[WEB4LIB] Re: Netscape 7

[D. Keith Higgs]

My thoughts, only more concise.

I tend to take the approach of coding for DOM-Compliant vs
Non-DOM-Compliant.  Any methods I use that require DOM compliance get
tested and accomodated.  The blessing of this approach is that I don't
have to test for and account for every version of multiple browsers.  I
test for the specific DOM methods I am using [i.e. getElementByID()] and
provide the appropriate work-around where needed.

The folks at Netscape will try to tell you that if your script breaks it
is a sign that there was something wrong with it to start with.  I
disagree.  The real change is that Netscape has adopted an approach that
encourages you to take advantage of standards where they now exist.

D. Keith Higgs <mailto:dkh2 at po.cwru.edu>
 Case Western Reserve University
  Webmaster - University Library
  Additional Information at http://www.cwru.edu/UL/

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Thomas Dowling
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 01:17 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Netscape 7


At 12:59 PM 5/22/2002, Catherine Buck Morgan wrote:
>I've loaded Netscape 6 on a few machines.... and the experience has not

>been pleasant. It destroys address books, esp. the groups. It doesn't 
>interpret javascript well... scripts that ran well on 4.79 and IE (all 
>versions), don't execute properly in Netscape 6, 6.2, etc.

Problems like this often need closer examination.  There are a lot of 
scripts out there that, in essence, ask the browser, "Are you Netscape 
4?  If not, I'll assume you're IE."  The scripts then continue to do
things 
in a way that is either proprietary to NS4 or proprietary to IE4+.

To the user, of course, broken is broken.  But at this point it's 
unreasonable to expect newly created browsers to reverse engineer every 
hack from five years ago in obsolete browsers; on the other hand, it is 
reasonable (IMO) to call web authors' attention to their reliance on 
non-standard code.


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network tdowling at ohiolink.edu