> I think some of your examples actually tend to make Philip's point:
> My 56k modem can still talk to a 2400 baud modem
Your standard V90 modem still talks to an standard 2400 baud modem,
but your non-standard proprietary K56flex modem does not talk to
standard V90 equipment any more (or only at 14.4). This is the same
case as...
> NN6 and Mozilla cannot handle HTML designed for earlier versions of the
> browser.
...a standard browser today won't understand yesterday's non-standard
proprietary markup.
> Unlike many standards, there is no backwards compatibility here. And
> layers is a standard. It may not be a W3C sanctioned standard, but it
> is Netsape's standard. They convinced a lot of people to use it, and
> now all those people who were suckered into using it are accused of
> being two-faced and are being told to f*** off.
The fault lays both at Netscape five years ago who wanted to forcibly
introduce their proprietary stuff (btw. declaring something a standard
does not really _make_ it a standard...) and at todays Web developers
who were told for at least two years, even by Netscape, that layers
are deprecated and still insist on using them.
> I think it is true that everyone only wants to write something once. No
> one wants to have to write it for every browser in existence which is
> why standards are good. At the same time, no one wants to rewrite
> everything because someone decided to change the rules, which is why
> backwards compatibility is good.
So why, instead of getting it right from the start, did those people
ever _use_ layers? It is the layers stuff which is not compatible, not
the other way around.
Olaf
