Microsoft: We know better than you

I just saw this comment on Slashdot, which states:

I saw something like this (not quite, but similar) a few years ago working with Java Script.

I wasn't that experienced with it, and as a result, certain pieces of my code were syntactically incorrect. Specifically, I was using the wrong characters for array indexing; I think I was using "()" instead of "[]". I would never have known there was even a problem if I hadn't been doing side by side testing with IE and Mozilla. A page that rendered correctly in IE would always show errors in Mozilla. This made absolutely no sense to me.

It wasn't until I viewed the source generated by each browser that I discovered the problem. IE was dynamically rewriting my JavaScript, replacing the incorrect delimiters with the correct ones, whereas Mozilla was simply taking my buggy code at face value.

And someone else followed up with this comment:

MSIE was embracing and extending your new syntax. They were effectively defining their own JavaScript variant. Meaning their JavaScript was a SuperSet of the real JavaScript standard. That means you can more easily fall into the trap of writing MSIE only JavaScript and inadverdently force your clients/customers/company to adopt MSIE as your standard browser.

All I gotta saw it "wow". I think the second poster is dead on in his assessment of Microsoft. Get people in the habit of doing something the wrong way, and make them dependent on your product in the process. I'm willing to bet that Microsoft might just do this in some of their other products, too.

*snort*