Re: navigation bars-absent on newer version of Netscape

At 12:02 AM 24/04/01 -0700, you wrote:
>The HTML 4.0 standard came out after both Netscape 4 and IE 4 had arrived=
=20
>on the
>scene and incorporated some of the things that were included in those=20
>browsers. So
>it's hardly fair to criticize either of those browsers for failing to=20
>support the
>HTML 4.0 standard. And the CSS and DOM standards are even more recent than=
=20
>the HTML
>4.0 standard. No standards existed for either of these when the version 4=
=20
>browsers
>came out.

That's not entirely true.  Indeed, both IE 4 and NN 4 came out months=20
before the HTML 4.0 spec came out and years before the DOM did but the CSS=
=20
Level 1 spec came out in late 1996, months before either browsers were=20
released.  That's why NN 4's abysmal CSS implementation is so=20
frustrating.  Netscape were arrogant enough to think they could bypass the=
=20
W3C and do things their way once again.  That was their demise as later=20
history proved.

Microsoft at the time did the smart thing instead and ditched the old buggy=
=20
IE 3 engine and built IE 4 from scratch throwing in both innovative and new=
=20
features and very good (if not perfect) support for existing standards of=20
the time, including CSS 1 and CSS P.  Every browser they released since has=
=20
improved on that standards support.  During that time, Netscape released 21=
=20
(yes 21!) incremental "updates" to their 4.x generation browser without=20
improving its core engine one iota and without fixing even its most glaring=
=20
CSS bugs or other bugs.  That coupled with the Mozilla project taking well=
=20
over 3 years to release a final version of Mozilla means that we still have=
=20
to support the very outdated and extremely buggy NN 4.x because many people=
=20
still hold on to it for some reason.  That also means that when Netscape=20
finally releases a non-beta version of Netscape 6, all existing standards=20
including CSS 1 and 2, HTML 4.0 and 4.01, XHTML 1 and 1.1 and the DOM will=
=20
all be many months to several years old.  In this case it's not the W3C who=
=20
will have been the followers it's the browsers who have been lagging behind=
=20
and in NN 6's case it might even be too late for it to gain wide acceptance=
=20
amongst the general public.  In any case, only time will tell.

Cheers!

St=E9phane Bergeron

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