More on web browsers

I want to follow up on the thread that was hotly debated a while ago on
web browsers and supporting them (mainly meaning supporting non-IE
browsers).  I don't want to start another big debate, but rather point out
the latest developments that might lead a developer who does web stuff to
reconsider using IE-specific stuff.

Mozilla 1.0 was released today (that's why I'm bringing this back up).
There was some controversy earlier about what Netscape supported in terms
of CSS and DOM and so forth.  With today's release of Mozilla 1.0 many of
the obstacles of writing browser neutral code are gone.  Mozilla 1.0
supports more standards than anything out there, including DOM level 1 and
2 (though I'm not familiar with the DOM enough to say if Mozilla supports
all of both levels).

In light of the broad standards support of Mozilla 1.0 I'm interested in
hearing from those who code specifically for IE what reasons they have for
doing so, and if these reasons are because the standard is insufficient.
For example, suppose you want a certain action to happen when a user
presses a key in a field and the standard doesn't allow for that.  Or
maybe IE doesn't support a certain standard but uses some non-standard way
to accomplish the same thing, so the IE way is done because that's what
everyone has.  Anyway, I'm interested in arguments for and against
creating applications that follow the published standards.

And if you are curious to know what Mozilla supports and doesn't then go
here:

http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/

Rereading this message it sounds like an advocacy message for Mozilla.  I
don't intend it to be that, I just want to know if the availability of a
standards compliant browser changes the focus of any developers.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com