

[off topic] Re: browser versions

From: <ptorr@vantsys.com.au>
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 11:31:03 +1000
To: www-html@w3.org
Message-ID: <4A2566FA.0008D8C1.00@melext.vantsys.com.au>


Sorry for the rant - skip straight to the bottom if you like.

Inanis Brooke wrote:
>Yes, compatibility with as many browsers as possible is a MUST for a
>corporate web site, simply because if the corporation cannot meet the
>for information from the site (which can be hampered by sites requiring
>latest browsers) then the company may suffer.

It is shocking to see that many companies use all the latest non-standard
features with absolutely no backward compatibility. But I don't think it is
their fault - it is the fault of the design companies that build the sites.
You can't expect a company that contracts out its website to another
company to know what is and what is not good design. As long as it looks
good on the CEOs Windows 95 PC, they'll accept it.

For instance, http://www.fluid.com.au/ is an internet design company whose
home page displays *nothing* - not even a page title - if you have script
turned off (or your browser does not support it). Another company,
http://www.3deep.com.au/ will automatically create a full-screen,
completely black browser window and then proceed to (slowly) download a
shockwave object, if you have the requisite features. It scared the willies
out of me the first time I hit their page - I thought they'd crashed my NT

The problem, IMHO, is primarily with these design companies. First, they
generate the "need" for flashy, all-singing, all-dancing pages (by talking
to marketing-type people who think it looks great), and then they actually
implement these using non-standard and unacceptable methods. And of course,
it is a snowball effect - the more sites there are that are like this, the
more new sites will want to be like this.

The relevancy to this list:

I believe the W3C, and web authors who actually *care* about the web, need
to do more to ensure that everyone is aware of the issues. Somehow we need
to get the internet design companies (and others) in line and stop them
bastardising the net. The only way to do this, I think, is through
education of their customers - the companies that want sites built -
because as long as there is a market for badly implemented websites, web
design companies will be happy to produce them. How is this to be done? I'm
not sure. But I think there is not much use in continually evolving web
standards if the people that count (ie, the people with money to pay others
to build sites) know nothing about them. I tried to put the "HTML 4" and
"CSS" logos on the bottom of all our pages (since they passed validation)
but was told to remove them.


(P.S. Our site looks best in IE 4, good in Lynx, and crap in most other
things (at the moment...), but it is valid HTML and it is viewable by
Peter Torr, Applications Developer
Vantage Systems - Making Time Pay
Received on Thursday, 14 January 1999 19:31:37 GMT
