Re: Proposal of @ua

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:35:03 +0100, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:

> Brad Kemper wrote:
>> In other words, the consumer blames the site author, not the  
>> browser-maker.
>
> As a browser-maker, I must say that I think you have a very rosy view of  
> who gets blamed.  Sadly, that's not how it works.
>
> At least in part, because it depends on the site.  If some random little  
> site doesn't work, the user might blame the site.  If Amazon, or Google,  
> or Yahoo doesn't work, the user will blame the browser-maker.  Even if  
> it's a problem with the site.  Seen this happen, over and over.  The  
> difference seems to be that if the user can do without the site the site  
> gets blamed.  Otherwise the browser gets blamed.

And that from someone involved with the no 2 browser in marketshare... Now  
imagine the situation for Safari, Opera and Konqueror. At Opera, we get  
asked daily why "Opera doesn't support Google Docs", etc.

That is not to say the frustrations of webdesigners aren't seen. But the  
browser verdors should invest in making sure CSS support converges in new  
browser releases, helped by better defininitions in the specs and by  
better, more comprehensive, CSS Test Suites. While IE 7 still has issues  
(as have all browsers), they are much less dramatic than before. And IE 8  
should be even better. It is important to note that the @ua rule would  
only help for new browser releases, it doesn't help one bit in coping with  
the differences between the current (and past) crop of browsers.

-- 
Rijk

Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
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Received on Wednesday, 21 November 2007 22:11:05 UTC