Lawley's Web Design Class

I think it's hard for everyone to be developing using web standards. Over the summer I was putting animated gifs on a company's web page. Some of them worked fine in both Explorer and Netscape, but there were a few that just acted strangely on Netscape. I remember something else that I thought was basic that should have worked on all browsers, but didn't. It was either a bolding, underline, italics or something like that. It looked great on Explorer but didn't show up when I checked it in Netscape.
The consensus with the people I was working with was to leave it alone since most people use Explorer anyway. (Which I now find odd since Prof. Lawley said it's one of the worst ones out there)

There are a bunch of issues to be addressed here....

First, Matt, generally large technology-oriented businesses like Yahoo! have web development teams complete with hard-core coders and programmers. They seldom rely on WYSIWYG tools. Smaller businesses without dedicated web developers are more likely to use tools like FrontPage et al.

Stephanie, it's impossible to develop pages that will look identical in every platform, particularly with the range of standards compliance out there. However, it is possible to develop pages that degrade gracefully, something we'll talk about more in class.

It's also not that odd for the dominant tool or technology to not be the best one. The classic example of that is VHS vs BetaMax. And the dominance of IE has little to do with the quality of the product, and far more to do with the issues that surrounded the Microsoft lawsuit. :-)

Finally, the range of browsers visiting a site varies widely based on the site itself. My sites tend to have a higher % of Mac users than many. Technology-oriented sites typically have higher percentages of recent and standards-compliant browsers. General purpose sites don't. That's why most site developers pay attention to their server logs--another thing we'll be talking about in class.

The world is forever evolving. When internet was first set up, it took years for everyone to understand how to use computers. People learned how to the internet on computers. As computers became popular, more and more companies jumped on the bandwagon to earn a profit on internet. People started to create their own websites for the internet. By then, there were different types of browsers, each with its own way of displaying html. It made it difficult for all websites to work on different browsers. As a result, The Web Standards Project was set up for compatibility across the internet.

I believe that over time, compatibility will be less of a problem, as more and more people become more knowledgeable in computers. But then, who knows what our exact future holds? Perhaps, one day there will be software for creating instant websites that will be compatible with all browsers.

The idea of Web standards is a great idea for our current web situation. However, we must look to the future and what it has in store. The Web is constantly evolving even as we speak, I mean just a few years ago CSS weren't even around and they are just gaining momentum among the general populous. Although I like the idea of web standards now, I think that we must keep our options open for other new standards that come onto the scene because as we've learned in the past 10 years-information and technology comes faster that we exspect.
EvanL

I also found the article "99.9% of Websites are Obsolete" pretty interesting. Like Stephanie, I used to code and check with Internet Explorer. While I did check the pages I built in other browsers, I tended to lean on IE because it is the most used browser and most of the people visiting my site were running on the Windows platform with a version of IE as a browser.

As Professor Lawley mentioned, server logs are pretty useful. I didn't really have a high-end log... just a free tracking program really... but I used the information it provided to design my site so the biggest audience would see what I wanted them to see and how I wanted them to see it.

After IMM, I realized that coding for the LCD was sensible. I backtracked and am still in the process of recoding my site so that the broadest audience can access it. However, after the first day of this class, I was a little disappointed to find that I have been making more problems for myself since IE in a Windows world is the worst setup you can have. In addition, after reading the article, I felt myself moving backwards instead of forwards.

It was definitely an interesting read and I do agree that we should design for web standards. I am anxious to learn how, and if more and more people decide to catch on as well, as a result, the web will be a very happily organized and accessible place for all.

-Christine :)

Internet Explorer is not a “crap” browser; people who code for IE’s standards are “crap” developers. I think it is a credit to Internet Explorer’s parser that it can tolerate most of the sloppy code on the web. It is Microsoft’s intent to provide a tolerant browser for the non standards compliant code on the Internet; this provides them with a customer base of “99.9%” of websites. By these standards Microsoft has succeeded admirably. However, where Microsoft has failed is its propagation of bad coding practices.

“This site has been optimized for best viewing in Internet Explorer” AKA “we’re lazy and apathetic.”

Also, Microsoft’s parser is much slower because its base code must allow for error, increasing the number of conditionals. What’s that you say? “But Ryan, I use IE on Windows or on my MAC and it runs and loads much faster than Mozilla.” The reason for this is simple. Microsoft designed IE for the Mac and Windows separately. It is not a cross platform browser at all like Mozilla is. Because the browser is so closely integrated with the operating system it runs faster. However, if you loaded Mozilla into the system’s memory on startup you might notice that it works faster than IE because it’s code is leaner.
With all that said, the differences between Mozilla and Internet Explorer are so drastic it is almost unfair to compare them. The fundamental difference involves money. Microsoft is a Corporation and Mozilla is an open source project. Consequently, each browser offers a contrasting approach to the issue of sloppy code on the internet. Microsoft provides an immediate solution by supporting websites that would otherwise not function under standards compliant browsers; without IE “99.9%” of the web would crash.
Mozilla offers a more long term solution by designing a cross platform standards compliant browser. However, Mozilla is more of a movement than a browser, so arguing in favor of Mozilla defeats its purpose. The goal of the Mozilla project is to spread standards compliance, not sell its browser. Coding for a particular browser does not allow accessibility. However, coding for the w3c’s recommendations does, and that is what Mozilla is aiming for. Hopefully people will stop wasting their time arguing about which browser is better and spend more time working toward standards compliant code. The bottom line: “If you’re not a part of the solution you’re a part of the problem, what’s your contribution…” Oh, and I apologize for ranting on like this in the Blog, I’m just sick of people arguing about browsers.

-Ryan

No need to apologize...this is a great place for a rant. :-)

I agree with everything that Ryan has to say in his post regarding standards compliance and the "browser wars." However, I just have a few comments to make on other parts of Ryan's post.

1) "Internet Explorer is not a “crap” browser; people who code for IE’s standards are “crap” developers."

This statement is much too broad to be as direct as it is. At work, I develop strictly for IE, why, because that is what the users of my application use, period. I write internal applications used by co-workers of mine and the only browser that they use is IE. Does this make me a "crap" developer? I think not. If Ryan didn't mean his statement in the way that I interrupted it, then maybe he should have said that developers should develop for their specific audience, and if that audience is everyone who uses the Internet, then they should not develop strictly to IE's standards.

2) "However, if you loaded Mozilla into the system’s memory on startup you might notice that it works faster..."

Who wants yet another process running in the background? Yes, it might quicken up that specific app. but it will bog down the entire system in general, once you have enough of this "apps" running the background, even if they only require a few k of RAM each. If you look at what processes are currently running you'd probably be surprised at how fast they add up.

Good points Matt.

I realize my statement "Internet Explorer is not a “crap” browser; people who code for IE’s standards are “crap” developers." is not always applicable. Your arguement is valid, and I agree. Thank you for clarifying.

In reference to the comment about loading Mozilla into memory on startup, I was not suggesting that people do that regularly, but that it would help if one wanted to more accurately compare the performance of the two browsers.

Thanks again for the comments.

Ryan