Re: A query please

From: Daniel Acton <dacton@itouch.co.za>
Date: Fri, Oct 20, 2000, 12:09 AM

>> Many people don't believe in the original spirit and
>> simply hack together something that appears to do what
>> they want on IE5, then tweak it until it doesn't
>> completely break on the other browsers they think are
>> in common use.
>> --
>
> Which is never a good thing. I think it's better to start developing on a
> browser that is strict, like netscape navigator.

Presumably you refer specifically to v6 right?

> And after that, test the
> code on ie. IE allows for much more little errors, like not closing
> tables, etc, etc, whereas netscape doesn't.

Hmmm... I'm not sure I want to get in to a quirks competition.

Suffice it to say that any "real world" browser in use today (or hoping to
gain users tomorrow) _must_ allow for numerous errors in popular web
content.

Regardless - I think the advice to start with one browser or another because
of better strictness, is poor advice.

If you want to develop strict content, validate your content using the W3C
validator[1] from day 1.  Every time you make major changes, validate again.

> I'd like to see two
> browsers made by two different manufacturers producing the same output
> from the _same_ code... A pipe dream? I wonder ...?

Modern browsers (IE5+,Opera,NN6) from more than two manufacturers produce
the same or pretty much the same output from CSS-1 styling.

Key to this compatibility was/is the CSS-1 Test Suite [2] which tests every
type of valid (and some invalid) CSS value on every CSS property.

If you want browsers by different manufacturers to produce the same output
from the _same_ standard code, there must be a comprehensive test suite for
that standard.

Demand public, freely available, no-strings attached, no registration
required - etc., test suites (like the CSS-1 Test Suite) for the W3C
technologies you want to use across browsers.

Tantek

[1]
 http://validator.w3.org/

[2]
 http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/

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Received on Friday, 20 October 2000 13:28:51 UTC