[thelist] WebReview responds to WaSP browser death march

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Sun Feb 25 21:34:36 CST 2001


> From: "Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns" <skaiser at skdesigns.com>
> 
> I'd love to hear what you and anyone else thinks of the WebReview

i think the editorial is very much in line with what the average, level-
headed, standards-savvy developer thinks... we recognize that 
standards are A Good Thing (as anyone who's been on the list for a 
while knows i say), and we also recognize that not everyone can 
upgrade... instead of being elitists (insisting anyone can upgrade, 
or we only design for our own amusement), we try to use the 
standards without shutting out users...  not all users give a rat's 
ass about standards or whether or not their browser knows what 
the hell they are...

> editorial and the WaSP Browser Upgrade Initiative project, too. I'm

i think the WaSP has taken a strong and admirable stance... built 
on good intentions and all... unfortunately, i don't think the 'to hell 
with old browsers' is a good message... in essence, that's saying, 
'to hell with everyone who uses old browsers,' whether by choice or 
lack of choice...  they might as well put a 'best viewed in' button on 
their site... redirecting users to a browser upgrade page pisses off 
the user, and doesn't immediately enhance the user's experience...

what happened on feb 16 that suddenly changed the rules?  why 
are they asking me to tell my clients to dump their browsers, my 
users to upgrade, and my developers to code to their rules?  it's an 
arbitrary date for an arbitrary campaign...

again, it's admirable, but reading many posts in the ALA forum, it's 
a lot of people who see it as being easier for *them,* regardless of 
how it impacts the user...  too many "screw NN3 users, they're 
lusers, i'm only coding for l33t browsers now..." again, as if 
something in the world changed on the day ALA posted its 
article... suddenly 1,000,000 people spontaneously upgraded their 
browsers and it was safe to forget about those poor NN4 users who 
*like* their browser (and find mozilla to be a hog)...

i know many people who won't upgrade just because of the impact 
it will have on their mail clients... a lot of people use their browser's 
mail tool, and they've learned their lesson with previous upgrades... 
screw that, mail's more important than seeing your l33t design that 
you can't code well enough to degrade to my 4.x... clearly you 
weren't targetting me anyway...

> asking out of my own interest in how the design community (and anyone
> else) feels about this issue -- not to pass judgment one way or the
> other. We're all entitled to our opinions. I think it would be good to
> know how everyone feels.

i think we need a "to hell with bad WYSIWYGs" campaign... 
nobody who uses a WYSIWYG editor is going to change... and 
there are boatloads out there... targetting hand-coders is (more or 
less) preaching to the choir...  target the tool-makers... the 
GoLive/DreamWeaver/FrontPage world is doing more damage than 
any hotshot with notepad...

> We're truly up against so much trying to get the general public,
> businesses, etc. to upgrade computers, software, etc. They may not see
> the point, and some might. Overall it would be great if everyone could
> have the latest and greatest, but I also don't think that's realistic.

let alone those who use the alternative... 

> With my own business, my clients expect me to make their sites
> viewable at least with version 4.x browsers, and they don't want to
> lose sales over this, of course. And WaSP totally understands that.
> They would like as many people as possible to participate in this and
> speed up the death of 4.x browsers. I look forward to that myself.

all of my e-commerce jobs are expected to work in *all* browsers... 
not just IE5.5 with full JS capability... *and* i code to standards.... 
so this WaSP thing doesn't affect me... the ALA approach is 
unrealistic to me... the only affect is has is that i'll have a better 
edge by coding to standards *and* cross-browser as people flock 
to the new model...

> So it is a hopeless cause, hopeful cause, somewhere in between, you
> don't care? I'd love to know what anyone thinks.

feh...

"To Hell With Bad Editors"

i'll stick by that...




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