Why Acid 3 Doesn't Matter
Mark Pilgrim recently posted an article bemoaning Mozilla's lack of attention to the Acid3 test. While I agree that it would be nice if Firefox passed Acid3 with flying colors, his article bothered me because it failed to take one thing into account: Acid3 doesn't matter. The proof is in the numbers. Over 75% of Web users are still using Internet Explorer, despite its dinosaur of a rendering engine. Meanwhile, the browsers that have passed Acid3 (at least in development builds) can't even break 7% of market share.
When all the hubbub about Mozilla not putting enough effort into Acid3 came out, Mike Shaver wrote a response that, while possibly coming off a little whiny, explained Mozilla's reasoning. And they got it right. As Rob Sayre points out, Firefox's failed Acid3 tests are corner cases that everyday users will not see, like SVG rendering (who uses SVG?), or won't care about, like dynamic title updating, and therefore deserve to have lower priorities. What they have been spending time on is getting Firefox 3 out the door. Firefox 3 is significantly faster, has an improved user interface, and uses less system resources, all things that very clearly impact the user. In fact, it's so good that it's making Mac users leave Safari, for a beta no less.
Commenting on Mark's post, Thor Larholm snidely remarks that Mozilla is no longer a leader in web standards due to its maturity. In part he's right: Mozilla has matured. But this isn't, as he tries to suggest, a negative. Mozilla is doing what any good software organization must do: it is prioritizing. There are bugs that need to be fixed now, and there are bugs that can be fixed later, and according to their Acid3 bug spreadsheet, I can see no bugs left that are worth holding Firefox 3 back for. On the other hand, Opera and WebKit are hastily fixing bugs in an attempt to be the first to fully pass Acid3. The problem is that in the process they changed the priority of the bugs away from the users and towards themselves. I find it troubling that these projects would do that just to chase an arbitrary target for bragging rights, because in a world of limited resources, that translates into less time spent on useful features.
Software development is all about prioritizing, and the sad fact is you can't always be working on the interesting bugs or the bugs that will win you acclaim with your fellow developers. You have to be working on what the user needs and what the user needs first. Mozilla has made a good compromise. As a user, I am thrilled about Firefox 3. I can't wait for the final release; I never knew the Web could be so fast. As a developer, I have no problems with Firefox; my code renders the way I think it should and I've never had to spend time debugging a Firefox-only bug.
So while I appreciate Mark so unselfishly feeling embarrassed on Mozilla's behalf, I, personally, am proud of them. They are still making inroads into one of the most entrenched markets in software today, and they are doing it by writing software that focuses on their users, by making the Web an inviting place for everyone.
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