nixen
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| reply to TheMadSwede
Re: Great
said by TheMadSwede  :
Just what web developers need. More browser fragmentation.
I wish these companies would just stick to standards, regardless of the branding of the browser.
bah.
You know, that might actually be a valid point....
If it weren't for the fact that browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. strive to be standards compliant. That is to say, so long as you code to established standards, your pages will render the same in any given browser.
IE, on the other hand, simply DOESN'T, or at least, doesn't conform to updated standards. And, the things that it doesn't support, tend to make developing basic content more time consuming (read expensive) and more restricted to just that browser. If anything, IE is the source of fragmentation at this point (shocking, eh?).
-tom
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"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased) |
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TheMadSwede
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| I guess my point is that I'd LOVE to develop on pure standards like CSS2, etc. etc.; however, if even 50% of the browsers aren't compliant, then my work magically doubles.
There's no point in writing to standards that browsers ignore.
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justin
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| said by TheMadSwede :
There's no point in writing to standards that browsers ignore.
The biggest offender has been IE. They should set the example, not show others how to dodge standards.
Anyway the point is practically moot. IE has hardly changed a jot in 5 years! having achieved what it thought was a stranglehold, and bundled the browser into the OS, microsoft simply stopped advancing its features. So as the world becoming insecure due to extreme homo-geniality, we also got hardly any improvements, because microsoft had other fish to fry with its free cash. |
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TheMadSwede
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| said by justin :
Anyway the point is practically moot.
I thought one of the points of the article was that perhaps it's becoming un-moot. Which is why I'm whining like a big baby about this.
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justin
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| if the point of the article is that IE is losing its market share, and your point is that standards non-compliant browsers are a PITA, then you should be happy because one of the biggest contributers to standards-ignorance is sliding down the market share scale. |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
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| reply to TheMadSwede
said by TheMadSwede :
I guess my point is that I'd LOVE to develop on pure standards like CSS2, etc. etc.; however, if even 50% of the browsers aren't compliant, then my work magically doubles.
Currently, about 91% of the browsers aren't compliant. 
-tom
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"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased) |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to nixen
said by nixen :
IE, on the other hand, simply DOESN'T, or at least, doesn't conform to updated standards.
I think that's the best point. IE 6 hasn't been updated in too long. When IE 6 was first released, it was the most standards compliant browser around. The major alternative was Netscape 4 which supported virtually no CSS.
IE 6 rightfully gained market share while Netscape first tried to develop a new version, then scrapped it to start over, then got buried in coding for the next few years. For all intents and purposes, Netscape let their browser languish while Microsoft took off. (Yes, there's also the issue of bundling, but IE5 and IE6 were vastly superior to Netscape's offering at the time.)
Of course, once they gained dominance, Microsoft made the exact same mistake that Netscape made: They all but stopped improving IE. So while the standards shifted, IE didn't keep up and is now out of date. Of course, it's still more standards compliant than Netscape 4.
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nixen
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| said by Jason Levine :
Of course, once they gained dominance, Microsoft made the exact same mistake that Netscape made: They all but stopped improving IE. So while the standards shifted, IE didn't keep up and is now out of date. Of course, it's still more standards compliant than Netscape 4.
Yeah, but at least NS4 had roaming profile support. That's been an open RFE since like 2000. It's never gotten solved since noone could agree how to reimplement it into the new Mozilla code.
-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased) |
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