[Javascript] Re: Standards

[David Lovering]

The latest versions of Netscape I've examined are NS6 and NS7.  I make a
point of not reviewing developments which are billed as betas (unlike
M$oft's betas, which are billed as real products).

The good news is that Netscape 7 is a great deal closer to "standard" HTML
than any versions previous, but there are still a sizeable number of CSS
features and style parameters, etc. which either are not implemented at all,
or are implemented in some fashion different from the HTML4.0 standard.
[Possibly one thing that would speed up these evaluations is a real
honest-to-God benchmark suite in the public domain.  There are admittedly a
bunch of test sites that will "crunch" code and spume out their assessment
of compliance, but there's a lot of subjective analysis that these sites
rely on to make their judgement calls.]  Possibly the major issues with NS7
are (i) layer management, (ii) object management, (iii) consistency between
IFRAME and FRAME behavior, (iv) "BUTTON" objects, (v) keyboard and other
event issues, (vi) SSL access methods, and (vii) support for inline
encryption consistant with IPSEC and the like.  Some of these are still "out
there" in terms of being fully implemented by anybody, but I'm sorry to say
M$oft is a bit further along on most of these.

For example, I find it quite astonishing that the only absolute rock-solid
standard for authenticating "secure" browser sessions (snort, giggle!) is
based upon BASIC clear-text password exchanges.  If you want anything
better, you either have to use Netscape's wierd proprietary package (which
you can only get your hands on if you are a "registered" developer for
beaucoups bucks), buy into some third-party front-end, use M$oft's CHAP
implementation which is both flaky and insecure (it was cracked about two
weeks after it came out), or use SSH2 (which isn't part of the basic kit).
Ugh!  If there are any better solutions out there, they aren't advertising
as aggressively as they ought to.

-- Dave Lovering

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hassan Schroeder" <hassan at webtuitive.com>
To: "[JavaScript List]" <javascript at LaTech.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Javascript] Re: Standards


> David T. Lovering wrote:
>
> > One reason I'm so "down" on Netscape at present is that such a huge
> > chunk of it doesn't comply with HTML4.0 and other comparable
international
> > standards.
>
> ? What "Netscape" are you talking about? NS4? NS6? 7? Moz 1.3b? It's
> a little vague to just say "Netscape"...
>
> If it's Mozilla you're referring to, what in HTML 4 is not supported?
>
> --
> Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com
> Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com
>
>                            dream.  code.
>
>
>
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