I would most definitely continue to develop for Netscape 4.x browsers. I feel that it is very short-sighted to make any "assumptions" about what your users are viewing your web site with unless you run some extensive logging that captures browser info (i.e., BrowserHawk, etc.) and do some analysis.
I have to be honest, whenever I've seen code (and there are exceptions to this) that works well in IE and bombs in Netscape, a lot of the time it's because of shoddy coding (missing closing table tags, etc.), where IE is much more forgiving. If you stick with W3C compliant code, most of the time you will be fine in both major browsers. Obviously there are exceptions such as IFrames, various elements of the DOM, and other nuances that Microsoft has extended beyond W3C standards or Netscape just chose not to implement. But I would wager that a majority of web sites out there don't use those exclusive elements if they generate a lot of traffic. As mentioned in a previous reply, most customers would just leave and never come back to your site. And if you do use these exclusive elements, there's probably a workaround if you think hard about the problem. I think that coders (myself included at times) love to take the easy way out. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the wrong solutions get applied to certain problems just because "it's quicker." Up-and-coming browsers (Opera, Mozilla, etc.) are fully W3C compliant, and that's where your focus should be. I always make sure to test my code in IE, Netscape 4.7, and Opera, and do so on different OSes. Remember that IE on a Mac renders different than IE on a Windows platform at times. Also think about XHTML, which is just a re-named version of the W3C's HTML 4.01 spec. Some things take getting used to, but you'll find that you code cleaner and more efficiently, and, most importantly, make your code scalable for potential XML integration down the road. Sorry to ramble, but Rey, I think you brought up a very good point. I, too, look forward to what other people's thoughts are on this subject. Regards, ______________________________________________________________________ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation � $99/Month � Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
