IE8 Standards Compliant?

It seems too good to be true… On a recent entry into the IEBlog, Dean Hachamovitch announced that Internet Explorer 8 has successfully rendered the Acid2 test.

This news is expected to be more significant to web developers than to the average web user. For the uninitiated, Acid2 is a test page for web browsers published by The Web Standards Project (WaSP). It aims to help browser vendors ensure proper support for web standards in their products. When correctly rendered, it would show a smiley face.
However, up to this point, none of the major browsers in use today (the non-beta versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer) can render the picture correctly.

The final release of IE8 is still unknown though.. For their part, there are subtle hints in the post regarding the final support IE8 will have… In a paragraph, it was said that:

When we look at the long lists of standards (even from just one standards body, like the W3C), which standards are the most important for us to support? ………… Many advances in web technologies, like the img tag, start out as unilateral extensions by a vendor. The X in AJAX, for example, has only started the formal standardization process relatively recently. ……………….. Different individuals have different opinions about different standards. The important thing about the Acid2 test is that it reflects what one particular group of smart people “consider most important for the future of the web.”

So we just have to adopt a wait and see attitude..