Re: About standards and browsers

Hello Tobias,

 > In fact I think the work you all do is necessary. There is a need to set
 > some standards, no doubt. But sometimes I think you set the wrong things.

I can't comment on this, because I am not part of the W3C team. ;-)

 > One example is that it's officially not allowed to use tables for 
layouting.
 > Yes, it is possible without it. But what's the bad thing to make use of
 > tables for creating a layout, if it works?

Out of curiousity, where did you read this? Imho tables are deprecated, 
but still necessary to establish something, especially if you want to 
stay compatible to buggy browsers like IE <7. They are a very old part 
of HTML and I'd be very suprised if they had been removed from the 
standard, especially since HTML is upward compatible.


 > Then, I was wondering how an organization like w3c can create rules 
and set
 > standards without that it even follows its own specifications. Here 
in  the
 > attachment you receive an example, an output created by your 
html-validator.
 > Just for fun, I've stored this file and resent the downloaded file for
 > validating. The result was 30 errors that occured.

The W3C standards define what code should look like in the future in an 
ideal world. The W3 webmaster probably does what works, because not 
everyone uses the latest browser. :P


 > However, to send an improving comment, I'd like to advice the w3c to 
rather
 > create standards for the browsers, not only the developers. If I take 
a look
 > at Microsofts Internet Explorer, which doesn't really follow the 
standards,
 > it doesn't even support CSS, then I think it's time to take a look at the
 > browser's side, too. Only trying to change the behaviour of the 
developers
 > can't be the solution.

No, the problem here is Microsoft. Firefox and Opera try hard to 
implement these standards. MS has a history of doing whatever they want, 
no matter the consequences.
You have webmasters and browser developers, and they all need a common 
ground. The W3C is that common ground.
(Why do you think IE does not support CSS? It has been doing so since 
version 4.)

 > Every browser shows content completely differently. Why that? Because 
they
 > don't follow the standards. What I mean is that the solution isn't to 
adjust
 > the developers possibilities to the browser's capabilities, but the other
 > way round. That's one point to improve, hope I'm not the only one 
thinking
 > that way.

Actually if you set your DOCTYPE to strict, most browser render content 
VERY similar nowadays. If you use a lose doctype, then every browser 
will render stuff in its native way, which means "like we have done the 
last 10 years". ;-)
As a webmaster myself the only problem I have is with IE version 6 or 
lower, because they have problems with alpha blending and CSS 
positioning. IE6 is the only browser still widely used that does not 
support a bunch of current standards. Firefox is almost perfect in it's 
support of these standards, and Opera has greatly improved, too. IE7 is 
bearable. Unfortunately most Win2k users never upgraded from IE6 to 7. :(

The firefox site has many nice buttons that say "optimized for firefox". 
I'd suggest using one of those to link to the firefox download site and 
be done with it. ;)

Regards,

Thomas
-----------------------
http://www.augemedia.de

Received on Friday, 28 September 2007 21:15:00 UTC