 spec.
I am sure Microsoft is able to become an inoperability leader.
Fixed that for ya!.
Yeah it's old, but it's good.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Here's a difference that everyone should note. When the later Acid tests were formulated they were written by Webkit and Gecko developers and were specifically biased against those engines. If one of the two did not fail, it didn't go in. That way it motivates them to improve. When MS writes a test suite it's biased in favor of their engine, so they can claim to be "ahead" and have no motivation to improve. It's an excellent example of who values technical excellence and who values marketing.
The reason why most tests failed with browsers other than IE:
1st) Since HTML5 is still in a very early state, many browsers (AKA Webkit, Gecko, Presto) used prefixes for most tags and CSS properties. Example: round borders is -moz-border-radius in gecko, and -webkit-border-radius in Chrome. Some latest versions have taken some out of beta and also read border-radius, but most still don't. IE obviously uses border-radius, and that's why other's don't work. ... except they are not, because they use HTML5 styles and tags, and they do not validate. Validator says: The document located at was tentatively checked as XHTML 1.0 Strict. This means that with the use of some fallback or override mechanism, we successfully performed a formal validation using an SGML, HTML5 and/or XML Parser(s). In other words, the document would validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict if you changed the markup to match the changes we have performed automatically, but it will not be valid until you make these changes.
2nd) The JS is tricky at best. Go and check it out. Lots of lines of code to perform a simple task, and those lines are carefully selected to fail in other browsers. I downloaded the tests, and they work on ALL browsers (I tested Chrome, Firefox and Opera, all on GNU/Linux, all on their latest version). That JS was crafted to fail on all browsers and work only on IE
3rd) I took the time to run the source of many of their scripts through the W3C validator. Most scripts have several warnings, some errors, etc. They DO NOT VALIDATE.
4th) The tests aren't really HTML5. Only the HTML5 tests are actual HTML5, the others are XHTML 1.0 strict
It's microsoft ... never forget about that. This is business as usual.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
While you are sitting back and waiting for someone else to write these comprehensive test suites the only entity really taking the W3C Test Suite projects seriously at all is Microsoft. They've submitted thousands of test cases for CSS2.1 and have been working to submit hundreds of tests for CSS3.0 and HTML5. These are the very tests that are being disparaged here. It can be claimed that Microsoft is stacking these tests intentionally, except that these tests are publically available for comment and scrutiny. The Test Suite projects are open for submissions by others as well so Google and Mozilla and anyone else is free to submit tests of behaviors that IE9 fails and that their browser passes. The more comprehensive these test case projects are the more everyone benefits by having a real target to implement.
ACID is not an authority. They cherry pick a relative handful of problematic yet pointless tests and construct something cute. ACID3 tests about a hundred different things from a mix of technologies. The W3C Test Suite for CSS2.1 currently has nearly 8,000 tests. Which do you think is more comprehensive?
So Kirk's jilted speech - that's just him swapping out to disk?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers