Anything your browser can do, mine can do better.

[Frosty]

That's incredibly frustrating because IE6 can't do some very basic things that feel necessary in 2008. I'm not entirely sure how an office gets away with even having IE6 anymore.

As far as I'm concerned, running Windows machines responsibly means keeping up to date, which Microsoft has made very easy. The computers pretty much do that by themselves if you let them. I'm not sure how an admin can decide that all the machines in a given office will continue to operate with IE6 and feel confident about it in any way, especially given the numerous supposed security flaws.

Even our shitty, seldom-used Dell box we got when the library upgraded to newer shitty Dell boxes is up to date, and I hate to be in the same room as that goofy thing.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I can't really defend it, but it does seem to be a widespread standard. The IT thought process seems to be that IE6 instead of IE7 (and Word 2003 instead of 2007 and XP instead of Vista) are preferrable because they're stable and familiar. There's probably some truth to that - you or I can transition between those things in a few minutes... but significant portions of a corporation (or in my case school system) will have a lot more trouble.

 

[floundericiousMI]

Jooooin ussssss. It'ssss blisssssss.

Nope

 

[ELTEE]

I can't really defend it, but it does seem to be a widespread standard. The IT thought process seems to be that IE6 instead of IE7 (and Word 2003 instead of 2007 and XP instead of Vista) are preferrable because they're stable and familiar. There's probably some truth to that - you or I can transition between those things in a few minutes... but significant portions of a corporation (or in my case school system) will have a lot more trouble.

I deal with this on a constant basis. I work for a large corporation, and change is by no means easy, regardless of which department is effected and in what capacity that change is considered. Corporations remind me alot of big government - since I work for both at different times, each perspective appears to be more hopeless than the last.

With our IT department, security is equally crucial to the evaluation process that is used when considering software upgrades. For a multitude of reasons, our department's consensus continues to be that Vista and its accompanying software simply isn't as secure as tried and true XP. I'm not so sure I agree, but I'm not an expert, and I'm not in IT...

I guess the best that we can do is continue to stay as informed and up to date on this kind of knowledge as possible, so that when the right people are listening, we can attempt to improve things for the better.

 

[cff]

I think that's mostly irrelevant. The aim is simply to make standards compliance a goal for everyone, and whatever comes from that is just fine. The idea isn't to make everyone try hard to break browsers, it's to make browsers do everything right so that I know if my markup checks out, it'll display correctly. No checking the design in every version of every browser, no browser-specific hacks; just write it once, validate, and go live.

You are missing my point. What I said is that it is possible (tho unlikely) that each and every funtion tested in that artificial benchmark is so arcane that a human designer won't use it, ever. My webpage is W3C compilant AND I made sure that it works on all browsers I had access to - unfortunately one doesn't imply the other (I have one bug with Javascript not workin properly on some I still cannot trace down :-( ).

In all fairness, a good web designer should be making sure his site works with the popular browsers even if they're technically broken.

Actually no, they shouldn't. This is exactly what breaks the web. A good webdesigner should be making sure his page is W3C compilant and never ever produce anything that is technically broken even if it works. Also never code even small parts for a specific browser.

I'm not sure how an admin can decide that all the machines in a given office will continue to operate with IE6 and feel confident about it in any way, especially given the numerous supposed security flaws.

I cannot understand how anyone can decide to operate any version of IE and feel confident about it with respect to security flaws.
And no, this isn't the typical MS bashing. IE, especially the later versions is ok, but IE will always have one inherent bug as long as it is intererlinked with the OS: One cannot separate the Explorer from the Internet Explorer with regards to security. That is I cannot make sure that the Explorer may not connect to the internet (which is the way many trojans work) and at the same time allow IE to connect normally. Once Microsoft gets that one working we can talk again.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Actually no, they shouldn't. This is exactly what breaks the web. A good webdesigner should be making sure his page is W3C compilant and never ever produce anything that is technically broken even if it works. Also never code even small parts for a specific browser.

Except that the real world is full of ordinary people who care about checking their email, buying office supplies and seeing if it's going to rain on Sunday and that the real IT world exists to support rather than dictate to these people. It's great that we exist and everything, but we aren't the baseline anymore - millions upon millions of school teachers, office managers, firemen, accountants, etc. do not care one whit whether or not the Lunix and Brie crowd have decided that the internet is *broken* and that the company that makes one of their ordinary office tools is *EVIL*.

We're also not talking about saving the whales here - a "good" web designer is one who does the job asked of him, not one who jerks off to some magical excuse-to-act-better-than-everyone standard. If your company uses IE6 - which is pretty darned common right now - and your boss asks you to build a site with X, Y and Z features then you can bet you're going to be fired when you insist that you can only design it with X and Y features and then only for RedHat SpecialBrowser Omega-14 Release Candidate X (Thursday).

(This is all even insane from a professional development standpoint. How did anyone allow web design to become some fakey I'm-so-important pseudomorality we-must-preserve-the-virgin-internet game? Any other sort of professional programmer in the universe is going to have a fist full of amazing stories about how some brilliant spit-and-glue hack coding let him ship a product that *worked* instead of one that had super clean code that oh, yeah, only runs correctly on the Vic-20...)

I cannot understand how anyone can decide to operate any version of IE and feel confident about it with respect to security flaws.

If some inherent flaw in Internet Explorer destroys my company's computers* then there's a giant corporation with a support structure and a bureacracy that can be held responsible and that will be willing to work with me on a professional level. If Fake Open Source Browser explodes then there's a fourteen year old in Sweden who can provide me with world class technical support in between stealing BluRay encryption routines and being grounded.

Even if the second option is technically superior and even if it has some wonderful community that's going to support me even if they aren't required to the issue is that there's no guarantee -- which is something that a professional organization (especially one with stockholders!) does actually view as incredibly important.

* - hasn't happened yet! Which, by the way, is exactly the problem with everything these days. Doomsday prophecies don't count in real life... an obviously biased internet full of "this *could* be terrible!" isn't the same thing as bad things actually happening. Wake the professional IT people who are supporting IE6/XP/Word2k3 up when there's actually a trojan that irreparably destroys their intranets and leaves them without any support or compensation from Microsoft - until then it's all stupid speculation.

 

[Frosty]

What I said is that it is possible (tho unlikely) that each and every funtion tested in that artificial benchmark is so arcane that a human designer won't use it, ever.

Rest assured that's wrong.

A good webdesigner should be making sure his page is W3C compilant and never ever produce anything that is technically broken even if it works.

A good designer can do both. It is possible to design compliant, semantically correct websites that function in all browsers. It's just a big pain in the ass and you spend a lot of time with Google.

Also never code even small parts for a specific browser.

Now you're missing his point. If I have to use some small gimmick to make IE6 display PNGs like all the other browsers, I am going to. We're not talking about <blink> tags here, we're talking about real functioning.

And no, this isn't the typical MS bashing.

I don't think that at this point we'd suspect anyone of that here. We done growed up.

Once Microsoft gets that one working we can talk again.

I'm relatively certain that's how Vista does business.

How did anyone allow web design to become some fakey I'm-so-important pseudomorality we-must-preserve-the-virgin-internet game? Any other sort of professional programmer in the universe is going to have a fist full of amazing stories about how some brilliant spit-and-glue hack coding let him ship a product that *worked* instead of one that had super clean code that oh, yeah, only runs correctly on the Vic-20...)

That's because web design isn't real programming, it just attracts preening wannabes.

In the defense of standards, though, web standards are a completely unique thing that isn't represented in applications programming. You'll have conventions, but whether your application is well-formed is basically up to you, where for web documents, that's dictated in a strict fashion by a governing body. You can choose to ignore them, of course, but then there's no guarantee that anything you do works the way you want it to. (Isn't it hilarious that if you don't ignore them, there's also no guarantee that anything you do works the way you want it to? I know I'm in stitches.)

Standards-compliant code works across all browsers except when they are deliberately ignorant of it, as in IE6's case. It's making your website work in IE6 that is the amazing spit & glue hack, and the equivalent of getting your code to run on the Vic-20, not the other way around.

 

[t.c.cgi]

I cannot understand how anyone can decide to operate any version of IE and feel confident about it with respect to security flaws.

My Microsoft Vista 64-bit with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 protected by Microsoft Windows Live OneCare has had zero Al Queda terrorism attacks. My only problem is I can't remember how I "broke" IE's XML display ability. I'm sure when I figure it out Bill Gates will give me a gold star.

...millions upon millions of school teachers, office managers, firemen, accountants, etc. do not care one whit whether or not the Lunix and Brie crowd have decided that the internet is *broken* and that the company that makes one of their ordinary office tools is *EVIL*.

I know I don't care one whit.

 

[cff]

Except that the real world is full of ordinary people who care about checking their email, buying office supplies and seeing if it's going to rain on Sunday and that the real IT world exists to support rather than dictate to these people. It's great that we exist and everything, but we aren't the baseline anymore - millions upon millions of school teachers, office managers, firemen, accountants, etc. do not care one whit whether or not the Lunix and Brie crowd have decided that the internet is *broken* and that the company that makes one of their ordinary office tools is *EVIL*.

Its so nice that you completely ignore my post to have one of the M$ against Unix debates.
To repeat: Hacks for a specific browser version are bad. So bad that a hack that 'was necessarey' (actually it wasn't in first place, but just lets assume it was) in IE6 now breaks the page in IE7.
Now, how is that a Linux debate again? How is this not affecting 99% of users?
And don't come with the maintainance route, because webpages also exist on mediums that are NOT maintained and cannot be maintained. Like manuals on game CDs. Now I'd jump in joy when those don't work anymore after updating windows.
But you can continue to cheer for bad webpages and claim it is a non issue if it makes you feel better.

We're also not talking about saving the whales here - a "good" web designer is one who does the job asked of him, not one who jerks off to some magical excuse-to-act-better-than-everyone standard. If your company uses IE6 - which is pretty darned common right now - and your boss asks you to build a site with X, Y and Z features then you can bet you're going to be fired when you insist that you can only design it with X and Y features and then only for RedHat SpecialBrowser Omega-14 Release Candidate X (Thursday).

What part of the word STANDARD don't you get? Coding for some feature Z in your special SpecialBrowser Omega-14 Release Candidate X is just as stupid as coding for IE. the blink tag was just as stupid as the marquee one.
And if you had a mechanic build a car that looks nice, drives nice, but goes completely cracy once you leave the company parking lot or once the colors of the parking lot are repainted what would you say to him? Job well done? Well I wouldn't!
Also that argument of 'I cannot implement function Z with standard means' just doesn't hold. Tell me one singe thing you want to accomplish that you cannot do in the standard.

If some inherent flaw in Internet Explorer destroys my company's computers* then there's a giant corporation with a support structure and a bureacracy that can be held responsible and that will be willing to work with me on a professional level. If Fake Open Source Browser explodes then there's a fourteen year old in Sweden who can provide me with world class technical support in between stealing BluRay encryption routines and being grounded.

Again you are completely ignoring anything that I said. This isn't a matter if IE is secure or not. Its actually a matter of the integration of IE into the OS, as I tried to explain. Even if IE is 100% secure you can abuse it to leak information out of the system as the local file browser and the web browser is the same (at least up to XP). This cannot be fixed by an upgrade to IE.

Even if the second option is technically superior and even if it has some wonderful community that's going to support me even if they aren't required to the issue is that there's no guarantee -- which is something that a professional organization (especially one with stockholders!) does actually view as incredibly important.

You really don't get it, do you? One version works on one single browser. The other one works on all of them. Yet you insist that it is worse, useless for a professional organization and only supported by hippies.

* - hasn't happened yet! Which, by the way, is exactly the problem with everything these days. Doomsday prophecies don't count in real life... an obviously biased internet full of "this *could* be terrible!" isn't the same thing as bad things actually happening. Wake the professional IT people who are supporting IE6/XP/Word2k3 up when there's actually a trojan that irreparably destroys their intranets and leaves them without any support or compensation from Microsoft - until then it's all stupid speculation.

Just that half of the password sniffers/... work that way.

 

[cff]

A good designer can do both. It is possible to design compliant, semantically correct websites that function in all browsers. It's just a big pain in the ass and you spend a lot of time with Google.

Agree. However, I also expect that anyone who is planning to do web design for a living to have to do this. Simly as that. Its the same as doing a quick hack to get something to work versus programming somthing to industry stability. If a programmer gives me something that does only work as long as the person in front of it knows very well what to do and will break otherwise or something that will break once the slightest change occurs he will recieve the same flak from me.
Amateur work is amateur work and its fine and all. Just don't claim your patchwork is professional and sell it as such.
People just don't seem to realize that same for webpages.

Now you're missing his point. If I have to use some small gimmick to make IE6 display PNGs like all the other browsers, I am going to. We're not talking about <blink> tags here, we're talking about real functioning.

Problematic. I see your point, but I'd argue to rather use JPEG in this case then to use the hack. The problem is that your small gimmick will most likely not be W3C compilant and thus break some other browser, or even IE7. If you can pull it off with legal code thats interesing, but even then it sounds like a nightmare to maintain.

I'm relatively certain that's how Vista does business.

Interesing. Haven't need to touch it I cannot comment on that. It would certainly be a welcome change and something that would make me reconsider using IE, which is in my experience often very much faster (seconds versus 15 minutes on a legal, quite small, webpage of mine!) in rendering then the mozilla alternatives.

(Isn't it hilarious that if you don't ignore them, there's also no guarantee that anything you do works the way you want it to? I know I'm in stitches.)

At least that way you can hope that the next update of the browser will have it working ;-)

Standards-compliant code works across all browsers except when they are deliberately ignorant of it, as in IE6's case. It's making your website work in IE6 that is the amazing spit & glue hack, and the equivalent of getting your code to run on the Vic-20, not the other way around.

And in that case a question remains: Isn't it far better to tell the people that their incompatiple heap of crap is just that and they have to upgrade instead of hacking around?! Its not like this is a browser wars debate in this case, but a upgrade withing the same browser family.
OTOH I find it extremely rediculous to have to fake a IE id to get into some webpages when they render nicely in some non IE browser just because the hack of one jerk doesn't let me in on principle.
Yeah, those pages are vanishing more and more fortunately, but some still exist.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

You're being stupid. Nothing I said had anything to do with your reply - go crusade elsewhere.

 

[Dumpshock]

I think IE failed this round.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I like how failing can give you a weird glowing skull instead of a bar graph.

 

[Wedge009]

Everyone will have their own preference for web browsers, but as a part-time web developer, it gets pretty tiring working out all the various browsers' quirks and what-not. Especially with a significant portion of folks still using Internet Explorer 6 (work-enforced or otherwise). I'm constantly running through IE6/7/8, Firefox 2/3, Safari, Opera and even Konqueror when testing web pages. Fortunately, I don't do particularly complicated stuff, so anything that's remotely standards-compliant usually works fine, but having to deal with legacy IE junk all the time gets quite annoying.

For the record, I prefer Firefox even if it is a bit resource-intensive, but memory usage seems to be much better with 3 than with 2. Perhaps the most useful thing, I find, is the on-the-fly HTML validation plug-in I can use with it.

As for the complaint that Firefox on the Mac breaks all the conventions, well, Safari on Windows looks quite out of place too.

 

[Frosty]

Apple has already made a lot more progress making Safari more Windows-like than those zombies at Mozilla ever did with Firefox on the Mac.

 

[LeHah]

For the record, I prefer Firefox even if it is a bit resource-intensive

With the exception of the last version of IE, I can't think of another browser that uses up more power than Opera. I love some of the stuff it can do, but this last version just makes stuff grind needlessly.