> Why is everyone so concerned over Andrew's philosophy? How > can you sit here and make these BS arguments, when you dont > apply this reason to any other type of applications? Why does > every html based application have to render in every browser? > Why is it ok to write a program that only runs on linux, or > OSX when you could obviously just write everything in Java > for all platforms? Why do you not care that games are > published for gamecube and not Xbox? What is this double > standard?
For one reason, people have an expectation that HTML applications work with HTML clients. This expectation may be unreasonable given the current state of affairs, but web sites are not packaged shrinkwrap that use locally-executed binaries. The web was explicitly designed to be a cross-platform environment, and to the extent that we build platform-specific web applications we pervert this design. > I can agree with you if you are talking about a public > website, but come on.... Andrew writes web applications built > for IE because its adds value to his applications. We have > 30+ intranet applications I support written only for IE 5.5+ > within the Dept of State. I agree that there may be some cases where it makes sense to use an IE-specific codebase, especially if that happens to be what you already have. However, what will happen to those 30+ intranet applications when you're mandated to move to, say, Windows XP SP2? Or, in the case of ActiveX, if your security administrators decide that they simply can't support it for security reasons? Wouldn't you rather have standards-compliant code that will work with any browser? > Now according to Nathan I must be some kinda of moron, but why > would I spend any extra development time while hindering features > just to support the latest open-source browser that is prohibited > on my network? Thats not to say that the public website I'm about > to launch isnt a CSS1 masterpiece (beacuse CSS2 will not exist until > IE decides it can) because it is. I think the argument is less about supporting Firefox specifically than about supporting standards generally. It doesn't matter that you can't use Firefox on your internal network now, when you may need to migrate your sites to standards for future conformance. Again, though, I agree that the answer will vary depending on your situation, and in many cases it probably makes sense to go with what you already have. > Web sites have vastly different requirements from web applications. > This is not a tough concept to grasp. Andrew writes an app > that sells for 200k, even though its built for IE only, so > what does that say about your entire argument. Your envy > isn't completely masked by your tech-arrogance. I don't think this is as simple as you think it is. What is eBay or Amazon? Aren't those applications? Don't the requirements have more to do with the users than with what the site actually does in most cases? Why do we think that successful web applications might not have large enough userbases to warrant wider compatibility? And, as for this application selling for $200K, does this mean that more copies couldn't have been sold if it was standards-compliant? Has any actual market research been done to see why sales were lost? Andrew states that no sales have ever been lost. I don't really doubt Andrew on this, but often developers don't ask themselves these sorts of hard questions, and if no one else asks, things just continue as they have been. Personally, I have worked with clients who rejected applications for being IE-specific, even when I didn't think it made business sense for them to do so - of course, they may know their core business better than I do! Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ phone: 202-797-5496 fax: 202-797-5444 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Silver Sponsor - RUWebby http://www.ruwebby.com Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:186588 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
