Re: CSS in Netscape

-----Original Message-----
From: Reywob(at)aol.com <Reywob(at)aol.com>
To: hwg-basics(at)hwg.org <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Date: Thursday, September 30, 1999 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: CSS in Netscape


>Hi list,
>
>> What kind of clout does this organisation have?  Can they really get MS
to
>>  listen?  It would be wonderful if browser makers actually pushed
standards
>>  compliance as a selling point.  Maybe Netscape will with NN5/Mozilla.
>
>What is there in this for the browser manufacturers?

Federal regulations.  (I'll try to find the exact URI for the document later
this week)  And the U.S. is something like 3rd or 4th on the list of
countries following through making some web sites meet government guidlines.
Most of these guidelines have been adopted through the recommendations of
W3C.

>If all the browser
>manufacturers put their expertise together and formed a non-profit making
>organisation (extension of the W3C?) to develop a browser, it would make
life
>much easier for the web designers.  To develop the web to its full
potential,
>we must all work together, and stop this backstabbing and infighting.
>Microsoft has added some very useful features (such as the <xxmargin> tag)
>which I would hate to lose, but this isn't the way to go.  "Work together,
>for the good of the Web" should be our motto.

I think it's fairly realistic to assume that most "paid" web developers
spend most of their billable time on commercial sites.

I think it's fairly realistic to assume that the "real dollars" Microsoft
and Netscape earn come from the commercial market.

The ADA has already jumped on the case of a few sites (as noted in some of
the documents found at www.w3.org/WAI).

The "way of the world" may be currently in the attitude of "we have to deal
with what we have", but I think enough of us are expressing our
dissatisfaction of differences between browsers, standards, and rendering
incompatibilities that we are getting closer to at least coming to some
common set of standards.

Try thinking of it this way.  If company A creates a browser with some
flashy options that will only render on their browser, and company B does
the same with their own breed of flash, the end users (or site owner) has to
decide which percentage of the market won't see the site in the intended
way.  Or, the same site owner can ask the web developer to "cut corners" and
build 2 different sites depending on browser specifics.

For arguments sake, if this route is taken, everyone loses a little.  The
intended "flash" will only work with browser A, so the developer tries to
talk the site owner into building the site without some of the flash.  The
web developer loses credibility, the web visitor loses intended impact, the
site owner loses respect for the web (as well as the possibility of losing
respect of the developer), and worst of all, the browser companies lose end
user customers.

In the long run, it really is to the benefit of all browser developers to
come to some sort of agreed compatibility, and the W3C is the best place to
start for standards specifications.

paul

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA