Webkit passes Acid3 and what it all means

Safari announced a while back that its browser passed all the Acid3 tests successfully. Lars Gunther posted an article at the Web Standards Project Buzz to explain Acid3 receptions and misconceptions and do we have a winner? Among other things, Lars said,

There has been some confusion about the test and its importance. Some people have been saying things like ”my browser does not pass the test and I have no problems using it”. Quite a few other people seem to think that Webkit and Gogi (Opera’s internal build) passed the test already in March – despite the fact that neither team has made this claim.

To answer these misconceptions we need to address the issue of what exactly is being tested and how. The main part of test is automated through JavaScript, a sort of test harness that runs 100 subtests. Getting a score of 100 is not the same as passing Acid3 – a common misconception, or perhaps an oversimplification.

He explains a few other things about this important test. Go read it all.

Shelley at Burningbird also had thoughts about Lars’ article. In Playing the Game, she points out,

But the real point of Lars’ writing is that the browsers are playing the game, and in the end, we all benefit when they do.

Then Shelley brought up the question of SVG. She said,

IE does not support SVG. IE has never committed to supporting SVG. It’s unlikely IE will ever support SVG, as it competes with its own Silverlight implementation.

As part of the explanation about Acid3 and IE, Shelley revealed that she is creating a plan for a class in SVG for the WaSP’s web education series. This made me do the happy dance. THE HAPPY DANCE, I tell you, the happy dance.

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