[thelist] Site Review; [was Apple helps web developers]

Katherine Spice k.spice at acu.ac.uk
Wed Jan 10 06:56:26 CST 2001


Hi Jay,

Jay Greenspan wrote:
> I had been mentally steeling myself -- through yoga, meditation, watching
> old episodes of Kung Fu -- to present this site to Evolt under the classic
> subject "Site Review". Beleive me, one does not present a Web devlopment
> site to this crowd without some trepidation.

In that case, I shall let you have the full force of my wrath, rather
than internetdev at apple.com - just be aware that I deliberately waited
until this morning to write anything 'cause I was so cross yesterday
that anything I wrote would not have been civilized!!

>> Just seen this site mentioned on MacNN:
>> <http://developer.apple.com/internet/>
>> Apple have put together a site to help web developers.

I clicked through almost as soon as I saw this post - I have a lot of
respect for Apple - so you can imagine my frustration when the first
thing I notice is that the fonts are f**ked.  (I'm sending you a
screenshot off list.) I use Linux as my OS and browse using NN 4.7. I
persevere, (making note to self to make someone at apple aware of the
problem) and arrive at the font gallery.  This is the bit that really
got my goat - you've got examples of IE 5 and NN4 on MacOs, and IE 5.5
and NN4 on Win, but no mention of Linux anywhere! Now, Linux and MacOS
have similar size desktop market share (especially compared to the
Microsoft giant!) and if designers should care what their site looks
like on the a Mac, then they should also be encouraged to care how it
looks on Linux, especially when the source of the information is a
company like Apple - I mean c'mon this is the sort of behaviour I'd
expect from Microsoft :-)
 
> I have been working with Developer Relations at Apple
> to build content for the site that addresses known
> cross-platform/cross-browser issues. 

hehe! It's also worth noting that cross-platform _does not_ just mean
windows, macos and linux. The embedded systems market is growing so fast
that in a couple of years other OSes (eg Palm) and propriety browsers
for devices like PDAs or "web pads" could be significant share of all
web browsing.

> The site also supports principles
> long-practiced by many on this list: thorough testing, adherence to
> standards (when possible), and degradablilty. This is just the start, and I
> know that Apple hopes this site will be helpful for the community.

Like I said, Apple are a respected company. I for one am always well
impressed with the boundaries you push (especially recently in hardware
dev), and therefore the info on your site will hold more weight than
just a random "web development site", and I would encourage you to use
that more responsibly.
 
> As for my role: I managed the content for the site. So, as it concerns this
> list, I'm most interested in the your opinions about the articles. But if
> you notice any design/layout/markup issues, I will make sure they get
> addressed.

Like I tried to say at the beginning - this isn't supposed to be a rant
- I'm happy to help if you need other screenshots or testing from a
Linux platform. Apart from the fonts, it looks really good - I like the
colour scheme.

Katherine




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