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

From: "Tom Gilder" <tom@tom.me.uk>
> On Monday, September 30, 2002, 9:16:38 AM, Isofarro wrote:
> > Isn't the whole point of adopting
> > standards based approach to web design that of getting away from
> > browser-dependant authoring?
>
> Browser-dependant authoring, yes, but that's only possible if the
> browsers support the standards in the first place. NS4 does not. NS4
> screws many of them - especially CSS - very much up.

IMO, CSS is a nice-to-have and not essential to creating a standards
compliant website. As long as Netscape 4 can handle the clean HTML it is
given, then it is a satisfactory way of determining whether HTML4.01 markup
is correct. I am open to correction on its handling of XHTML however.

> NS4 has been - and continues to be - one of the major problems in
> getting people to use standards.

IMO, the sheer volume of error correction in mainstream browsers is more of
a problem, since it hides the real problem. The only effective way to
educate people to discard tag-soup based solutions is to see it fall apart,
and eliminate all the "other" arguments such as this website wasn't designed
for pocket computers.

> Most NS4 users still unfortunately
> expect to load pages, and have them look nice.

Then those expectations need to be _managed_, not delivered with an
unjustifiable cost of inaccessibility.

> The faster NS4 users are obliterated the faster standards will be
> accepted and used.

I am not convinced that Netscape 4 users can dominate requirements in this
way - judging from the plethora of Internet only websites (such as KPMG) as
examples.

IMO the faster the dangers of error correction is shown, the easier it will
be to advocate a standards based replacement. Exercises like Eric Meyer's
fix-up of KPMG do far more for standards advocacy than trying to kill of
Netscape 4.

Even when there are no more Netscape 4 users out there, I doubt there will
be a reduction of tag-soup websites - since "it works in Internet Explorer,
so why bother?"

Received on Monday, 30 September 2002 09:58:23 UTC