RE: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
Let me be quite clear I was NOT having a go at IE. While I do have issues with it, that was NOT the point of the post. I quite explicitly said we have to live with that. I also deliberately kept all references to specific browsers out of the post, except for the aside about IE. What my suggestion was, was that as a group (web desingers/devlopers) we could, if there was the political will, have some influence on the future development of browsers. If no one is interested fine. I am quite sanguine about the variants out their currently, but if as a community we declared a set of preferred browsers and did everything we could to promote those then we could have a real effect on the future. Finally, I thought I had also made it clear that the post was tongue in cheek and a coat trailing exercise. Yours till the next time :) Giles -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nick Gleitzman Sent: 09 June 2004 02:21 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act On Wednesday, June 9, 2004, at 10:26 AM, Peter Firminger wrote: Could it be that your site is broken, not the browser? We don't have any trouble accommodating IE with standards compliant code. I think your taking the argument too far and blaming the tool. There are very few issues remaining if you code your page thoughtfully (not in quirks mode) and ignore the features (like attribute selectors) that don't work in IE. Get over it. Giles' original post said I'm pissed off trying to fix a lump of code that is apparently compliant but breaks in one browser because some halfwit can't be bothered to develop compliant software. Ironically, he didn't say which browser - but having also suggested that 'we have to live with IE' because of 'market forces', the inference was there. My answer to Giles was supposed to say, just as you have, 'Get over it.' I obviously have to stop contributing so late at night. N ___ Omnivision. Websight. http://www.omnivision.com.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
It seems to me that the web developer/designer community spends a huge amount of time whinging about the browser developers and their product's non-compliance, when the answer to the problem lies in their own hands. The onus is shared between content developers, browser developers, users and clients, actually... Our apparent willingness to jump through testing/bug-fix hoops because of the newest browser offering from some spotty youths in a garage in St Kilda, beggars belief. And what browser would that be then? We could clearly state that as a community we write/develop for a list of acceptable browsers which comply to standards (we're just going to have to live wiht IE - market forces). Ah...so already here, you're making a compromise with the IE clause. Cute. Strong words to start with, but then watered down... Hopefully non-compliant browsers would simply not be developed, because the pages would break in it. Were it not for your IE clause, that may almost be true. As far as backward compatability is concerned we should support older browsers but for a set period. Browser software is, by and large free, upgrading is easy, there is little excuse for not upgrading to a compliant browser. However, there is also little need as we spend hours jiggling code so that old, non-compliant browsers, can read the pages. If you can read the pages why change your browser. I think we need to make a clear distinction here: if by backwards compatibility you're referring to the *visual* layout of pages etc, then I agree...we should not carry on accommodating old, non-compliant browsers. However, in terms of accessibility, we need to ensure that, within reason, pages at least work (content readable, navigation working, etc) in older browsers *within reason*. People would change browsers if they kept on getting jumbled, unreadable pages. Oh...a hardliner. Unfortunately, where these tough ideas (still, softened by your previous IE clause) meet the reality of clients and market driven forces, there's bound to be problems... The developer community can take a stand here and have some real input to the future of browser technology. Idealistic, but...unless you're going to get consensus from each and every web developer out there, it's not going to work. Clients will just go off and find developers with less hardline attitudes, the ones that need the money to flow in, and bend to the will of the ones who pay the bills at the end of the day. Hottest day of the year so far, and I'm pissed off trying to fix a lump of code that is apparently compliant but breaks in one browser because some halfwit can't be bothered to develop compliant software. For god's sake I could be sailing!! Design (in all fields and disciplines) is about creatively working around constraints... Having dangled my coat for someone to stand on I wait with baited breath. :) There ya go ;) Patrick Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
On Tuesday, June 8, 2004, at 08:11 PM, Giles Clark wrote: snip Isn't it about time we took a more active role in shaping the future of browsers. We could clearly state that as a community we write/develop for a list of acceptable browsers which comply to standards (we're just going to have to live wiht IE - market forces). Hopefully non-compliant browsers would simply not be developed, because the pages would break in it. If a new browser complies then it can see the pages we have developed. No worries. /snip - original post for full version 'We're just going to have to live with IE' - there's the rub. Over and over, in these threads, we see developers aiming their work at IE 'because it's the browser used by most people'. And why's that? Because it's integrated with the OS of the most popular computing platform on the planet. Never mind that it, and the OS, are lemons. The 'market forces' are one of the most successful business enterprises in history. IE is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Suggesting that we build sites that break in the most used browser and then telling the frustrated site visitors that their software's not up to it is committing our clients to commercial suicide. You'd probably be amazed, and alarmed, at the proportion of people out there that don't even know that they have a choice when it comes to browsers. They use what comes pre-loaded on their PC; they allow auto updates (maybe); they get a new browser when they get a new PC. As developers, we need to remember that not all our site visitors spend as many hours in front of their PCs as we do. They don't understand Standards, and they don't want to. Their maxim: 'Don't make me think.' If a site works, fine. Our clients, with our help, can communicate with them, hopefully in a meaningful way. If it doesn't, we've lost them. And they won't be back. All they know, or care about, is that 'this site doesn't work'. There's a hundred mores sites just waiting in the wings to supply whatever yours couldn't. The best route to change of a system you don't agree with is from within. Get a job at Microsoft, and bring all the influence to bear that you can to ensure that their next generation browser - codenamed Wombat, or Aardvaark, or whatever it is - is Standards compliant. But let's be realistic: legacy browsers, pain in the arse that they are, aren't going away for a few years yet. So let's make our sites work in them. We're in the communication business, yes? (Note: 'Clients' means anyone a site is being built for - including yourself. Doesn't mean money has to change hands.) I think that's 3c - Nick ___ Omnivision. Websight. http://www.omnivision.com.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
If we are going to make sites that only work in certain browsers why not just code to IE's standards and not bother with the obscure browsers like firefox and opera. That way we don't need standards at all! I can have my marquee tag back and my ActiveX controls - Ill be able to do all kinds of great things. After all nearly everyone uses IE... Seriously though, If you are going to take this hardline attitude by purposefully excluding users of certain browsers then you may as well do what I was saying above. Don't loose site of the objective - with standards we are trying to let more browsers work with our sites not less. Don't get too bitter about IE people it's not good for your health. Quoting Nick Gleitzman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tuesday, June 8, 2004, at 08:11 PM, Giles Clark wrote: snip Isn't it about time we took a more active role in shaping the future of browsers. We could clearly state that as a community we write/develop for a list of acceptable browsers which comply to standards (we're just going to have to live wiht IE - market forces). Hopefully non-compliant browsers would simply not be developed, because the pages would break in it. If a new browser complies then it can see the pages we have developed. No worries. /snip - original post for full version 'We're just going to have to live with IE' - there's the rub. Over and over, in these threads, we see developers aiming their work at IE 'because it's the browser used by most people'. And why's that? Because it's integrated with the OS of the most popular computing platform on the planet. Never mind that it, and the OS, are lemons. The 'market forces' are one of the most successful business enterprises in history. IE is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Suggesting that we build sites that break in the most used browser and then telling the frustrated site visitors that their software's not up to it is committing our clients to commercial suicide. You'd probably be amazed, and alarmed, at the proportion of people out there that don't even know that they have a choice when it comes to browsers. They use what comes pre-loaded on their PC; they allow auto updates (maybe); they get a new browser when they get a new PC. As developers, we need to remember that not all our site visitors spend as many hours in front of their PCs as we do. They don't understand Standards, and they don't want to. Their maxim: 'Don't make me think.' If a site works, fine. Our clients, with our help, can communicate with them, hopefully in a meaningful way. If it doesn't, we've lost them. And they won't be back. All they know, or care about, is that 'this site doesn't work'. There's a hundred mores sites just waiting in the wings to supply whatever yours couldn't. The best route to change of a system you don't agree with is from within. Get a job at Microsoft, and bring all the influence to bear that you can to ensure that their next generation browser - codenamed Wombat, or Aardvaark, or whatever it is - is Standards compliant. But let's be realistic: legacy browsers, pain in the arse that they are, aren't going away for a few years yet. So let's make our sites work in them. We're in the communication business, yes? (Note: 'Clients' means anyone a site is being built for - including yourself. Doesn't mean money has to change hands.) I think that's 3c - Nick ___ Omnivision. Websight. http://www.omnivision.com.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
On Wednesday, June 9, 2004, at 01:41 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If we are going to make sites that only work in certain browsers why not just code to IE's standards and not bother with the obscure browsers like firefox and opera. That way we don't need standards at all! I can have my marquee tag back and my ActiveX controls - Ill be able to do all kinds of great things. After all nearly everyone uses IE... Seriously though, If you are going to take this hardline attitude by purposefully excluding users of certain browsers then you may as well do what I was saying above. Don't loose site of the objective - with standards we are trying to let more browsers work with our sites not less. Don't get too bitter about IE people it's not good for your health. No, no - I'm not suggesting for a second we should *only* develop for IE, or any other certain browsers! Just the opposite - I make a point of delivering my clients' message to the maximum number of visitors. And I'm not bitter; just realistic. That's why I say 'IE is here to stay'. Thanks to the many gurus around, we have a whole menu of hacks available so we *can* deliver Standards-driven sites to non-compliant browsers. I just think we have to keep an eye on the past, even as we move forward. Someone said in a recent post on another thread, 'IE/Mac is no longer being developed, so it's a dead duck.' Huh? Did all the IE/Mac users just stop, there and then, when that news was announced? No - and that's why I'll keep hacking for, and testing in, the widest possible range of browsers I can. I owe it to my clients. 100% compliant browsers. Write once, publish anywhere. It's the dream of Standards, right? I'm all for it; I'll do my bit, and more. But it's not the real world - not yet. Nick ___ Omnivision. Websight. http://www.omnivision.com.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
Nick, No, no - I'm not suggesting for a second we should *only* develop for IE, or any other certain browsers! Just the opposite - I make a point of delivering my clients' message to the maximum number of visitors. And I'm not bitter; just realistic. That's why I say 'IE is here to stay'. Thanks to the many gurus around, we have a whole menu of hacks available so we *can* deliver Standards-driven sites to non-compliant browsers. Could it be that your site is broken, not the browser? We don't have any trouble accommodating IE with standards compliant code. I think your taking the argument too far and blaming the tool. IE had CSS support earlier than Netscape did. Don't simply cut down the tall poppy because there is a sympathetic (anti-M$) audience in the web standards community (and no, not all of us agree) and don't try (like you could) to incite another browser war. That's what started all this and Netscape was equally to blame. [note to self, work on sentence structure... Next time] It is a far far easier internet to code for now with compliant code. Look at the crap we had to write when NN 4 and IE 4 were battling it out. Both were very wrong and we had to use things like the '4 horsemen' to accommodate both. No wonder table layouts were used so heavily. There are very few issues remaining if you code your page thoughtfully (not in quirks mode) and ignore the features (like attribute selectors) that don't work in IE. Get over it. PNG Transparency is a slight pain but we still have gif and jpg alternatives so it isn't a killer. The only problem (not for me) is the Mime-type issue for XHTML 1.1 but as I've said before, I've yet to see someone using XHTML for any purpose other than plain mark-up and the best language to do that with (in my opinion) is still HTML 4.01 or if you really really must keep up with the Jones', XHTML 1.0 Transitional (HTML 5.0). There are a few other tweaks required (e.g. white space in lists) but they don't change it from still being standards compliant. Once you learn to code it correctly (or have a base set of code to start each site with), these are not big issues at all. If you have to use a multitude of hacks to get your design to work in IE then you just plain built it wrong. Ask for help. That's what this list is for. If it's XHTML 1.1 then you won't win. The web isn't ready for XHTML 1.1. The major browser doesn't accept it in the required format (and there are other issues with search engines etc. as well). Yes, this is IE's fault, but it's simple, don't use the language. Tell me why you have to use XHTML 1.1. Anyone? Depending on the answer I may have to climb a mountain. 100% compliant browsers. Write once, publish anywhere. It's the dream of Standards, right? I'm all for it; I'll do my bit, and more. But it's not the real world - not yet. I believe it is. But there will always be browser bugs (all of them have bugs) and the only way to do what you want is to lose the niche browsers like Firefox and Opera and go with IE, so that argument will never fly. NN 4 is still a bigger problem than IE (with a much smaller footprint though, thankfully due to IE's dominance winning that war). At least IE gets updated readily by the users (usually automatically) whereas a Netscape (4) user (or a corporation/department) is less likely to upgrade and when they do eventually change, it'll generally be to IE because it's a better business decision. That's exactly what I would do. It's there when you start the machine the first time (assuming they're using Windows which most will), it manages itself with security updates and service packs and (if the web developers do their job correctly) it works flawlessly. Using hacks to fix what you're doing (probably for pixel perfection) is a far bigger problem than IE's compliance. BTW your site http://www.omnivision.com.au/ has a JavaScript error... I suggest you use IE with the debugger turned on to find it :-) P * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
The first step should be a clear and unequivocal statement that we will not write fixes for new non-compliant browsers. Design a new Browser by all means, but make it compliant. By non-compliant you mean that they do not adhere to the standards put down by the W3C whose role is the development of interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential.. The W3C puts out guidelines and specs very much like this standards list has guidelines for posting. However, funnily enough the guidelines (aka standards) for this list are probably more often ignored than the W3C guidelines. Now that's not a dig, just an observation that there are many reasons that browsers may not adhere fully, just as there are reasons people don't adhere to this list's guidelines. Web browsers (or at least the underlying technology of a web browser ...thinking webkit on OS X or gecko, khtml, etc) are not just built by some spotty youths in a garage in St Kilda. On the contrary those spotty youths are more likely to be developing web sites! To encourage better standards we need to do just that...encourage. For example; introducing everyone you know to, e.g., Firefox, would probably do a great deal more for standards than spending time ranting on this list (although that might sooth an instant irritation). As is often pointed out, many people don't even know what a web browser is. I just had to explain to a client, I'm developing a content management system for, what a browser was after I encouraged them to adopt Firefox to use for accessing the admin section (whilst adopting standards for the main site of course). Ironically, in the process of focussing on using non-standard browser, I had to introduce them to the concept of a world outside the Internet Explorer version (aka the internet ) that came with their operating system. Then of course your next step is getting all the web designers/developers you know to develop with web standards, etc...then a loong way down the bottom of that list would be Force Microsoft to adopt W3C standards... Nick * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
On Wednesday, June 9, 2004, at 10:26 AM, Peter Firminger wrote: Could it be that your site is broken, not the browser? We don't have any trouble accommodating IE with standards compliant code. I think your taking the argument too far and blaming the tool. There are very few issues remaining if you code your page thoughtfully (not in quirks mode) and ignore the features (like attribute selectors) that don't work in IE. Get over it. Giles' original post said I'm pissed off trying to fix a lump of code that is apparently compliant but breaks in one browser because some halfwit can't be bothered to develop compliant software. Ironically, he didn't say which browser - but having also suggested that 'we have to live with IE' because of 'market forces', the inference was there. My answer to Giles was supposed to say, just as you have, 'Get over it.' I obviously have to stop contributing so late at night. N ___ Omnivision. Websight. http://www.omnivision.com.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
