JavaScript is getting harder...

[CornedBee]

It was bad enough when there were NS 2-4 and IE 2-5 out there, but now we also have Mozilla 5+ and Netscape 6+! Cross-browser compatibility gets harder to achieve...

BTW, can anyone tell me a good reference of the new DOM in NS 6?

[JoshT]

Mozilla and Netscape are pretty much the same, though.

www.w3.org is definitive
www.zvon.org is good but is probably not up to date

If you stick conservatively to W3C recommendations, your pages will work good in most recent browsers.

[CiberTHuG]

Originally posted by CornedBee
It was bad enough when there were NS 2-4 and IE 2-5 out there, but now we also have Mozilla 5+ and Netscape 6+! Cross-browser compatibility gets harder to achieve...

BTW, can anyone tell me a good reference of the new DOM in NS 6?

Don't think of it has a different version for Navigator/Communicator/Internet Explorer/Netscape/Mozilla, think of it as a single version, documented by the W3C and ECMA, and several, proprietary, and wrong version. You should never use anything that is not listed in the standards, and if you have a problem with older browsers, then stick to simple HTML. Don't ever use any propreitary extensions.

And yes, the Developer site for Mozilla/Netscape is a really good resource. I am very proud of the guys at Netscape for keeping the new versions free of propreitary crap. MS will never do that.

[chrismitchell]

I always thought that JavaScript was getting harder... though try ActionScript if you want hard JavaScript sort of stuff... thats hard!!!

[JoshT]

Here's a question for you:

If browsers can't use proprietary extensions, then how do they compete? There needs to be a way to convince normal people to download other browsers so IE doesn't get 100% market share.

And I think Netscape's early prop. extensions are now a good chunk of the "standards".

[CiberTHuG]

I think the standards resemble IE's extensions. The entire Netscape Layers approach is dead. And looking at the two, I like the way they went. Beside's which, IE has the market share for a number of reasons, one of which is, older Netscape browsers were so far from the standard that people hated writing their page twice.

The proper way to drive a standard is to be on the standards board and to submit ideas. Netscape (who invented JavaScript) and Microsoft both go through the channels to submit changes, updates, enhancements to the standard.

The way to sell your browser is:

Make sure you support everything in the standard. I haven't seen anyone support "optgroup", and I've only seen Opera support @media.

Make sure your browser is small and fast, and very stable.

Make sure your browser has capabilities people want. I like the MDI approach of Opera. I like the fact that I can install Navigator, Communicator, and Netscape 6 on the same machine at the same time.

If you want to include propreitary extension, that is fine. But what you are honestly doing is, asking people to make pages that will sabatoge other browsers. That starts to get into a real immature war. Regretably, normal (ignorant/stupid) people don't realize that the glitzy MS browser isn't the best, it just happens to get more extensions than the broken Netscape browser. And Netscape can't put MS extensions in their browser fast enough. People think MS is great because it did such a good job of breaking a technology that Netscape invented.

Now, IE is the only browser that supports ECMA compliant JScript and VBScript. Actually, I'm not sure if VBScript is ECMA compliant or not. I have mixed emotions on that. I don't mind there being different languages that do the same thing. But if not everyone uses them, well....

[JoshT]

Beside's which, IE has the market share for a number of reasons, one of which is, older Netscape browsers were so far from the standard that people hated writing their page twice.

I remember a time back in 1996/1997 or so when so few people were using IE it didn't make a difference. And normal people don't tend to really even understand what a web page is, let alone know that there's standards. And didn't NS come up with Cookies, using colors or JPEGS on a page, etc?

I personally see limited use for extensions, as long as they're somewhat backwards compatible used to extend things the standards don't really define. Like IE CSS for changing the scrollbar color which would be the user agent, not DOM or HTML - (which is kinda pointless and even goes against MS's "Windows Experience" Common UI guidelines).

VBScript could be DOM complaint, but there's no way it could be ECMAScript, because that defines the syntax and built in methods and objects.

And does W3C even claim to be a standards body?

[CiberTHuG]

Netscape also introduced blink, which became a bad idea. Blink wouldn't be so bad if you could control the rate. But aside from that the guys who made Netscape, made Mosaic. They were the pioneers who were making the first widespread web browser when CERN announced there would be a hyper-text protocol and language.

Yes, the W3C doesn't consider itself a governing body issuing standards. They call them recommendations. Fortunately they are still seen as the defnitive body. Without a single body, HTML and HTTP would be a horrible mess.

I don't mind if these "standards" include room for extensions and ways for UAs to ignore unknown extensions. For example, the scrollbar. As long as that is added in the CSS, and refered to by the DOM for CSS, then that gives other browsers an out, a way to ignore it without breaking the page.

If, however, your entire page is built with Layers....

[JoshT]

I've actually used Mosaic on Solaris and MacOS a long time ago. When I was in college, I had a Professor who made his page with Frontpage and put a big "best viewed with IE" banner on it, and was using the blink tag...

Anyway, I like to write W3 validated code that errs on the simple side anyway. I don't think I've ever used layers.

[Randy_Bartels]

I think http://www.ozoneasylum.com/ is the best forum regarding the DOM. Alot of people there know their ****.

[CornedBee]

I think the biggest blow for Netscape was the the preinstalled IE on later Win9x, but I may be wrong...

[CiberTHuG]

Well, not so much that, but that MS paid OEMs to not install, or to uninstall Navigator.

[JoshT]

I thought MS put in its licensing agreement for OEMs that they cannot preinstall any "free" software.

[CiberTHuG]

I guess it depends on how they defined free. I don't think they ever stopped installing Real Player, Jukebox, Easy CD Creator. But those could be defined as demoes or other OEM software bundled with paid hardware. Navigator is free, and is not a demo for anything.

*shrug* You could be right. But it doesn't bother me that MS bundles IE with Windows. It just bothers me when they use their force ($) to pressure OEMs.

Heck, the fact that IE is part of Windows 2000, and not a seperate program, this has caused various security problems for MS. Can't say that bothers me at all.

[Randy_Bartels]

I believe IE is a much superior browser. Anyone who does dHTML knows what I mean. Not to mention Netscape 6 is a huge memory hog.

[CiberTHuG]

Sorry, Randy, I don't know what you mean. You'll have to explain it.

[JoshT]

DHTML is just a buzzword. I don't know what you mean either...