RE: PCMag ranks the browsers and says IE6 is the best...

>I did not say that Netscape 4.79 was a standard.  I stated that I like the
>fact that Netscape does not let me get away with sloppy code.

In other words, NS4's fragility is what makes it useful as a debugging
tool.  I agree -- in many cases, for better or worse, the view from
Netscape 4 represents my lowest common denominator.  The way it hurls
JavaScript errors at you can also be useful.  I launch Netscape 4.8 several
times a week for this very reason, although I can't say I surf with it.
Catching sites with their HTML-pants-down is easy enough using any non-MS
browser.

Whenever I experience a modern site that looks really cool (in Mozilla), I
throw Netscape 4 at it to see what happens.  If the result is a horrid
disaster, I don't think less of them.  But if it still looks presentable, I
have a great example of flexible website coding.

I know a lot of people have anger issues with version 4, but it's all so
long ago now: the company that made that browser has largely ceased to
exist, so different is the AOL/Mozilla group.  The old Netscape made a lot
of mistakes on their road to eventual greatness, and the view from NS4
certainly isn't _correct_.  It's just _traditional_, in a "five years
hence" kind of way.

Temporarily viewing the world through this lens is educational, for the
sake of the NS4 folks still at large.  It's like donning glasses that
distort your sight, to see how people with visual disabilities can read
your literature.  Running NS4 doesn't make you evil, although running it
full-time seems a little weird.  Same metaphor -- take those glasses off!

-Joseph

Received on Sunday, 29 September 2002 20:27:54 UTC