Re: Standards

On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 06:42:14PM +1000, Abyss wrote:
> Then what is the point of having standards if the same code does not work 
> in different browsers?

It gives a single, relatively non-moving, target for both authors of
documents and authors of user agents to aim for.

Microsoft just isn't very good at aiming (this is likely to be a
consequence of having, for a very long time, a monopoly in the market
- something with is beginning to change).

> ok browsers have bugs - understandable, but which browser is correct? IE or 
> NS?

Assuming you mean "The most recent version" of each of those, then in
most cases Netscape will be correct.

> or should i just stick the goldern rule of  - "program for the browser that 
> is most widely available"?

People with that type philosophy generally subscribe to "Author for
the browser that is most commonly used" rather then most widely
available. Of course, this is rather difficult to measure thanks to
authors who use the identification string sent by the browser to
decide if they should let the user see the page or send them an
upgrade message[1] instead; this has resulted in such delights as
browsers which are not Internet Explorer claiming to be IE.

Most professionals that I come into contact with go down the route of
"Design to standards, then write work arounds for broken browsers."

[1] What? Upgrade to Internet Explorer? But my browser is much much
better then IE ... and IE won't run on my computer anyway!

-- 
David Dorward                                      http://dorward.me.uk

Received on Thursday, 7 October 2004 08:50:34 UTC