A browser lesson learned from Microsoft

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Failure to see all implications

You, as always when people lobby for the non-standard MSFT ways, fail to see the implications of what you're preaching.

As an example:
Here in Sweden GPRS are a fact of live, largely superseeding the old GSM system. That means people are online with their cellphones just as they are with their puters. They read the papers, do their banking, follow the stocks on their phones.
In the cellphone-market MSIE is not as dominant by far - to say the least. A "stationary wintel-machine using MSIE"-approach to design is pretty much doomed to fail miserably for that segment of the market.

That is just ONE example, but should in itself invalidate your article - sites built for MSIE will not work outside the wintel MSIE platform.

Secondly, what company would be well-served by a designer with such a cavalier attitude towards leaving 5-15% (depending on source) of their potential customers out in the cold? Not counting, of course, those who connect by other means than the standard computer.

Then.
What is it really that you lobby for? That all should implement ActiveX? Why the h*ll would they want to do that?
OR
Should all adhere to the MSFT boxmodel and floatmodel - which BTW is not even consequent between their own versions, not to mention being broken?
OR
Should all others cover the failure of MSFT to make their webtool (Frontpage) write correct code?
OR
Should all others leave a perfectly working standardized DOM-scripting based on <ocument.getElementById for MSFT:s <ocument.all?
OR
Should all implement the script-kiddie-dream VBS in their browsers and so propagate all matters of security-unconscious idiocy?

Or should all leave Java for J++, JavaScript for JScript etceteras, making themselves accomplices to intellectual theft and standards/interoperability obfuscation.

I have a better idea:

Make sure all other browser follows standards, and make sure that any extensions to that standard are clearly marked as such, like -moz-transparency - effectively leaving MSIE alone in their negligence of standards.

Make sure to have your projects adhere to standards, when going beyond standards make sure they are fully interoperable with other platforms.

Make sure to complain if anyone uses an applet not compatible with Sun-Java, make sure to complain if anyone uses excluding and unsecure technology like ActiveX for mission-critical applications.

If we developers leave MSFT to their own devices and ignore them, they will eventually have to come to us. We can't do it one by one, but as a group we can - especially if the awareness of larger corporations, banks, travel-agencies, governmental-agencies and so on are raised to the level where they start demanding standards-compliant websites and intranets. There's money to be saved not catering to MSIE as it reduces work by a big margin.

Face it, MSIE is by far the oldest browser on the market today. It has seen no real upgrades in four years, meanwhile the competition is busy like bees and are making real progress.

Look at Mozilla, they have a set of software that delivers premium quality to all major platforms. It doesn't matter if you use *nix, mac or pc - there's a mozilla for your needs.
Look at Opera, that survives even though their solution isn't free. They both survive and thrive by being more secure, smaller and faster than MSIE - and they gain followers by being better and more personal as well as by combining standards with new nifty functions.

/Marcus

Written on Firefox 0.10.1 (1.01 PR)
The only browser I use outside of testing.

Posted by: M.Fridholm   Posted on: 10/18/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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