I'm not really a Web developer, but I am deeply involved in computers and I have a real problem with Microsoft, especially when they pull crap like this. It seems to fly in the face of all that the Web was designed for i.e... crossplatform compatibility. I'm wondering how web developers feel about this. Any comments? Good, Bad, or other....

dave

-- niffel (niffel@crosswinds.net), July 14, 2000

Answers

Hmmm, my bitchfests tend to be about Netscape actually. Lately everything that i do (knock on wood...) works exactly the way that i want it in IE, but not as well as i want in Netscape.

What problems are you having with Explorer?

Anyone else care to vent about the lack of cross-platform abilities?

-- Sherry (sherina@masc.ca), July 14, 2000.

Well, I don't have a problem with EI. It seems to be a perfectly usable browser. I however, choose to use netscape. I'm not at all concerned with which is better (Netscape or IE). Such discussions inevitably degenerate into religious wars that can not possibly be won. (I do however have it on good authority that God uses Netscape ;^) The issue here is standards and what I see as the single greatest threat to the web as we know it, namely proprietary enhancements and closed standards. (I have the same beef with AOL and their IM crap) The whole idea behind HTML is the ability to display information on heterogeneous network, yet we are quickly heading towards the "Microsoft Web" I know that the world in general prefers to have a single dominant standard to code to, but that should be the W3C standard and it absolutely MUST be open. I'm happy to see innovation and if Microsoft sees fit to release their enhancements to the rest of the world to be incorporated into other products, more power to them. But with 80% of the market, once Web developers jump on the MS bandwagon the W3C is doomed. At that point MS has effectively stolen YOUR web.

"Welcome to the Web (Copyright Microsoft 2000)"

Just my $0.02 dave

-- dave (niffel@crosswinds.net), July 14, 2000.

I have been dealing with multi-browser hassles since IE3/NS3. MS has consistently provided better compliance with the HTML standard than Netscape, and as long as that's the case they can add as much goofy crap to their browser as they want. This has always been their MO - make everything work the way it's supposed to, then give 'em more to play with. If a site isn't cross-platform (i.e., only supports IE) then that's the developer's choice, not MS'.

-- Eric (ebradford@adelphia.net), July 24, 2000.