[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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