Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:30:28 +0100 (CET) From: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> To: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk> Cc: "Walter C. Pelissero" <walter@pelissero.org>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <20011101121331.A912-100000@jodie.ncptiddische.net> In-Reply-To: <20011101095903.B43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk>
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On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Paul Robinson wrote: > OK, this one got me fired up, and I suspect this will turn into a flamewar > if we're not careful - if you want to tell me I'm a cretin or send me rude > messages, please do so off-list. For the record I'm a 'nix user and > developer and have been for about 7 years now. I'm writing this in mutt > whilst ssh'ed into a FBSD box from my FBSD laptop. I spend most of my > professional life these days writing the tricky stuff on large, complicated, > true full-on application-style websites. No, I don't do the HTML, I do the > stuff that makes things work. Please, read on if you want to know why I > think IE-only compatability is a good thing for the user. ...In the western sky, my kingdom come... > Had you considered that there was a load of Javascript or even Java that was > supposed to be running on your machine to help keep the underlying > functionality of the site going, and that because you're not running it, you > are going to cause problems for yourself, and potentially for the site > admins? Do you honestly think that there are people out there who > deliberately close markets and channels and make their site unavailable to > you just to annoy you? Your logic is severely flawed. The exampleabout the bank demonstrated that there are people out there who seem to like to may their site unavailable to close their site to folks like me only to annoy me. So their logic is severely flawed. And furthermore, who says that the software I use cannot run the JavaScript that is needed for the "underlying functionality" of the site? We're not talking about JavaScript problems, but we're talking about scripts which do nothing but "Non-IE browser -> Get outta here". > Great, I hope you do go somewhere else, so I don't have to spend time > working out why the hell various things aren't working the way they should > be whenever you come to my site, and you don't spend time phoning up support > telling them everything is broken, thereby causing me to have to close 50 > tickets on a Monday morning. Nice to hear that your site is so broken, even more nice to hear that you get 50 problem reports through the weekend. FYI, if you want to defend something, you should not make what you defend look more stupid in the end. Doing so is the job of the guy with the different opinion (=me). Nice to see that you're doing my work, though. > The guy who started this thread complained about Natwest being 'facist' - > perhaps they just want to run some Java crypto stuff to further enhance the > site's security, in the same way Smile used to. Perhaps they need to track > what he is doing, for the security of HIS account, by running a little JS. > Perhaps they just want to make sure the site looks the way they expect it > to, just to enforce their corporate image. Perhaps they tried to make it > compatible with as many browsers as possible, but weren't able to because > those browsers hadn't implemented various chunks of functionality. Hmmm, did someone mention seriously flawed logic a few minutes ago? > Browser compatability testing, believe it or not, is often not there > entirely for your sake - it's sometimes there for people like us, on the > backend. It's to ensure that the javascript and Java VM stuff is where you > expect it to be (in the browser) and that it behaves the way you expect it > to behave. This is particularly important in banking applications. It is > nobody's intention to limit markets and get people to go elsewhere. Wait a minute. You say that testing is there for ensuring that things "get displayed where they were intended to be displayed"? That's fine, but then, however, why did the testing in the example that started this thread lead to stuff not being displayed at all on *many* machines (namely non-MS / MAC ones?) > When I put browser compatability checks on sites, it's in the vain effort > that some developers somewhere will get a clue and perhaps put some decent > javascript support into their browsers - I understand open source software > are constrained in this effort, but Netscape should have switched to > MS-compatibility a long time ago if they wanted to retain market share. I wonder if Netscape will be able to use MS's "changes" made to JavaScript as well as other MS technology without paying MS money. MS didn't do what they did for Netscape to become compatible to their technology, but to make Netscape lose the market share you have just mentioned. > Love or loathe the fact that on low budgets and tight delivery times, I'll > always code for MS IE compatability, as that will always guarantee a decent > marketshare available to us. So will any other web developer worth his salt. See, that's where we differ: I use to code for compatibility with all browsers as much as possible, so I'll have a better market share than you. > In summary - perhaps you and other KDE and Gnome users (including myself) > should think of it as being that our software is not good enough for their > site rather than their site being too lame for our software... I like it > even less than you do, but that's the way of the world. If I get some more time, I will come up with the definitive prove that the world is flat. Maybe I can even prove that I know the definite date and time of Jesus' birth. But, in case you didn't notice: Commercial companies need to make much money. Microsoft noted that they can blow up all kinds of standards and force people to use their software. KDE and Gnome create truly open software that is compliant to "real" standards. These non-commercial projects don't need to take use of unfair methods as MS does, and that alone makes the software much better than Microsoft's. And, by the way: If I can believe the original complaint about the bank, then there was not even a technical reason for them to block access of non-MS browsers. They only seemed to have done it for the fun of it. Greetings Nils Nils Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org DISCLAIMER: This message is not meant to offend anyone. I just like pointing (IMHO) strange logic out whenever I find it... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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