NICCAI

Thank you, Microsoft. Thank you, Dean. Thank you, IE Team!

Two huge announcements and updates came our way this week (actually one snuck under the radar near the end of Nov). First, Dean Hachamovitch posted on the IE Blog that IE8 has passed the Acid2 test. This is a huge boon to standards-based web development. On top of it, Dean let a bomb drop - IE8 beta in the first half of 2008!!! Wasn’t it 5 years we waited for IE7? This could be the first nail in the coffin for IE7 (and hopefully a swifter death to IE6 support).

The second announcement has immediate benefit to anyone working on web 2.0 applications. Erik Arvidsson of Gmail fame posted that the JScript team has patched IE6 to JScript 5.7. So what? Garbage Collection is what. If your app has been plagued by poor performance in IE6, than this might be the magic bullet you’ve been looking for. And, if you’re experiencing sudden performance gains that surprise you in IE6, this patch may have made it to you via Windows Update.

Here is the official Microsoft support article.