[Grovenet] MACs for Christmas

[Jeff Howden]

David,

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> From: David Morelli [mailto:jo.david at verizon.net]
> 
> > > [...] The Safari browser and Mail client work
> > > securely, except when they have problem with non
> > > W3 standard servers (MS). [...]
> >
> > [...] What matters is whether or not the web developer
> > spent the time to make sure what he/she was building
> > works correctly (enough) for Safari.  ...
> 
> Yes, I could have phrased it better.  My emphasis is on
> the "non W3 standard" not on the server.  If the
> developer has made their product W3 compliant, then I
> expect it should work on my Safari or my Firefox.  The
> problem sites were generally configured for non-standard
> browsers, which included IE for a long time.  I don't
> know if it still does, because IE isn't on my list of
> browsers anymore.  If I need a browser on the PC at work
> I use Firefox, and there is no IE for Mac anymore.
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Well, there's good news and bad news on the browser/standards front.

The bad news is that none of the browsers currently available are 100%
standards compliant.  Some (Safari, Firefox 3, and Opera) are close.
Internet Explorer 7 was a vast improvement over version 6.  However they all
either fall short in some areas and add on their own proprietary extensions
to the standards that put us back in the situation we've been trying,
unsuccessfully, to get out of ever since there was competition in the
browser space.

The good news is that Internet Explorer 8 is in development and has had
significant portions of its rendering engine rebuilt, extended, etc. and so
far it appears to be able to fully render standards compliant code
correctly.

A web developer's job is not easy.  They must make it work for the
browser/OS combinations that represent the majority of their audience, make
it easy for search engines to index (if appropriate), and make it at least
tolerable when accessed with assistive technologies, all the while not
breaking it for browser/OS combinations that are not in the officially
supported list.  It sounds like not a terribly big deal to pull off.
However, browser vendors have seen fit to implement support for standards
that are ambiguous at best based on their own interpretation of the
standard.  In some cases, the majority percentage browsers will have
conflicting implementations.  It's up to the developer to have an intimate
knowledge of the quirks of each and to know the workarounds to get the
desired result in each or how to at least make it fail gracefully in one and
work correctly in the others.

FWIW,

Jeff Howden
support at vosandhowden.com

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