- From: <ryan@ryancannon.com>
- Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 12:20:47 -0700 (PDT)
- To: "Barry" <wassercrats@hotmail.com>
- Cc: www-style@w3.org
Barry wrote: > How do you stop a browser developer who has an idea for a great new HTML > or > CSS feature from implementing it? Freedom and innovation are the > foundations > of my country, and product development can be hugely successful the > American > way. > > ... > > Is there an end in sight, or is it the intention of the CSS WG to add new > CSS indefinitly in order to make it impractical for a company to develop a > new, closed-source browser from scratch? The problem with conditional comments and browser-sniffing is that they imply a finite set of UAs (often two) for which to test and design. This outdated model simply does not exist anymore, and would be incredibly taxing if web designers even attempted to code for them. Imagine: In a few months, you'll have to sniff for three different versions of Internet Explorer (5, 6, 7), two versions of Gecko Browsers (1.7 for corporate Mozilla, 1.8 for Firefox/Camino/K-Meleon, etc.), Opera, Safari and Konqueror. When finished, you'll then have to look at IE for Windows CE (which reports itself as IE 4), Opera Embeded and WAP. You'll then have to check the various voice browsers to make sure that they do what they should instead of erroneously trying to parse visual CSS, and double check it on Lynx or Elinks to make sure that the base code is still comprehensible, and worry about non-browsing XHTML/CSS parsers like Prince. Did you forget Omniweb and Shiira? And then there's this new close-source browser we'd like to add. The only way for web designers to stay sane, is to stick to standards. Sure IE might offer a wonderful tool in the <marquee> tag or the expression() property, but how helpful will this extension be to the world-wide web if it only works for a small fraction of your audience? Is it worth your time to develop for it? Every layout engine will have bugs. If you're looking for pixel-perfection, HTML is the wrong medium. A strong core of standards gives wiley web designers the tools they need. And if you want to see a good example of innovative web browser design that doesn't flaunt web standards, check out Omniweb[1]. It's features are impressive and original. [1] http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/ Ryan Cannon http://ryancannon.com
Received on Monday, 4 April 2005 19:20:49 UTC