Re: an official W3C browser test

|BUT when the w3c issues an official browser test,
|programmers will test their beta-browser on it,
|and tweaking the code until it passes the test.
|Programmers may incorrectly think that passing
|the test means a 100% working browser.
|
|This means that issuing an official browser test
|may even ENCOURAGE BUGGY CODE.
|
|Think about it.

It could encourage buggy code, or it might not... logically, those are the
only two possibilities in that aspect... however, my perception of the
situation is that MS and NS (and everyone else trying to beat the big two)
won't conform to new w3c standards on their own. MS frequently tries to
recreate their own version of everything... I understand (I may be wrong)
that MS proposed DCD to replace DTD for XML. This frustrates me, because
learning how to write DTD's is the one thing I think that seperates me from
fully utilizing XML's potential, and now, the DTD standard may never be
fully implemented, but replaced my MS's ideas, which will take even LONGER
to see supported in browsers. NS isn't a whole lot better (the way I see
it.) Even in their Gecko developer preview (which appears to be the backbone
of a future version of Navigator) some pretty important elements of CSS
aren't covered, such as being able to define normal body parameters, such as
background color, default text color, etc... near as I can tell, you STILL
have to put much of that info into the <body> tag!
The bottom line: if browser vendors don't have any truely plausible
motivation to conform, they probably won't... I'd like to see them
motivated.
With regards to buggy browser code, it depends on how you see the scenario.
The big two want their browsers to be compatible with as much HTML code as
possible. Again, because the browser industry is so competitive, all it
takes is one diligent programmer to "raise the bar" for everyone else!
"Resistance is futile!"
(marketing-hype-type-stuff: "One Web, One Standard!") :)
Daniel [Inanis]

Received on Saturday, 9 January 1999 14:16:09 UTC