Just putting my two sence in ...

I totaly agree with Julian and no matter what you're personal preference for
browser is the plain simple facts of this issue is that over 90% of users
use EI. and there is no bigger pain in the ass than to try and fix code so
that nutscrape( netscape ) will parse it properly. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Dobson [mailto:juliand@w...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 11:59 AM
To: javascript
Subject: [javascript] Re: AW: Re: Fwd: Re: Help


While it is definitely true that MS has added stuff above and beyond the 
standard, let's not forget that NS has also done this - just look at the 
<LAYER> tag.

Having done significant cross-browser development, one of my main gripes 
about NS is it's poor handling of styles. Tables don't inherit styles from 
the tags they are embeded in, and mixing Class and Style parameters in a 
tag just raises hell.

Add to this the differences in the DOM, and cross-browser compatible pages 
are a real pain.

I hate to say it, but I think that the Microsoft browser is the better 
one - please no flames! I do have to admit that I've not used Opera, but 
havint to support two browsers is bad enough, supporting three could be a 
nightmare.

As it's been pointed out, there is a standard available, but from my 
understanding the standard lags behind the browsers in it's feature set. 
As we are all probably using some non-standard code somewhere on our 
sites, dropping these features just so that we can meet the standard with 
our code (and hence forcing the browsers to meet the standard, isn't an 
option). Or maybe it's the other way around - the browsers lag the 
standard. Either way, we would have to either drop features from our site, 
or use features of the standard that aren't currently supported.

Our code can't be driven by the standard, but by the platform on which the 
code is to be run. It might be better if the W3 consortium had a 
certification scheme for both browsers and sites - this would help force 
both browser and site developers to meet the standard.

Okay, I've rambled on enough. Maybe there should be a cross-browser 
compatibility forum here to discuss these issues in more depth?

Julian

> Hey Karthik
> I wonder if I'm a folo (whatever this means) or a madman, just because I
> work on a platform which Microsoft tried to copy for a long time. If you
> have ever produced a cross plattform CD-ROM for example, you will see
> the differences where it looks like the MacOs but doesn't have the
> functionality (e.g. reserved system colors).
> Who do you think is responsible for the damages the love-letter-virus
> has caused (on windows-machines only). Did you know, that a German
> Microsoft department uses a linux-firewall bacause of the security lacks
> of Microsoft products?
> Have you forgotten, when Microsoft (by accident how they said) stored
> private consumer-data sent by the applications in their databases.
> So tell me one reason, why I should use a Microsoft browser? There is a
> standard for HTML and the developers should remember this. And we should
> produce websites, which are compatible with this standard. If we did so,
> we hadn't the Cross-Browser-Problems, for the Browsers had to support
> what we're putting on the net. In deed, like Daniel Walker said, Opera
> is good choice for windows, like iCab on the mac. But what we do is to
> jump on every MS-Extension that helps Microsoft to convert HTML in
> proprietary format. And afterwards we wonder why we have a
> Cross-Browser-Problem.
> 
> Hans
>