Well - Yes, I hope that this letter is the last post on this thread. Everybody's got their opinions on this issue and I respect everybody's as much as you respect mine. I hope that everybody else thinks as I do in that this is a forum to share ideas and expressions and to debate the same. We don't have to agree but hopefully we can agree to disagree on occassion. If I ruffled any feathers I apologize (Jerry Johnson :-) )
This is a great list. - Matt Small -----Original Message----- From: Katherine Maltby [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 11:53 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: CSS and Netscape - was(CSS and dynamically changing classes) Sorry for coming back to this thread again but I wanted to make one thing clear about my feelings for Netscape. I agree that ALL code should be solid code, and if there are browsers around that do not display a page because I have missed a closing </td> then I'd prefer to know that I've done something wrong. In this respect I do not have a problem with Netscape. For this reason, if you are still intending to send the letter please don't put my name on it. Kath -----Original Message----- From: Matthew R. Small [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 17 April 2002 00:07 To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: CSS and Netscape - was(CSS and dynamically changing classes) OK... :-) I'm done thinking about Netscape, IE and browsers. I'm going to go jetski the rest of my day away. I hope that everybody had a good time with this little thread today. Take care, - Matt Small -----Original Message----- From: Dave Watts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 6:24 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: CSS and Netscape - was(CSS and dynamically changing classes) > We're not talking about bad code. We're talking about > forgotten table tags. We're talking about not fully > scoping a variable. I'd argue that's bad code. It might not be as bad, comparatively speaking, as not using CFLOCK around a memory variable, but forgetting a table tag is an invalid instruction, and not scoping a variable is a potentially ambiguous instruction. It's important to remember that computers are very, very stupid, and will generally do exactly what we tell them to do, with very little ability to "fill in the blanks" when we provide incomplete or incorrect instructions. While I prefer IE to Netscape, there's a reason that IE is such a big install, and why the Gecko parser in Mozilla is as fast as it is. This is because IE attempts to render HTML even if it's not well-formed, and does a decent job of it. Of course, for this to happen, IE has to include all kinds of code to cover every eventuality. We're not going to have this luxury in the future, probably - as browsers become smaller, and as they're found in more devices, the necessity of writing well-formed HTML, or XHTML, more likely, will be much greater than it may be now. > We're talking about the fact that when bad code does get > written, you're a whole lot better off if you have internet > explorer than when you have netscape. If you had to choose > between riding in a car that was based on the fact that > everything was always perfect in a perfect world then > netscape works quite nicely. The fact is, IE takes into > account the fact that code doesn't always get written > like the rules say. It figures out the right most of the > time and leaves you with options so your code is not left > broken when multiple people who work on the application > make a mistake here or there then it's left to somebody > else to fix. A couple of points worth noting here: 1. IE may figure out the optimal thing to display, but your code is in fact "left broken". 2. If you follow your car analogy to its logical conclusion, you could compare IE to a Humvee, and Netscape to, say, a Yugo. However, as a road-builder, your roads should work for both, and if you build roads with giant potholes, you can't blame the problems encountered by Yugo drivers on their choice of cars - maybe they can't afford a Humvee! (The analogy here would be that they're running Linux or something, rather than Windows or Mac, I suppose.) > You're right, writing things properly is always a good > thing. Being able to account and correct mistakes rapidly > is also. Yes, both of those are important. The second one is usually called "debugging", and in an ideal world, most of it happens before an application is deployed, and isn't performed by end users. > Now, let's attack me personally because I have these > views. Yes, go ahead and attack the person instead of > the views themselves. Show me how much class you've got. I hope you don't take this as a personal attack. I don't think that Jerry intended for you to take his criticism as a personal attack, either, based on my reading of it: "What you are talking about is bad coding. Pure and simple. And laziness. Just because IE currently allows you to code so poorly, and the page sometimes renders the way you want, doesn't mean it is a good idea." Laziness is actually a positive asset of a programmer, of course - the lazy programmer takes his time and does it right, once, instead of doing it more than once. And, based on your own statements, it sounds likely that you have in fact written bad HTML. We've all done that our fair share, I'm sure, but few have defended it as a valid practice. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ voice: (202) 797-5496 fax: (202) 797-5444 ______________________________________________________________________ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com 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
