Re: Strange Netscape Problem

At 03:35 PM 28/10/00 -0400, you wrote:
>         I love Netscape. Most people that hate it, hate it because it=20
> doesn't show
>their pages as they think it should. I have never had any problems=20
>whatsoever that
>were caused by an inability of Netscape to perform as I expect it. I code=
=20
>all of my
>pages towards Netscape and then tweak to make it perform the same in I.E.
>        The problem arises where those that code towards I.E. (that=20
> doesn't require
>correct coding) and can't figure out why Netscape doesn't work properly.
>         Code properly, don't use FP extensions and Microsoft only tags,=20
> descriptors
>and keep to standards, that both support and it will all work properly.

That would be nice if it really worked that way but NN 4 has so many bugs=20
that it does break on perfectly valid code.  The thing is, one should be=20
able to code to the standards and not to any specific browser and it's=20
usually NN 4 that has problems with standards compliant code.  It's true=20
that IE is more forgiving of sloppy code but at least it will also display=
=20
compliant code perfectly... more than I can say for Netscape 4.  I don't=20
think I need to specify all the major bugs NN 4 has with CSS or the joke=20
that is the NN 4 DOM or the fact that even its proprietary LAYER and ILAYER=
=20
tags implementation is bug ridden.  That's all been discussed to death on=20
this list before. That's in addition to all the annoying display quirks=20
that NN 4 has like the way it displays background images in table cells or=
=20
the fact that it will break an image that's been sliced up in a table=20
because it doesn't disregard carriage returns in code and does so in=20
blatant disregard with the HTML specs.  I could go on and on.

As far as proprietary extensions go, Netscape really has no lessons to give=
=20
Microsoft, they both use them a lot.  Both call it innovation and no one=20
could argue with them that those innovations drove the development of the=20
Web.  The main difference now is that, at least the standards are very well=
=20
(if not perfectly) supported in IE and that their proprietary stuff doesn't=
=20
get in the way of that.  IE 5+ even supports the official W3C DOM=20
(document.getElementByID) _in addition_ to its proprietary one=20
(document.all).  At the same time, Netscape 4.x is at its 17th or 18th=20
incremental update (4.76) and it still doesn't support many basic CSS=20
properties and  has so many bugs with what it does support it's=20
ridiculous.  It craps out on elementary things like the line height=20
property for example and it still can't handle a document with absolutely=20
positioned elements (either through CSS/DIV or its own LAYER tag) being=20
resized without messing up the page.  People have to add a stupid=20
JavaScript kludge to all their DHTML pages to get around that one and that=
=20
doesn't even always work.  There's dozens more like that.  In fact,=20
Netscape 4's rendering engine is so crappy that the Netscape people=20
themselves decided to ditch it and start anew with the Mozilla project and=
=20
Gecko which powers NN 6.  A very good move that Microsoft was smart enough=
=20
to do years ago when they ditched the IE 3 codebase and started from=20
scratch to build IE 4.  Netscape 4's biggest problem is that it has been on=
=20
the market too long.  It is so outdated now that it really is slowing down=
=20
the development of the Web as most developers do not have the luxury to=20
ignore it's user base so they have to dumb down their pages and keep adding=
=20
workarounds to their code.

What annoys me is not when Netscape 4 breaks on sloppy code, I don't write=
=20
sloppy code,  it infuriates me when it breaks on perfectly valid code...=20
and it does that a lot more often for me.   I try to write code that=20
complies to the standards as much as I can and I never have to worry about=
=20
IE when I do so.  It's NN 4 that gives me headaches and it's for its sake=20
that I still have to add the marginwidth and marginheight attributes to my=
=20
body tag for example because that browser is too dumb to acknowledge my=20
margin: 0px; statements in CSS.  I was able to drop topmargin and=20
leftmargin a long time ago because IE does support the CSS margin property=
=20
correctly as do Opera 4 and NN 6.

Many people have very legitimate reasons to hate Netscape 4.  I'm running=20
out of patience with it myself.  My main browser for surfing is now Opera=20
4.02.  I still use IE 5.5 quite often as well.  Before that I used Netscape=
=20
and loved it... until NN 4 came out.  I keep 3 versions of Netscape for=20
testing and NN 6 behaves just fine (it will be a great browser when it's=20
more stable and less of a system hog).  Netscape 3.04 is dated but ok  but=
=20
I do indeed hate NN 4 for all the reasons I mention above and more and it's=
=20
really not because I can't write good HTML...

St=E9phane Bergeron

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