Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
Animesh K wrote:
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
Sorry to follow up my own post...
I should not have said "just released." I meant I just noticed
GNU-released Iceweasel. I figured the browser was released a while ago.
On 2007-07-18, Animesh K
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
It's almost good enough but not considered free enough by some. See
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla.
It will probably render things mostly the same as Firefox.
The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
On 2007-07-18, Animesh K wrote:
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
Iceweasel is a rebranding of Firefox.
--
Chris F.A. Johnson
============================================================ =======
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
Animesh K wrote:
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
According to the link Ben C posted, it's nothing to get worked up about.
It's extremely unlikely Iceweasel will render differently than Firefox,
Seamonkey, Netscape, or any of the other gecko-based browsers.
Same browser, different wrapping and +/- a few features. That's all.
--
Berg
In article
Ben C
> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
Now that is an excellent point. (It probably follows from some
theorem in economics.
--
dorayme
Animesh K
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
Microsoft has browser monopoly => bad
Mozilla Foundation has browser monopoly => good
Some days my head pounds ...
--
Joel.
Animesh K wrote:
> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>
> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
It's just SeaMonkey and FireFox in new cloths and with a few new features, so
it's really not a new browser, it's just like Galoen, but better.
--
//Aho
"Joel Shepherd"
news:joelshep-BE1793.21194218072007@news.west.earthlink.net. ..
> Animesh K
>
>> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>>
>> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
>> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
>
> Microsoft has browser monopoly => bad
> Mozilla Foundation has browser monopoly => good
>
> Some days my head pounds ...
Mine too.
Remember when Netscape was "free" before they started charging for it and
then were forced by IE to make it "free" again?
Back in '94 and '95, the buzz was that Netscape is amazingly better than
Chameleon and "free" and the poor folks at Quartermaster who gave Andreessen
his start, were pushed right out of the business. Then, with Chameleon gone,
Netscape had the monopoly and soon brought out the brass knuckles, first
$14.95, then 24.95, then 49.95, and finally good ol' Marc was sticking it to
us at $69.95 a copy by late 1996. But good ol' Billy G. started giving away
IE with Win95 and soon Netscape was crying foul. (Don't you just love it
when the bully gets bullied?) and now, thanks to MS, any browser worth
owning is free.
Halleluiah!
In the meantime, the Mac fanboys have continued facing toward Steve Jobs
five times a day on their knees and noses praising any garbage Apple Corp
squats and dumps on them. Safari? Saints preserve us.
Now it's Ice Weasel?
Yep, I'm getting a headache... again.
End of my rant.
El
El Kabong wrote:
> Back in '94 and '95, the buzz was that Netscape is amazingly better than
> Chameleon and "free" and the poor folks at Quartermaster who gave Andreessen
Quarterdeck?
--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html
On 2007-07-18, Bergamot
> Animesh K wrote:
>> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>>
>> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
>> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
>
> According to the link Ben C posted, it's nothing to get worked up about.
>
> It's extremely unlikely Iceweasel will render differently than Firefox,
> Seamonkey, Netscape, or any of the other gecko-based browsers.
>
> Same browser, different wrapping and +/- a few features. That's all.
Yes although one thing I'm not completely clear about-- do they
continuously integrate Mozilla sources for Gecko or is it a fork, i.e.
they took a snapshot and went their own way after that?
Ben C wrote:
>
> Yes although one thing I'm not completely clear about-- do they
> continuously integrate Mozilla sources for Gecko or is it a fork, i.e.
> they took a snapshot and went their own way after that?
You have to ask the folks who are distributing the browser, but it would
be foolish to ignore bug fixes and enhancements to the core rendering
engine.
--
Berg
On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
In article <1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
Travis Newbury
> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
> > The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
> > their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>
> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
On 2007-07-19, Travis Newbury
> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
>> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
>> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>
> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
The problem is that something that's full of bugs and quirks is
unpredictable and annoying to work with even if you do have the
consolation of knowing that once it works on your desktop it will work
the same (up to a point) for everyone.
If there was only one browser but that had a clear published
specification that it implemented correctly that wouldn't be so bad. But
with only one browser around there's much less pressure on its vendor
either to publish such a specification or to stick to it. So web
development becomes a frustrating trial-and-error process of throwing
mud at the wall.
Travis Newbury wrote:
> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
>> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
>> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>
> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>
Google monoculture, dutch elm disease, and probably some others that
escape me ATM.
Tim Streater wrote:
> In article <1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> Travis Newbury
>
>> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
>>> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
>>> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
>> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>
> Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
Ewww. Safari doesn't even cuts n paste properly in Windows. I copied a
paragraph and for some reason it pasted only one and half line from the
paragraph. I tried 3-4 times using Edit-> Copy or Rightclick->Copy etc.
Finally had to refresh the page to get it right.
Bergamot wrote:
> Animesh K wrote:
>> Errr, GNU just released Iceweasel. Ice isn't fire and weasel isn't a fox.
>>
>> What is causing a new open-source browser (there were already so many to
>> test, Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, IE7, Netscape)? Wasn't FF good enough?
>
> According to the link Ben C posted, it's nothing to get worked up about.
>
> It's extremely unlikely Iceweasel will render differently than Firefox,
> Seamonkey, Netscape, or any of the other gecko-based browsers.
>
> Same browser, different wrapping and +/- a few features. That's all.
>
It may fork very soon. That's what bothers me at the moment.
Animesh K
> Tim Streater wrote:
>> In article <1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>> Travis Newbury
>>
>>> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
>>>> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
>>>> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>>> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
>>> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>>
>> Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
>
> Ewww. Safari doesn't even cuts n paste properly in Windows.
It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
sherm--
--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Travis Newbury wrote:
>
> I think a single browser would be best.
I don't care if there is one rendering engine or 10, as long as they all
give comparable results. Browser bugs can be a PITA sometimes, but
usually it's just IE crap that has to be dealt with differently.
As for only one browser choice, that would suck. People who actually
choose a browser don't usually do it just because of how it renders, but
for what other features it has. For example, I don't like IE, Firefox or
Netscape and cringe at the thought of being stuck with any of them.
Opera and Safari don't have anything special that I particularly want,
either, though I could tolerate them if I had to. On the other hand, I
do like Seamonkey and will happily use it until something better comes
along. Note that "better" is extremely subjective.
> And yes, it would
> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
There goes the incentive for innovation and improvement, and not just
where rendering is concerned. :-\
--
Berg
While the city slept, Tim Streater (tim.streater@dante.org.uk) feverishly
typed...
> In article <1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> Travis Newbury
>
[one browser? or many?]
>> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
>> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>
> Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
I vote for Netscape 4.7 ;-)
Cheers,
Nige
--
Nigel Moss http://www.nigenet.org.uk
Mail address will bounce. nigel@DOG.nigenet.org.uk | Take the DOG. out!
"Your mother ate my dog!", "Not all of him!"
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:57:23 GMT
Ben C scribed:
> If there was only one browser but that had a clear published
> specification that it implemented correctly that wouldn't be so bad. But
> with only one browser around there's much less pressure on its vendor
> either to publish such a specification or to stick to it. So web
> development becomes a frustrating trial-and-error process of throwing
> mud at the wall.
I think it still is much that way today, and for that I blame the w3c and
all their "optional" guidelines. However, the browsers impliment certain
things differently as well, not even counting the bugs.
--
Neredbojias
A self-made man who worships his creator
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:54:42 GMT
Bergamot scribed:
> Travis Newbury wrote:
>>
>> I think a single browser would be best.
>
> I don't care if there is one rendering engine or 10, as long as they all
> give comparable results. Browser bugs can be a PITA sometimes, but
> usually it's just IE crap that has to be dealt with differently.
>
> As for only one browser choice, that would suck. People who actually
> choose a browser don't usually do it just because of how it renders, but
> for what other features it has. For example, I don't like IE, Firefox or
> Netscape and cringe at the thought of being stuck with any of them.
> Opera and Safari don't have anything special that I particularly want,
> either, though I could tolerate them if I had to. On the other hand, I
> do like Seamonkey and will happily use it until something better comes
> along. Note that "better" is extremely subjective.
What great difference do you find between Seamonkey and Firefox which makes
you so like one and so dislike the other?
--
Neredbojias
A self-made man who worships his creator
Neredbojias wrote:
>
> What great difference do you find between Seamonkey and Firefox which makes
> you so like one and so dislike the other?
In mozilla's desire for a trimmer browser (Firefox), they got rid of
several features that I use frequently, moving them from quick access
via standard toolbars to either cumbersome/feature-poor (or excessive)
extensions, buried deep in some prefs window, or dropping them
altogether. Cookie manager and tab-level history, for instance.
And Firefox is too mouse-dependent. I find it very clumsy to use.
Seamonkey is just better for me. Firefox sux.
--
Berg
On 2007-07-19, Neredbojias
> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:57:23 GMT
> Ben C scribed:
>
>> If there was only one browser but that had a clear published
>> specification that it implemented correctly that wouldn't be so bad. But
>> with only one browser around there's much less pressure on its vendor
>> either to publish such a specification or to stick to it. So web
>> development becomes a frustrating trial-and-error process of throwing
>> mud at the wall.
>
> I think it still is much that way today, and for that I blame the w3c and
> all their "optional" guidelines.
Well, they're trying to steer a path between specifying what browsers
already do and trying to make some sense of it in order to guide the
evolution of the web without trying to change it overnight.
I think it's working. Most major sites seem to get revamped about every
6 months to 2 years, and in the last year or two, many more of them have
started working in Firefox as well as in IE. And the reason is not
Firefox's quirks mode (which is fortunately fairly cursory): if a page
works in Firefox it's quite likely to work OK in any theoretical browser
that implements the specs correctly and also to work OK in Opera and
Konqueror/Safari.
But the specs, although mostly not ambiguous, are rather complicated and
difficult to understand with the result that the browsers don't all get
them right and a lot of web developers don't really understand them
either so go back to doing what they're good at, which is throwing mud
at the wall.
Except for the smart ones of course who read alt.html where everything
is explained with absolute clarity.
In article
<1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
Travis Newbury
> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
> > The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
> > their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>
> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
Now that is a mighty queer thing to say for a Republican. You
_must_ be disenchanted with Bush.
--
dorayme
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:06:21
GMT Ben C scribed:
>> I think it still is much that way today, and for that I blame the w3c
>> and all their "optional" guidelines.
>
> Well, they're trying to steer a path between specifying what browsers
> already do and trying to make some sense of it in order to guide the
> evolution of the web without trying to change it overnight.
>
> I think it's working. Most major sites seem to get revamped about
> every 6 months to 2 years, and in the last year or two, many more of
> them have started working in Firefox as well as in IE. And the reason
> is not Firefox's quirks mode (which is fortunately fairly cursory): if
> a page works in Firefox it's quite likely to work OK in any
> theoretical browser that implements the specs correctly and also to
> work OK in Opera and Konqueror/Safari.
>
> But the specs, although mostly not ambiguous, are rather complicated
> and difficult to understand with the result that the browsers don't
> all get them right and a lot of web developers don't really understand
> them either so go back to doing what they're good at, which is
> throwing mud at the wall.
>
> Except for the smart ones of course who read alt.html where everything
> is explained with absolute clarity.
Yeah...
I admit some progress has been been, but I've also read many css specs
stating this or that is at the discretion of the particular useragent.
Rome may not have been built in a day but I do believe it benefitted from a
strongly-focus, not-too-ambiguous goal. I don't really disagree with you
overall but could wish the w3c was a little more "deterministic" in their
"proposals".
--
Neredbojias
A self-made man who worships his creator
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:03:16
GMT Bergamot scribed:
> Neredbojias wrote:
>>
>> What great difference do you find between Seamonkey and Firefox which
>> makes you so like one and so dislike the other?
>
> In mozilla's desire for a trimmer browser (Firefox), they got rid of
> several features that I use frequently, moving them from quick access
> via standard toolbars to either cumbersome/feature-poor (or excessive)
> extensions, buried deep in some prefs window, or dropping them
> altogether. Cookie manager and tab-level history, for instance.
Yeah, you're right there. I don't like that, either.
> And Firefox is too mouse-dependent. I find it very clumsy to use.
> Seamonkey is just better for me. Firefox sux.
Not quite sure I follow those complaints, but maybe I'll give Seamonkey
another try. I used to use it then just abandoned it when I got a new box
about 5-6 months ago since ff seemed caught up to snuff and more popular,
anyway. Still has some aggravatingly enduring bugs though (ff, that is.)
--
Neredbojias
A self-made man who worships his creator
"Blinky the Shark"
news:slrnf9u0ie.juf.no.spam@thurston.blinkynet.net...
> El Kabong wrote:
>
>> Back in '94 and '95, the buzz was that Netscape is amazingly better than
>> Chameleon and "free" and the poor folks at Quartermaster who gave
>> Andreessen
>
> Quarterdeck?
>
Absolutely! In a vegetative state, I might've said Quarterback.
Thanks, Blinky.
El
El Kabong wrote:
>
> "Blinky the Shark"
> news:slrnf9u0ie.juf.no.spam@thurston.blinkynet.net...
>> El Kabong wrote:
>>
>>> Back in '94 and '95, the buzz was that Netscape is amazingly better than
>>> Chameleon and "free" and the poor folks at Quartermaster who gave
>>> Andreessen
>>
>> Quarterdeck?
>>
> Absolutely! In a vegetative state, I might've said Quarterback.
I thought of "quarterback" when I was writing "Quarterdeck". :)
--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html
Bergamot wrote:
> Neredbojias wrote:
>> What great difference do you find between Seamonkey and Firefox which makes
>> you so like one and so dislike the other?
>
> In mozilla's desire for a trimmer browser (Firefox), they got rid of
> several features that I use frequently, moving them from quick access
> via standard toolbars to either cumbersome/feature-poor (or excessive)
> extensions, buried deep in some prefs window, or dropping them
> altogether. Cookie manager and tab-level history, for instance.
>
> And Firefox is too mouse-dependent. I find it very clumsy to use.
> Seamonkey is just better for me. Firefox sux.
>
Very nicely said (from one SeaMonkey/Mozilla Suite lover to another).
No, it ain't perfect but I do like it much better. I started using its
predecessor (Netscape) back about 1995. Yes, I do have Firefox and
Thunderbird on my system for testing. No, neither of them measures up.
The only marginal way (for me) that they might excel is in the number
of extensions available for them. That will change as SM begins to
adopt more of the core code from FF and TB. The good thing is that the
SM team is doing that slowly, methodically and very carefully so as not
to break the application while embracing "progress." God bless them.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
Neredbojias wrote:
>
> maybe I'll give Seamonkey another try.
2.0 has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time.
Try a recent 1.1.x nightly build. 1.1.2 has been working great for me
but I see they're up to 1.1.3 now. I'm downloading it now, myself.
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/nightly/late st-mozilla1.8
--
Berg
Ed Mullen wrote:
> Bergamot wrote:
>>
>> Seamonkey is just better for me. Firefox sux.
>
> The only marginal way (for me) that they might excel is in the number
> of extensions available for them. That will change as SM begins to
> adopt more of the core code from FF and TB.
There are instructions out there someplace on getting Fx extensions
working in Sm, but I haven't had the time to take a closer look. There
aren't that many I really want, anyway. Firebug would be one, though.
> The good thing is that the
> SM team is doing that slowly,
To me they're *painfully* slow about it. :)
> methodically and very carefully so as not
> to break the application while embracing "progress." God bless them.
Tis better to be careful about it, but 2.0 beta (alpha?) isn't near
ready yet. There are a couple serious bugs that are about a year old now
that make it pretty much unusable for me. It saddens me that follow up
isn't what it used to be. :(
--
Berg
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:06:43 GMT
Bergamot scribed:
> Neredbojias wrote:
>>
>> maybe I'll give Seamonkey another try.
>
> 2.0 has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time.
>
> Try a recent 1.1.x nightly build. 1.1.2 has been working great for me
> but I see they're up to 1.1.3 now. I'm downloading it now, myself.
>
> ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/nightly/late st-mozilla1.8
Got it. Will install and check it out. Right now ff is my main squeeze
but maybe that'll change again.
--
Neredbojias
A self-made man who worships his creator
On Jul 19, 12:49 pm, Tim Streater
> > I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
> > be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
> Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
No arguments from me there...
On Jul 19, 3:54 pm, Bergamot
> > And yes, it would
> > be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>
> There goes the incentive for innovation and improvement, and not just
> where rendering is concerned. :-\
Where does the current group mantra of "Build a standards complient
website" fall in with your innovation and improvement concerns?
Maybe my developing in flash is really the early stages of an
innovative shift in web paradigm? It fills the innovation
requirements and there is a ton of both financial and social incentive
to head in that direction...
Travis Newbury wrote:
> On Jul 19, 3:54 pm, Bergamot
>> > And yes, it would
>> > be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>>
>> There goes the incentive for innovation and improvement, and not just
>> where rendering is concerned. :-\
>
> Where does the current group mantra of "Build a standards complient
> website" fall in with your innovation and improvement concerns?
You snipped the part I wrote about browser choice being more than just
rendering.
> Maybe my developing in flash is really the early stages of an
> innovative shift in web paradigm?
Gawd, I hope not, at least not until the Flash usability and
accessibility problems are properly addressed.
*User-adjustable type size* is an absolute must before I'd call Flash
even remotely usable for anything other than eye candy or other
entertainments. I don't see that happening any time soon. Do you?
--
Berg
On Jul 20, 7:42 am, Bergamot
> *User-adjustable type size* is an absolute must before I'd call Flash
> even remotely usable for anything other than eye candy or other
> entertainments. I don't see that happening any time soon. Do you?
Virtually all accessibility issues could be resolved by the makes of
the various browsers and readers. It is not just up to adobe, the
browsers/readers have a stake in this too if it is going to be done.
On Jul 20, 7:42 am, Bergamot
> >> There goes the incentive for innovation and improvement, and not just
> >> where rendering is concerned. :-\
> > Where does the current group mantra of "Build a standards complient
> > website" fall in with your innovation and improvement concerns?
> You snipped the part I wrote about browser choice being more than just
> rendering.
No I didn't, it is right there:
"and not just where rendering is concerned."
I was just commenting on difference in innovation between the
developer using standards, and the browser rendering those same
standards.
On Jul 19, 5:25 pm, dorayme
> Now that is a mighty queer thing to say for a Republican. You
> _must_ be disenchanted with Bush.
Worse yet, I am pro-choice... Fred Thompson in "08"
Actually what I believe will happen is Hillary will get elected and
between her and the democrat congress they will completely fuck up the
country (and in part the world) with their socialistic "give away the
pie so you stay in power" mantra. Then in 2012 conservatives will
start their 20 or 30 year run to put things back together. (And
probably start building the New, New York after the current one is
ravaged by some dirty bomb the terrorists snuck into the country under
the liberals lax security)
<\Political bullshit>
Go hillary....
CptDondo wrote:
> Google monoculture, dutch elm disease, and probably some others that
> escape me ATM.
The Irish Potato Famine.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 29 days, 16:20.]
Parsing an HTML Table with PEAR's XML_HTTPSax3
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/07/20/html-table-parsing/
Animesh K wrote:
> It may fork very soon. That's what bothers me at the moment.
Usually even if the code forks, they'll resync against the Gecko core
whenever Gecko makes a major release.
e.g. even though Firefox, Seamonkey, Epiphany, Camino and so forth all use
different codebases, they all keep up with the latest releases of Gecko.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 29 days, 16:25.]
Parsing an HTML Table with PEAR's XML_HTTPSax3
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/07/20/html-table-parsing/
Travis Newbury wrote:
> On Jul 20, 7:42 am, Bergamot
>> *User-adjustable type size* is an absolute must before I'd call Flash
>> even remotely usable for anything other than eye candy or other
>> entertainments. I don't see that happening any time soon. Do you?
>
> Virtually all accessibility issues could be resolved by the makes of
> the various browsers and readers.
Actually, I expect the reader to handle this particular feature, but it
has to be supported by the authoring software as well. Adobe hasn't
bothered to do anything about it either way.
> It is not just up to adobe, the
> browsers/readers have a stake in this too if it is going to be done.
They should set the example by fixing their own reader. eh?
I don't see what browsers have to do with it at all, unless they start
having native Flash support. Until then it's the work of the plug-in to
deal with it.
--
Berg
Sherm Pendley wrote:
> Animesh K
>
>> Tim Streater wrote:
>>> In article <1184863125.905617.19670@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
>>> Travis Newbury
>>>
>>>> On Jul 18, 5:11 pm, Ben C
>>>>> The more browsers the better. If there are only one or two then all
>>>>> their bugs and quirks become de facto standards.
>>>> I disagree, I think a single browser would be best. And yes, it would
>>>> be the de-facto standard which I see as a good thing.
>>> Not Explorer then. I favour Safari.
>> Ewww. Safari doesn't even cuts n paste properly in Windows.
>
> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
>
> sherm--
>
Beta ... err. Well I am a cook and I am experimenting with dishes. Will
you be my guest and get bad food just because my dish is Beta. And top
of that, can you suggest corrective measure about my cooking? Who pays
for the stomach disorder?
Apple is not a freeware company. An open-source freeware being beta
makes a lot of sense since volunteers are needed for free projects. An
old man just interested in browser-market-capture should not impose
junk-free stuff as Beta.
Or even Beta stuff, which gives you some extra-functionality can be
tested out (like Adobe Lightroom Beta). I have firefox to switch to, if
Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of Steve, not
mine.
Animesh K wrote:
> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>
>> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
>
> Beta ... err. Well I am a cook and I am experimenting with dishes. Will
> you be my guest and get bad food just because my dish is Beta.
Sure - it happens all the time. I come from a family of cooks, so I know.
> And top
> of that, can you suggest corrective measure about my cooking?
It is not the responsibility of the bug reporter to debug, only to
report the error and provide enough info for the programmer to debug it.
> Who pays
> for the stomach disorder?
You aren't obligated to use beta software. If you aren't comfortable
using unproven software, wait for the official release.
> Apple is not a freeware company. An open-source freeware being beta
> makes a lot of sense since volunteers are needed for free projects. An
> old man just interested in browser-market-capture should not impose
> junk-free stuff as Beta.
Gee, I guess we should tell this to Microsoft next time they want to
release a new version of IE for beta testing. ;) BTW, nobody "imposed"
this thing on you. You are free to *not* use it.
> if
> Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of Steve, not
> mine.
Beta software will have bugs - it's the nature of the beast. Get over it
or don't use it, but it's pointless to whine about it.
--
Berg
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:27:57 GMT
Animesh K scribed:
> Beta ... err. Well I am a cook and I am experimenting with dishes. Will
> you be my guest and get bad food just because my dish is Beta.
You're assuming "bad". It's quality is unknown until tested. -The
rationale of beta.
--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.
Bergamot wrote:
> Animesh K wrote:
>> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
> Gee, I guess we should tell this to Microsoft next time they want to
> release a new version of IE for beta testing. ;) BTW, nobody "imposed"
> this thing on you. You are free to *not* use it.
Microsoft is a different story. At times, people using windows don't
even know anything beyond IE. And that's why IE has about 65% market.
Telling IE about bugs makes the life of designer simpler.
Even Msoft should hire people for finding bugs! I am not trying to
defend Msoft. Their browser is much worse compared to Safari. In fact I
would not call Safari bad just because of 2-3 bugs that I noticed.
>
>> if
>> Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of Steve, not
>> mine.
>
> Beta software will have bugs - it's the nature of the beast. Get over it
> or don't use it, but it's pointless to whine about it.
>
Well someone claimed that universal browser should be Safari. I had to
tell about the misbehavior. I am not whining, just telling it doesn't
even copy paste right in certain situations.
Neredbojias wrote:
> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:27:57 GMT
> Animesh K scribed:
>
>> Beta ... err. Well I am a cook and I am experimenting with dishes. Will
>> you be my guest and get bad food just because my dish is Beta.
>
> You're assuming "bad". It's quality is unknown until tested. -The
> rationale of beta.
>
Are we getting into a logical debate now :)
I was working with the beta browser and it didn't cut n paste right.
Taste detected and mentioned. No? I think browser developers (or their
friends) can test it out. Big companies can easily shell out a few
thousand bucks extra for this purpose.
Just keep $10 per bug award and watch. Ummm Msoft may go bankrupt
though, with such a scheme.
Animesh K wrote:
> Bergamot wrote:
>> Animesh K wrote:
>>> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>>> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
>
>> Gee, I guess we should tell this to Microsoft next time they want to
>> release a new version of IE for beta testing. ;) BTW, nobody "imposed"
>> this thing on you. You are free to *not* use it.
>
> Microsoft is a different story. At times, people using windows don't
> even know anything beyond IE. And that's why IE has about 65% market.
> Telling IE about bugs makes the life of designer simpler.
>
> Even Msoft should hire people for finding bugs! I am not trying to
> defend Msoft. Their browser is much worse compared to Safari. In fact I
> would not call Safari bad just because of 2-3 bugs that I noticed.
>
>
>>
>>> if Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of
>>> Steve, not mine.
>>
>> Beta software will have bugs - it's the nature of the beast. Get over it
>> or don't use it, but it's pointless to whine about it.
>>
>
> Well someone claimed that universal browser should be Safari. I had to
> tell about the misbehavior. I am not whining, just telling it doesn't
> even copy paste right in certain situations.
The point is that Beta software is NOT a final release version: It is
put out there for people to test and find bugs before the first
"release" version is put out into the market. It's fine to test a Beta
release and comment on problems. It makes no sense to complain that a
Beta HAS problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 02:37:43
GMT Animesh K scribed:
> Neredbojias wrote:
>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 20 Jul 2007
>> 22:27:57 GMT Animesh K scribed:
>>
>>> Beta ... err. Well I am a cook and I am experimenting with dishes.
>>> Will you be my guest and get bad food just because my dish is Beta.
>>
>> You're assuming "bad". It's quality is unknown until tested. -The
>> rationale of beta.
>>
>
> Are we getting into a logical debate now :)
No. I was generalizing and had forgotten your post of a few slots back.
However, my point was that beta in general isn't necessarily bad even for
individuals.
> I was working with the beta browser and it didn't cut n paste right.
> Taste detected and mentioned. No? I think browser developers (or their
> friends) can test it out. Big companies can easily shell out a few
> thousand bucks extra for this purpose.
See what you mean although I think any new "item" needs real-world
evaluation for a true test of its worth.
> Just keep $10 per bug award and watch. Ummm Msoft may go bankrupt
> though, with such a scheme.
Wouldn't that be a shame? :)
--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.
Animesh K wrote:
> Well someone claimed that universal browser should be Safari. I had to
> tell about the misbehavior. I am not whining, just telling it doesn't
> even copy paste right in certain situations.
Well, that won't be an issue as the universal OS will be Mac OS X; and
Safari doesn't exhibit this bug on Macs.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 30 days, 14:33.]
Parsing an HTML Table with PEAR's XML_HTTPSax3
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/07/20/html-table-parsing/
Ed Mullen wrote:
>
> Beta HAS problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
I'd like to think that it's /expected/ to have problems. It would be
sweet if it didn't, though. :)
--
Berg
Animesh K wrote:
>
> No? I think browser developers (or their
> friends) can test it out. Big companies can easily shell out a few
> thousand bucks extra for this purpose.
That would be unwise. There are huge variations in how people use
browsers, and in browser settings. It is not possible for a small group
of people to test all combinations. You need a diverse group to do that,
which is a lot more costly than a few thousand bucks.
Releasing a beta to the general public is a smart move.
--
Berg
Bergamot wrote:
> Ed Mullen wrote:
>
>> Beta HAS problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
>
> I'd like to think that it's /expected/ to have problems. It would be
> sweet if it didn't, though. :)
My definition for releasing software:
Alpha: Expected to have problems;
Beta: Not expected to have no problems;
Release: Expected to have no problems.
My current big project
to enter beta stage in Jan 2008 and release in Jun 2008. Development
started in Jan 2007.
Apple have more programmers than me though, so Safari should get there
faster.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 30 days, 17:52.]
Parsing an HTML Table with PEAR's XML_HTTPSax3
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/07/20/html-table-parsing/
Bergamot wrote:
> Ed Mullen wrote:
>> Beta HAS problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
>
> I'd like to think that it's /expected/ to have problems. It would be
> sweet if it didn't, though. :)
>
Amen to that! ;-)
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
"Ed Mullen"
news:84KdnTkxuc8YFDzbnZ2dnUVZ_q7inZ2d@comcast.com...
> Animesh K wrote:
>> Bergamot wrote:
>>> Animesh K wrote:
>>>> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>>>> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
>>
>>> Gee, I guess we should tell this to Microsoft next time they want to
>>> release a new version of IE for beta testing. ;) BTW, nobody "imposed"
>>> this thing on you. You are free to *not* use it.
>>
>> Microsoft is a different story. At times, people using windows don't even
>> know anything beyond IE. And that's why IE has about 65% market. Telling
>> IE about bugs makes the life of designer simpler.
>>
>> Even Msoft should hire people for finding bugs! I am not trying to defend
>> Msoft. Their browser is much worse compared to Safari. In fact I would
>> not call Safari bad just because of 2-3 bugs that I noticed.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> if Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of Steve,
>>>> not mine.
>>>
>>> Beta software will have bugs - it's the nature of the beast. Get over it
>>> or don't use it, but it's pointless to whine about it.
>>>
>>
>> Well someone claimed that universal browser should be Safari. I had to
>> tell about the misbehavior. I am not whining, just telling it doesn't
>> even copy paste right in certain situations.
>
> The point is that Beta software is NOT a final release version: It is put
> out there for people to test and find bugs before the first "release"
> version is put out into the market. It's fine to test a Beta release and
> comment on problems. It makes no sense to complain that a Beta HAS
> problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
Then as a professional Web designer, trying to make a living designing
functional, practical Web sites, maybe I should ignore the beta versions and
stick to working with "released" versions. In fact, why waste time designing
for browsers that stats show are used by less than 5% of Web visitors? After
all, when this project is finished, the next one awaits.
El
El Kabong wrote:
> "Ed Mullen"
> news:84KdnTkxuc8YFDzbnZ2dnUVZ_q7inZ2d@comcast.com...
>> Animesh K wrote:
>>> Bergamot wrote:
>>>> Animesh K wrote:
>>>>> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>>>>> It's a *beta* - have you reported the bug to Apple?
>>>
>>>> Gee, I guess we should tell this to Microsoft next time they want to
>>>> release a new version of IE for beta testing. ;) BTW, nobody "imposed"
>>>> this thing on you. You are free to *not* use it.
>>> Microsoft is a different story. At times, people using windows don't even
>>> know anything beyond IE. And that's why IE has about 65% market. Telling
>>> IE about bugs makes the life of designer simpler.
>>>
>>> Even Msoft should hire people for finding bugs! I am not trying to defend
>>> Msoft. Their browser is much worse compared to Safari. In fact I would
>>> not call Safari bad just because of 2-3 bugs that I noticed.
>>>
>>>
>>>>> if Safari misbehaves. Who reports the error? It's a headache of Steve,
>>>>> not mine.
>>>> Beta software will have bugs - it's the nature of the beast. Get over it
>>>> or don't use it, but it's pointless to whine about it.
>>>>
>>> Well someone claimed that universal browser should be Safari. I had to
>>> tell about the misbehavior. I am not whining, just telling it doesn't
>>> even copy paste right in certain situations.
>> The point is that Beta software is NOT a final release version: It is put
>> out there for people to test and find bugs before the first "release"
>> version is put out into the market. It's fine to test a Beta release and
>> comment on problems. It makes no sense to complain that a Beta HAS
>> problems. It's /supposed/ to have problems.
>
> Then as a professional Web designer, trying to make a living designing
> functional, practical Web sites, maybe I should ignore the beta versions and
> stick to working with "released" versions. In fact, why waste time designing
> for browsers that stats show are used by less than 5% of Web visitors? After
> all, when this project is finished, the next one awaits.
>
> El
>
>
Depends on where the problems are in the Beta version. If they're
security, feature, or interface issues that don't affect page rendering,
it's probably not a problem from a page designer's standpoint. On the
other hand, it's certainly valid to stick with release versions.
As for percentage of market usage, what does that matter? I'd approach
it instead as: "I'm not going to write hacks to account for a particular
browser's inability to render pages according to the standards." If a
browser with 1% usage renders HTML and CSS properly, you have no problem.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly typed...
> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
What great reasoning! Excuse me while I phone my boss and explain that I'm
going to just ignore approximately 250 - 300 unique visitors (otherwise
known as potential customers) to his site every day. I'm sure he'll
understand.
Cheers,
Nige
--
Nigel Moss http://www.nigenet.org.uk
Mail address will bounce. nigel@DOG.nigenet.org.uk | Take the DOG. out!
"Your mother ate my dog!", "Not all of him!"
In article
Toby A Inkster
> My definition for releasing software:
>
> Alpha: Expected to have problems;
> Beta: Not expected to have no problems;
> Release: Expected to have no problems.
Perhaps this is an improvement:
Alpha: Known to have problems;
Beta: Expected to have problems;
Release: Not expected to have problems.
To appreciate this as an improvement, it is important to
understand that knowing that there are x does not entail knowing
the value of x.
--
dorayme
Toby A Inkster
> My definition for releasing software:
>
> Alpha: Expected to have problems;
> Beta: Not expected to have no problems;
> Release: Expected to have no problems.
The most common definition is that Alpha is missing features, Beta is
feature complete but may still have bugs, and Release isn't supposed to
have bugs. (In practice some bugs do usually escape from beta testing.
Nobody's perfect...)
> Apple have more programmers than me though, so Safari should get there
> faster.
Ever read Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month"? :-)
sherm--
--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
In article
"El Kabong"
> Then as a professional Web designer, trying to make a living designing
> functional, practical Web sites, maybe I should ignore the beta versions and
> stick to working with "released" versions. In fact, why waste time designing
> for browsers that stats show are used by less than 5% of Web visitors? After
> all, when this project is finished, the next one awaits.
You need to distinguish between having a browser to check how
things look and designing for that browser. Once you do make this
distinction and once you do realise that the browser is a Beta,
you use the information smartly as an alert. If something looks
right, fine. You have no worries. If something looks wrong that
does not show up on your normal browsers, and you cannot quickly
see what it is, you then can check against a released version
(ask a Mac person, ask on an ng).
--
dorayme
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:35:22
GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly
> typed...
>
>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
>
> What great reasoning! Excuse me while I phone my boss and explain that
> I'm going to just ignore approximately 250 - 300 unique visitors
> (otherwise known as potential customers) to his site every day. I'm
> sure he'll understand.
Wow, and here I thought you were going to miss the point.
(I believe he was being sarcastic, as you were.)
--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.
"Neredbojias"
news:Xns9974AD1D14682nanopandaneredbojias@198.186.190.161...
> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:35:22
> GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
>
>> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly
>> typed...
>>
>>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
>>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
>>
>> What great reasoning! Excuse me while I phone my boss and explain that
>> I'm going to just ignore approximately 250 - 300 unique visitors
>> (otherwise known as potential customers) to his site every day. I'm
>> sure he'll understand.
>
> Wow, and here I thought you were going to miss the point.
>
> (I believe he was being sarcastic, as you were.)
>
I dunno, N. maybe I should have been but, to be honest, I wasn't... probably
because I've never had a site successful enough to attract 6,000 unique
visitors per day (300/.05) (I'm small potatoes.) However, after checking
stats for most of my 82 sites, I could only come up with 10 visitors using
browsers other than IE6 or 7, FF, or Safari. Add that to the fact that,
realistically, only about 1 out of 50 visitors ever becomes a cash customer,
(which isn't too bad a close rate,) it's doubtful that any of the 10 "brand
Xers" were lost sales anyway.
That's not to say that those 10 visitors were *unable* to view the pages as
presented, just that the sites weren't *optimized* for their brand X
browsers. But guess what! They're most likely used to that because the
majority of the sites they visit are not going to be optimized for their
off-the-wall software either.
No, when my client is looking at doubled or tripled costs for his site's
design in order to appeal to a handful of nerds who are more interested in
research (or just being weird) than actually shopping, he'll usually opt to
ignore those visitors using the geekware. It just boils down to a
combination of diminished return on investment and good business sense.
We'll leave the experimental stuff to the folks who don't have anything else
to do with their time or money. After they get it debugged and standardized,
we'll jump all over it. I realize that, being concerned with the absolute
correctness of design as this group is, (appropriately,) it isn't likely
anyone here will agree with my POV, but C'est la vie! I will survive.
But thanks, N, for the vote of confidence... even if it was misplaced.
El
On Jul 22, 2:15 pm, "El Kabong"
> "Neredbojias"
>
> news:Xns9974AD1D14682nanopandaneredbojias@198.186.190.161...
>
>
>
> > Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:35:22
> > GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
>
> >> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelon...@verizon.net) feverishly
> >> typed...
>
> >>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
> >>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
>
> >> What great reasoning! Excuse me while I phone my boss and explain that
> >> I'm going to just ignore approximately 250 - 300 unique visitors
> >> (otherwise known as potential customers) to his site every day. I'm
> >> sure he'll understand.
>
> > Wow, and here I thought you were going to miss the point.
>
> > (I believe he was being sarcastic, as you were.)
>
> I dunno, N. maybe I should have been but, to be honest, I wasn't... probably
> because I've never had a site successful enough to attract 6,000 unique
> visitors per day (300/.05) (I'm small potatoes.) However, after checking
> stats for most of my 82 sites, I could only come up with 10 visitors using
> browsers other than IE6 or 7, FF, or Safari. Add that to the fact that,
> realistically, only about 1 out of 50 visitors ever becomes a cash customer,
> (which isn't too bad a close rate,) it's doubtful that any of the 10 "brand
> Xers" were lost sales anyway.
>
> That's not to say that those 10 visitors were *unable* to view the pages as
> presented, just that the sites weren't *optimized* for their brand X
> browsers. But guess what! They're most likely used to that because the
> majority of the sites they visit are not going to be optimized for their
> off-the-wall software either.
>
> No, when my client is looking at doubled or tripled costs for his site's
> design in order to appeal to a handful of nerds who are more interested in
> research (or just being weird) than actually shopping, he'll usually opt to
> ignore those visitors using the geekware. It just boils down to a
> combination of diminished return on investment and good business sense.
>
> We'll leave the experimental stuff to the folks who don't have anything else
> to do with their time or money. After they get it debugged and standardized,
> we'll jump all over it. I realize that, being concerned with the absolute
> correctness of design as this group is, (appropriately,) it isn't likely
> anyone here will agree with my POV, but C'est la vie! I will survive.
>
> But thanks, N, for the vote of confidence... even if it was misplaced.
>
Well, the fact that you don't get that many visitors per day probably
means that for whatever reason they can't find your site properly or
if they do find it then it must be un-useable in some way. So they
leave without buying anything.
What you need to remember is that, the people useing browsers (that
might not be popular) might be willing to spend large amounts of money
(or might be the ones that want to join your non profit group),
whatever. The main thing is, you can't just presume by looking at your
logs that everyone is useing the same browser configgeration.
As an example I am useing IE 6 but I am not useing a visual interface
(IE a screen) to read the majority of your posts.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.awardspace.biz
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:15:02
GMT El Kabong scribed:
>
> "Neredbojias"
> news:Xns9974AD1D14682nanopandaneredbojias@198.186.190.161...
>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007
>> 19:35:22 GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
>>
>>> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly
>>> typed...
>>>
>>>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
>>>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
>>>
>>> What great reasoning! Excuse me while I phone my boss and explain
>>> that I'm going to just ignore approximately 250 - 300 unique
>>> visitors (otherwise known as potential customers) to his site every
>>> day. I'm sure he'll understand.
>>
>> Wow, and here I thought you were going to miss the point.
>>
>> (I believe he was being sarcastic, as you were.)
>>
> I dunno, N. maybe I should have been but, to be honest, I wasn't...
Whaaaa?!! I'm flabbergasted! Guess I owe Nigel an apology. Might ruin
my image, though...
> probably because I've never had a site successful enough to attract
> 6,000 unique visitors per day (300/.05) (I'm small potatoes.)
Hah! I'm smaller than that, bub! -And in spite of my magnetic
personality.
> However, after checking stats for most of my 82 sites, I could only
> come up with 10 visitors using browsers other than IE6 or 7, FF, or
> Safari. Add that to the fact that, realistically, only about 1 out of
> 50 visitors ever becomes a cash customer, (which isn't too bad a close
> rate,)
No,I'd say not at all a bad rate, 1 out of 50 (even if it sounds like it
came from Star Trek) could make you a rich man someday should you hit on
the right product in that venue.
it's doubtful that any of the 10 "brand Xers" were lost sales
> anyway.
>
> That's not to say that those 10 visitors were *unable* to view the
> pages as presented, just that the sites weren't *optimized* for their
> brand X browsers. But guess what! They're most likely used to that
> because the majority of the sites they visit are not going to be
> optimized for their off-the-wall software either.
>
> No, when my client is looking at doubled or tripled costs for his
> site's design in order to appeal to a handful of nerds who are more
> interested in research (or just being weird) than actually shopping,
> he'll usually opt to ignore those visitors using the geekware. It just
> boils down to a combination of diminished return on investment and
> good business sense.
>
> We'll leave the experimental stuff to the folks who don't have
> anything else to do with their time or money. After they get it
> debugged and standardized, we'll jump all over it. I realize that,
> being concerned with the absolute correctness of design as this group
> is, (appropriately,) it isn't likely anyone here will agree with my
> POV, but C'est la vie! I will survive.
>
> But thanks, N, for the vote of confidence... even if it was misplaced.
Well don't unsaddle the burro yet, gringo. I very much agree with your
sentiments on diminished return and good business sense. Yes, an author
_should_ do everything he reasonably can to make a good, standards-
compliant, and even accessibility-cognizant page. However, the keyword
is "reasonably" and what's reasonable to a sub-par author is probably not
reasonable to an adept author. Furthermore, given the sad state of the
standards themselves and of the browsers compliance to said standards, I
think we're a long way from _reasonably_ expecting a universally near-
perfect page from anyone.
--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.
On 2007-07-22, El Kabong
>
> "Neredbojias"
> news:Xns9974AD1D14682nanopandaneredbojias@198.186.190.161...
>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:35:22
>> GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
>>
>>> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly
>>> typed...
>>>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
>>>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
[...]
> No, when my client is looking at doubled or tripled costs for his site's
> design
How do you work that out? How can it possibly cost less to "design" for
all the bugs and unspecified behaviour in IE than to start with a
(relatively) stable platform like Firefox or Safari for which you have
available such powerful tools as specifications and logic?
> in order to appeal to a handful of nerds who are more interested in
> research (or just being weird) than actually shopping, he'll usually
> opt to ignore those visitors using the geekware. It just boils down to
> a combination of diminished return on investment and good business
> sense.
No, it's very poor business sense to work with bad tools and in a stupid
way because you can't see past the immediate goal.
Even once you have managed to concoct a tag soup that works on some
version of IE, what reason is there to believe it will continue to work
on even the next minor revision? How difficult will it be to fix if it's
a mess thrown together to target a particular browser by people who
think that reading specs and understanding things is only for "nerds
doing research"?
"Ben C"
news:slrnfa6c1j.l10.spamspam@bowser.marioworld...
> On 2007-07-22, El Kabong
>>
>> "Neredbojias"
>> news:Xns9974AD1D14682nanopandaneredbojias@198.186.190.161...
>>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:35:22
>>> GMT nice.guy.nige scribed:
>>>
>>>> While the city slept, El Kabong (davelong40@verizon.net) feverishly
>>>> typed...
>>>>> In fact, why waste time designing for browsers that stats show
>>>>> are used by less than 5% of Web visitors?
> [...]
>> No, when my client is looking at doubled or tripled costs for his site's
>> design
>
> How do you work that out? How can it possibly cost less to "design" for
> all the bugs and unspecified behaviour in IE than to start with a
> (relatively) stable platform like Firefox or Safari for which you have
> available such powerful tools as specifications and logic?
>
>> in order to appeal to a handful of nerds who are more interested in
>> research (or just being weird) than actually shopping, he'll usually
>> opt to ignore those visitors using the geekware. It just boils down to
>> a combination of diminished return on investment and good business
>> sense.
>
> No, it's very poor business sense to work with bad tools and in a stupid
> way because you can't see past the immediate goal.
>
> Even once you have managed to concoct a tag soup that works on some
> version of IE, what reason is there to believe it will continue to work
> on even the next minor revision? How difficult will it be to fix if it's
> a mess thrown together to target a particular browser by people who
> think that reading specs and understanding things is only for "nerds
> doing research"?
Time is literally money when designing for payment and the key to staying
within the tightly bid budget is "stay generic". Since most PC and Mac
buyers use the machine as it came out of the box, they are my "primary" (not
"only" just primary) target, they are the group for whom I design. Feedback
comes to me from some trusted acquaintances and needed adjustments made but
I just don't waste my time or my client's money trying to ensure that the
freaks using the latest weirdware are happy.
Thanks to all for the advice, but I'm back to my lurker's corner.
El
In article
"El Kabong"
> "Ben C"
> news:slrnfa6c1j.l10.spamspam@bowser.marioworld...
> > On 2007-07-22, El Kabong
> >>
> >
> > No, it's very poor business sense to work with bad tools and in a stupid
> > way because you can't see past the immediate goal.
> >
> > Even once you have managed to concoct a tag soup that works on some
> > version of IE, what reason is there to believe it will continue to work
> > on even the next minor revision? How difficult will it be to fix if it's
> > a mess thrown together to target a particular browser by people who
> > think that reading specs and understanding things is only for "nerds
> > doing research"?
>
> Time is literally money when designing for payment and the key to staying
> within the tightly bid budget is "stay generic". Since most PC and Mac
> buyers use the machine as it came out of the box, they are my "primary" (not
> "only" just primary) target, they are the group for whom I design. Feedback
> comes to me from some trusted acquaintances and needed adjustments made but
> I just don't waste my time or my client's money trying to ensure that the
> freaks using the latest weirdware are happy.
>
> Thanks to all for the advice, but I'm back to my lurker's corner.
>
You started well with some good points about beta versions and
busy practical web designing. Then, of course, someone came in
with self justifying stats and you responded (not making clear it
was the Beta versions that were the focus) and of course, Ben
made valid points about designing costs that may or may not be
quite relevant to your actual practice.
--
dorayme
On 2007-07-22, dorayme
> In article
> "El Kabong"
[...]
>> Thanks to all for the advice, but I'm back to my lurker's corner.
>>
>
> You started well with some good points about beta versions and
> busy practical web designing. Then, of course, someone came in
> with self justifying stats and you responded (not making clear it
> was the Beta versions that were the focus) and of course, Ben
> made valid points about designing costs that may or may not be
> quite relevant to your actual practice.
I'd forgotten what the original discussion was about actually (or wasn't
paying attention). I just lurched into action to defend the doctors from
the pastry cooks.
Sherm Pendley wrote:
> Ever read Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month"? :-)
Yes, yes -- but a very long time ago.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 32 days, 12:29.]
Parsing an HTML Table with PEAR's XML_HTTPSax3
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/07/20/html-table-parsing/
On Jul 20, 10:17 am, Bergamot
> I don't see what browsers have to do with it at all, unless they start
> having native Flash support. Until then it's the work of the plug-in to
> deal with it.
The browser has EVERYTHING to do with it. The browser needs to open
better communications with the plugin so (for example) pressing"crl+"
will let the plugin know that the user wants to change the font size,
then Flash can do that.
"Toby A Inkster"
news:bn6en4-mvu.ln1@ophelia.g5n.co.uk...
> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>
>> Ever read Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month"? :-)
>
> Yes, yes -- but a very long time ago.
That would be, er, a month ago?
Trivia: A project team I once worked beside would consider the odd man month
to be as trivial as an extended Friday Lunch down at the pub. The budget was
two hundred man *years*. Went over budget by thirty or fourty years IIRC :-)
Other trivia: The consultant "project leader" was an IBM import, at a cost
of $AU1M+ per year, and that was back in the 70's when beers were worth a
couple or few to the $.
--
Richard.
Travis Newbury wrote:
> On Jul 20, 10:17 am, Bergamot
>> I don't see what browsers have to do with it at all, unless they start
>> having native Flash support. Until then it's the work of the plug-in to
>> deal with it.
>
> The browser has EVERYTHING to do with it. The browser needs to open
> better communications with the plugin so (for example) pressing"crl+"
> will let the plugin know that the user wants to change the font size,
> then Flash can do that.
You mean like this?
http://reefscape.net/?p=4
BTW, I think this has just as much to do with the browser as with how
the Flash movie is authored, but I'm no Flash expert so you can tell me.
This type of functionality is something that should be built into the
Flash player (among other usability things like killing animations), but
it apparently must also be "permitted" by the author. *That* is a huge
obstacle to overcome. I don't see it happening in my lifetime. :(
--
Berg
On Jul 23, 8:50 am, Bergamot
> > The browser has EVERYTHING to do with it. The browser needs to open
> > better communications with the plugin so (for example) pressing"crl+"
> > will let the plugin know that the user wants to change the font size,
> > then Flash can do that.
> You mean like this?http://reefscape.net/?p=4
This is a work around that provides some of the functionality you are
looking for. But until there is better communication from the
browsers side, we are stuck with flimsy work arounds.
> BTW, I think this has just as much to do with the browser as with how
> the Flash movie is authored, but I'm no Flash expert so you can tell me.
This example? Nothing to do with the browser and everything to do
with javascript and Flash.
> This type of functionality is something that should be built into the
> Flash player (among other usability things like killing animations), but
> it apparently must also be "permitted" by the author. *That* is a huge
> obstacle to overcome. I don't see it happening in my lifetime. :(
Flash is a visual medium, I would rather not dumb it down and take
the visual part away. But, here is a good site to look at what it is
doing as far as accesibility is concerned:
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/
In the future I see both the browsers and the flash player getting
better at accessibility. But I also believe that the web will
continue it's trend towards MORE (smarter) multimedia rather than
less.
On Jul 23, 8:50 am, Bergamot
> This type of functionality is something that should be built into the
> Flash player (among other usability things like killing animations), but
> it apparently must also be "permitted" by the author. *That* is a huge
> obstacle to overcome. I don't see it happening in my lifetime. :(
Most Flash developers are idiots. I agree with you, you will not see
that happen in you life
Travis Newbury wrote:
>
> In the future I see both the browsers and the flash player getting
> better at accessibility.
A lot will still depend on the author, though, and I'm not optimistic
about that mindset changing.
> But I also believe that the web will
> continue it's trend towards MORE (smarter) multimedia rather than
> less.
"Smarter" is debatable, but I don't doubt more is coming. I just don't
want that junk forced on me. Except for an occasional webcast, I have
little use for anything moving around my screen, or any noise coming out
of the speakers. Plenty of other people feel the same way I do.
--
Berg
On Jul 23, 7:18 pm, Bergamot
> "Smarter" is debatable, but I don't doubt more is coming. I just don't
> want that junk forced on me. Except for an occasional webcast, I have
> little use for anything moving around my screen, or any noise coming out
> of the speakers. Plenty of other people feel the same way I do.
Yes there are plenty of people that don't want a fancy web. Some by
choice, some because of reasons beyond their control. But at the same
time there is an equally large number of people that either want all
of the fancy stuff or never really thought about it and are fine with
it either way. The web is a very big place, and as much as you do not
want to be forced to watch this, I do not want to be told we can't do
it because you can't use it, (or just don't want to) Neither side of
this argument should dictate to the other what the web should be
like. The only logical, and fair way to control the web is to not
control it. Let the free market deal with the issue.
I believe in the greed of humans in general. If a site in a
particular format (fancy or not) would be profitable, then someone
will build it. I have absolutely no doubt of this. We don't need a
law to govern this. An open market that allows people to profit from
it is all that is needed.
You and I will probably never agree what the perfect web would be
like. And neither you nor I should be able to dictate to the other
how they have to use the web. If a particular site does not please
one of us, then complain, leave, go to a competitor, what ever. We
can ask the site owner to change, but do not dictate to the site owner
he HAS to change his site to accommodate one of us.
On Jul 23, 7:18 pm, Bergamot
> A lot will still depend on the author, though, and I'm not optimistic
> about that mindset changing.
The author has a huge responsibility in this, and as more true
developers (as opposed to artists) start to populate the multi media
world then you will see this start to change.
Travis Newbury wrote:
>
> The web is a very big place, and as much as you do not
> want to be forced to watch this, I do not want to be told we can't do
> it because you can't use it, (or just don't want to)
I don't recall saying that you should, either. ISTM, however, that as
more sites jump on this multimedia/make-every-freakin'-thing-interactive
bandwagon, there are fewer good alternatives out there for those of us
who just want plain old uncluttered usable info without the glitz. :(
For example: I frequented a well-known weather site for several years,
but at some point it seemed more interested in having me watch
non-weather related videos and ads than showing me anything about (gasp)
*weather*. The site I use now isn't "pretty" but it's got great info and
they don't make me jump through hoops to get to it.
It took me weeks to find any site with sufficient local info that wasn't
a real PITA to use. Why should this be so hard? :(
--
Berg
"Bergamot"
news:5gn02qF2rci9oU1@mid.individual.net...
> For example: I frequented a well-known weather site for several years,
> but at some point it seemed more interested in having me watch
> non-weather related videos and ads than showing me anything about (gasp)
> *weather*. The site I use now isn't "pretty" but it's got great info and
> they don't make me jump through hoops to get to it.
>
> It took me weeks to find any site with sufficient local info that wasn't
> a real PITA to use. Why should this be so hard? :(
>
Oh, man! Did you hit the nail on the top with that one.
That trend goes way beyond Web sites unfortunately. Software also suffers
from the "be-all-to-all" syndrome. MusicMatch Jukebox started out as a
fantastic little tool for ripping, & burning, but mostly managing music
files. It was wonderful... easy to use and loaded quickly. Now, Yahoo owns
it and they couldn't care less about whether or not I can manage my files,
print my playlists, or load my e280. All they want to do is sell me crap
music that no one else wants to buy either. Now a pop-up nag screen insists
that I download the latest version of their bloatware and I don't want it.
Will they give me a "Don't show this anymore" checkbox? What do you think?
This is a typical situation, brought on by desperate marketing grads, who
picked what they thought would be a soft career and found out they would
actually have to compete for eyeballs and ears. The only way they think they
can get those is with garbage gimmicks, whether it's Web gadgets or pop-ups,
pop-unders, flash movies, tricky clicks that don't lead to the info you
expected... anything to make you look.
And all it does is make me mad.
This is still a rant, right? Hope so or I'm OT.
El
On 2007-07-24, El Kabong
[...]
> That trend goes way beyond Web sites unfortunately. Software also suffers
> from the "be-all-to-all" syndrome.
s/Software/Commercial software
> MusicMatch Jukebox started out as a fantastic little tool for ripping,
> & burning, but mostly managing music files. It was wonderful... easy
> to use and loaded quickly. Now, Yahoo owns it and they couldn't care
> less about whether or not I can manage my files, print my playlists,
> or load my e280. All they want to do is sell me crap music that no one
> else wants to buy either. Now a pop-up nag screen insists that I
> download the latest version of their bloatware and I don't want it.
> Will they give me a "Don't show this anymore" checkbox? What do you
> think?
Use cdparanoia, cdrecord and sox. Each one does what it does very well
and no more. None of them would dream of trying to show you ads.
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:01:39
GMT El Kabong scribed:
> And all it does is make me mad.
>
> This is still a rant, right? Hope so or I'm OT.
You a Brit? My girlfriend's from Liverpool and when she rants, it just
means she's 'ot to trot.
--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.
El Kabong wrote:
> "Bergamot"
> news:5gn02qF2rci9oU1@mid.individual.net...
>
>> For example: I frequented a well-known weather site for several years,
>> but at some point it seemed more interested in having me watch
>> non-weather related videos and ads than showing me anything about (gasp)
>> *weather*. The site I use now isn't "pretty" but it's got great info and
>> they don't make me jump through hoops to get to it.
>>
>> It took me weeks to find any site with sufficient local info that wasn't
>> a real PITA to use. Why should this be so hard? :(
>>
> Oh, man! Did you hit the nail on the top with that one.
>
> That trend goes way beyond Web sites unfortunately. Software also suffers
> from the "be-all-to-all" syndrome. MusicMatch Jukebox started out as a
> fantastic little tool for ripping, & burning, but mostly managing music
> files. It was wonderful... easy to use and loaded quickly. Now, Yahoo owns
> it and they couldn't care less about whether or not I can manage my files,
> print my playlists, or load my e280. All they want to do is sell me crap
> music that no one else wants to buy either. Now a pop-up nag screen insists
> that I download the latest version of their bloatware and I don't want it.
> Will they give me a "Don't show this anymore" checkbox? What do you think?
Don't bother "upgrading" to Yahoo Jukebox. It pretty much sucks.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
An oyster is a fish built like a nut.