Re: It's the Netscape story all over again

I'm sorry but, I have to say something. I assume that these lists, being explicitly for discussing the spec and the standard, are not a place for trashing a company you don't like, or arguing holy wars. There are Microsoft employees on this list - isn't it a bit disrespectful to call their work "Internet Exploder?" Let's go here people...

Anyway responding to what portion was actually on-topic:

Jane wrote:
>> Now it's reached the point where there is a long
>> list of different implementations of it on the web
>> site - but I'm not sure if looking at this list
>> makes it clearer or just adds even more options
>> to a bewildering number of possibilities.

Gerald replied:
>  Welcome to the Free World that offers choice at
> last.


I have to agree with Jane entirely. Choice is not a purely wonderful thing.

For developers, it creates a larger set of bugs - one new set for every browser - and no, yours won't be perfect either, and no, no browser ever will be, no matter what the quality of standards. Supporting a wider number of vendors means a smaller and smaller subset of working features. This "It limps but it works" is not ideal, but when using a technology that has many, many vendors, it is the only option.

For the average user, they really don't care what browser they're using. They just want a browser. They don't want a choice, or to find out what new bit of standards Opera, Luxor, or even IE support. They want to sit down and read some e-mail and a news page, and leave. Whatever's in front of them will do.

Choice can be very beneficial to a market to shake out the best competitor, but only if the consumer is actually looking. If XForms only finds itself supported by a plugin, it probably won't see the light of day except in the Enterprise arena, where IT makes the choice.

-Chris "SoopahMan" Moschini
http://hiveminds.info/
http://soopahman.com/

Received on Tuesday, 22 July 2003 14:31:30 UTC