Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 16:44:17 +0000 From: "Walter C. Pelissero" <walter@pelissero.org> To: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <15329.31713.864514.24367@hyde.lpds.sublink.org> In-Reply-To: <20011101095903.B43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk> References: <15328.13403.591620.246277@hyde.lpds.sublink.org> <20011031210224.A710-100000@howie.ncptiddische.net> <20011101095903.B43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk>
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Paul Robinson writes: > OK, this one got me fired up, and I suspect this will turn into a > flamewar if we're not careful I haven't noticed any hint of flamewar yet. Well, until your message. > No, I don't do the HTML, I do the stuff that makes things > work. I've seen several beautiful pages written in plain HTML. Anyway I wouldn't put down HTML that much. It sounds like I don't move on wheels because I drive a car. Even you are dealing mainly with dynamic HTML, it's HTML nevertheless. > Please, read on if you want to know why I think IE-only > compatability is a good thing for the user. Sorry, you didn't convince me. Go on reading, I'm going to explain you why. > 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? Beside that a Fat Client is a questionable design choice that we are not here to discuss, the bank site used to work flawlessly with my browser. THIS is the same browser that is installed on a Win box. According to the JavaScript code the discrimination is not on the browser (not only), but on the OS. Which in my opinion is nonsense. > 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? I think there are people who belive that the solution to their problems is to hide them. I just try to guess. The problem might have been that the bank employed bad programmers who couldn't write web pages without resorting to "unportable" code. Instead of solving the problem (firing the programmers), they preferred to cut off the possible troublesome customers. Instead of cutting on help line calls they increased them, leading eventually to the disaffection of some customers. > 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. I belive you should better be interested to know why your code is broken instead of labeling those who don't have your system/browser/setup as uninteresting visitors. You might end up wondering why nobody is visiting your pages. > The guy who started this thread complained about Natwest being > 'facist' The guy who started this thread complained about NatWest enforcing "faScist" compatibility tests. > perhaps they just want to run some Java crypto stuff to > further enhance the site's security, in the same way Smile used > to. This is not a source of incompatibilities. I've been working on this kind of problems myself. I can tell you, Netscape's Java Virtual Machine is equally broken on Windows as well as on Unix/Linux/FreeBSD. > Perhaps they need to track what he is doing, for the security > of HIS account, by running a little JS. What I am doing?? This is interesting. Could you please elaborate on it? > Perhaps they just want to make sure the site looks the way they > expect it to, just to enforce their corporate image. That's what CSS are for. Is this not enough? Do you mean something more sophisticated, like checking if I have all the necessary fonts and my screen visual depth (number of colors) is good enough? Yeah, this HTML is difficult to tame if you want to get to pixel manipulation. Anyway, what difference would make a FreeBSD over a Windows in this regard? > 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. Are you meaning the chunks of functionality you don't find in Netscape 4.76 for FreeBSD and you find in Netscape 4.76 for Windows? Which ones? Or you mean the chunks of functionality I've been using for almost two years on my FreeBSD box to access the bank web site without a problem? > 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. I belive browsers compatibility testing is there only to save the ass of clumsy programmers who succeeded to convince their boss (or PHB) it's not their fault if things are screwed up, and to let Microsoft zealots make a living with the few concepts they have picked up from the "Web for Dummies" book they have skimmed through. No offense meant. > 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. While, I'm still looking forward to see a list of discrepancies between NS 4.76/FreeBSD and NS 4.76/Windows that could invalidate a seriously written code, I don't understand why the user shouldn't be let in and find by him/herself whether his/her browser works or not. > Netscape should have switched to MS-compatibility a long time ago > if they wanted to retain market share. You mean they should have switched to MS-compatibility when Microsoft had still to join the Web and Bill Gates was preaching against it? While at this I would suggest even W3C to leave alone all that stupid standardization efforts and let Microsoft decide for them. Hopefully Nike is not coming up with a one-sleeved t-shirt because, otherwise you would have to chop away one arm. I'm afraid, your statement is supporting Microsoft's EEE (Embrace, Extend and Extinguish) approach to things. The market leader doesn't necessarily have the best product. I belive you agree since you are using FreeBSD and not XP. > 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. That's your choice, fair enough. I find personally easier to keep myself to a common denominator and don't bind myself to some exotic and unnecessary proprietary technology that is not standard even for the owner itself and it's meant to keep changing just to introduce incompatibilities and market fragmentation. This means I wouldn't chose to support a Netscape extension either. (Remember the EEE.) In the long run it pays. > Just please try and understand how a conversation with a client > might go: You just explained that people should switch to IE to help you get along with your boss/customer. I personally don't care and I don't see a strong relation to the OS ban in NatWest's page. > 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 don't use KDE neither Gnome and I don't think they would be related to the NatWest issue. I certainly don't belive that "our software" is not good enough since Netscape for FreeBSD is basically the same that runs on Windows. Isn't it? > I like it even less than you do, but that's the way of the world. I don't think the world would look a better place just keeping in mind cheap philosophical considerations. Fortunately you just explained your point of view, not "the way of the world". -- walter pelissero http://www.pelissero.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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