OT: Stop IE

[Thermodyne]

Let�s clear the air a little. MS is a major supporter of w3c. IE6 greatly predates the w3c standards, so does not and can not fully support the rule set. IE7 has been legally castrated by several foreign governments (one of them an illegal cartel under US law) not to mention several years delayed, so who knows what it will support when it is released.

In the real world, you code for IE if you want to make money. That�s the way it has been, is now, and will be for the near future. The OS community has of late begun using w3c as another tool to attack MS. This is their right, but one day they too will need to leave the reverse economy of the university and go out into the real world to earn money. And out there, MS is where the money is.

[Markavian]

now then, I am missing a lot like I could do css and a hell of a load more.... infact all of this extra stuff actualyl makes the code more so if anything, it would take longer to load on people with a poor connection. I know this is a bad excuse, but I am just trying to show that infact some standards are meant to be a standard, and that is all, speed is not actually a issue if you look at the way they are designed,

CSS is the most important part of designing websites, from several angles.
Proper usage of CSS reduces the the amount of HTML used in a file, makes easier to read documents and helps seperate design from content.

Usually you reduce the bandwidth of a website by using CSS because the CSS file is only called upon once and then cached for use with other pages in the website, like reusing an image on multiple pages - its loaded once from the website, then read from cache there-after.

HTML code can be kept very clean through the use of CSS. It also allows designs to be radically updated without even touching the HTML. It something well worth looking into and working with.

As for the issue of designing websites for a particular webbrowser - I agree that websites should be designed for the widest target audience. Designing and building on features which exist only in IE limits your target audience. Designing browsers that parse incorrect HTML only breeds problems down the line. There are many positive things you can do when designing a website to facilitate accessibility, and if you are a good webdesigner you should advise these things to clients.

There are laws in most western countries about accessibility. As a business (any business in the UK) you must take steps to makes your website accessible to disabled people.

BTW, consider this CSS example as improving efficiency in a HTML document (no external CSS sheet required).

Code:

---

<style>

p { font-size: 20pt; }

h2 { font-size: 40pt;

</style>

<h2>Joy</h2>

<p>Hello.</p>

<h2>Joy</h2>

<p>Hello.</p>

<h2>Joy</h2>

<p>Hello.</p>

<h2>Joy</h2>

<p>Hello.</p>

---

compared to:
Code:

---

<h2><font size="11">Joy</font></h2>

<p><font size="7">Hello.</p>

<h2><font size="11">Joy</font></h2>

<p><font size="7">Hello.</p>

<h2><font size="11">Joy</font></h2>

<p><font size="7">Hello.</p>

<h2><font size="11">Joy</font></h2>

<p><font size="7">Hello.</p>

---

If you wanted to change the paragraph font size to 10pt, which example would be easiest?
Which example takes up less bytes when uploaded to a website?

[Baron Munchausen]

Imperator Fyron said:

This has absolutely nothing to do with blind hatred. It has to do with well-founded, insightful, knowledgable hatred. I have absolutely no blind hatred for Microsoft. Please do not be so prejudiced to believe that anyone that dislikes a product of Microsoft is blind. Thank you.

LOL!

[Fyron]

"I can access sites in IE that are much older...."

As I said, some can be accessed, but some sites written for old browsers before standardization began occuring do not render properly in modern browsers, due to using tags that are no longer valid. Future-proofing is a good thing.

"look, I am not against standards at all, I just think that this standard, as a excuse for why you do not like IE is just such a bad example..."

Thanks for dismissing my cogent arguments as mere "excuses" for... whatever it is you think they are excuses for. The lack of standards support is only part of why I do not like IE, but it is the only part that still affects me greatly when I am not using it as my browser.

"And yes I agree that IE does not follow standards to the letter, personally not buggy, but what I am trying to say is just because it does not follow standards to the letter does not translate to bad... "

I strongly disagree. It's lack of 100% standards compliance is bad for web designers and the Internet in general. Would you use photoshop if it made JPGs that could only be read in Photoshop without errors? No. Standards are vital... A valid HTML page should look the same in every browser without resorting to hacks, just the same as any other file format.

"So you call the site actually working in every browser and the fact that they have no need to follow a stndard is arrogance? "

They have every need to follow the standards, for reasons stated in previous posts. It is indeed arrogance that allows them to ignore them... Maybe apathy or ignorance, but not good any way you cut it.

"W3C is not enforced anywhere and there is no brakedown in the internet"

Please reread my posts to see why never finishing w3c compliance is a problem for the Internet.

"I could do css and a hell of a load more.... infact all of this extra stuff actualyl makes the code more so if anything, it would take longer to load on people with a poor connection."

You have it backwards. CSS reduces load times because style information is only downloaded once for the entire site. All subsequent page requests get vastly smaller html streams. CSS is great for people with slow connection speeds. Further, it is necessary for good coding style. Font tags are abhorrid.

"some standards are meant to be a standard, and that is all, speed is not actually a issue if you look at the way they are designed"

w3c standards are designed for speed. html and doctype tags are trivial in size compared to the rest of the file. Not even a fraction of a percent... You do not have to close tags such as p and td in the w3c html standard, which serves to marginally reduce file sizes... How is this set of standards not designed to increase browsing speed? Your example of a page with just a bit of text does not reasonably represent real web pages.

=0=

Thermo, the lack of updates finishing the w3c standards compliance was part of my argument. If they would stop integrating the browser into the OS and make it a standalone app again, maybe they would have less to be sued about. I truly hope that IE 7 supports the standards 100%.

You can maintain full w3c compliance and have your site working perfectly in IE due to the partial support. There is no excuse to violate w3c standards. It is terrible programming style.

"The OS community has of late begun using w3c as another tool to attack MS."

Ah yes, your typical Microsoft on a pedastal position.

=0=

"as I said, if mozilla became really big, I am sure we will start seing holes there."

The main difference is that they will be patched. Even in XP SP2, there are still at least 2 dozen severe holes in IE that allow a malicious coder to gain root access to your machine even when IE is not actively running! They are all well documented and have been so for years. And to hell with all other users not using XP... This is why I always recommend blocking IE from accessing the net at the firewall level... IE is fundamentally dangerous because it runs in kernel mode, so any security bug is automatically escalated in severity. There is no reason for a web browser to run in kernel mode. It is just bad programming any way you look at it. The high security mode can not fix the fundamental flaw of a user level app running as a kernel level app.

[Atrocities]

Atrocities said:
A follow up what Fyron posted about MS and standards.

It has been my forgone conclusion that Microsoft seldom if ever, follows any standard that it did not create. So it can be said without sarcasim that if Microsoft does not set the standard, there is no standard. And Microsoft will never comply with any standard that it does not recognize as a Microsoft created standard. That per Microsft Standard Operating Proceedure.

Microsoft will not yeild to the standard because they want it to fail. After it fails they will buy, adopt, invent, create, a new standard that looks an awfully lot like the old non Microsoft standard and bill it as their own knowning full well that it is far less effective than the old standard. A clear cut example of MOTOS.