[CLUE-Tech] Re: Browser Protest Day

[jbrockmeier at earthlink.net]

On Sun, 28 Apr 2002, David Snyder wrote:

> Why lump proprietary tags in with JavaScript?  The W3C has the DOM 
> standard out - browser makers should make their browsers compliant with 
> the specifications.   Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater 
> here - JavaScript has some very good and powerful features, proprietary 
> JavaScript is bad.

Why lump proprietary tags w/JavaScript? Because JavaScript started
as a proprietary technology and was one of the major catalysts in
propigating pages that work in only one browser. (And, yes, I know
Netscape was the one that started this...) It's still a big
problem even though there are now standards.  

Also, the evils of JavaScript have been well documented in previous
threads. Yes, there are some good things that can be done
in JavaScript assuming that:

1. The script is written so that it runs correctly in all browsers.
2. The script is not being used to take away user control of the
browser.
3. The script is actually necessary to achieve something that couldn't
have been done with a w3c standard supported in ALL browsers or 
done on the server-side with CGI, PHP, Perl, Python... etc. 

More often than not, however, this isn't the case. We have JavaScript
to thank for pop-unders/pop-ups, forced browser resizing and a host
of other evils. If you want to be able to use Yahoo! Mail or a bunch
of other services on the Web, you have to keep JavaScript turned on,
meaning that you have to suffer all the other crap that you don't
want.   

As far as browser makers making their browsers compliant - yeah, 
I agree with that and the folks who are working on Mozilla and
Konqueror are doing their best. However, it's a lot more realistic
to expect someone creating a Web site to write pages that don't
require a lot of bells and whistles than it is to require everyone
to have the latest browser and for all browsers to magically and
suddenly become compliant. 

Even if the latest version of Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, 
Opera and Konqueror all render pages exactly the same as of tomorrow 
there are a lot of people using older computers in school labs and 
at home where they can't necessarily run the latest versions of 
the browsers. If your company wants to do business with anyone 
who's blind or visually impaired, you have to support text-mode 
browsers. There are a lot of people out there who don't want to
upgrade their OS/browser every six months to be able to do a 
little banking online. That's not an unreasonable attitude. 
 
> I know Lynx doesn't support it, but just about all other browsers do on 
> various levels.

That's one of the things that sparked this discussion in the first place.
"Various levels" -- Sites that work in all browsers, sites that kind of
work in all browsers and sites that only work in one browser.  

Take care,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
ymessenger: jbrockmeier / AIM: ZonkerJoe
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"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our 
moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our 
government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the 
laws of the country." -- Thomas Jefferson