[thelist] flash detection

[Ben Dyer]

At 11:21 AM 5/4/2001, you wrote:
>Try browsing the net for a while with Netscape 2, or any browser with 
>stylesheets disabled (or stylesheets ENABLED on a Mac). Or getting all the 
>information on an academic/scientific site without Acrobat. You will be 
>barred from tons of information. What's the difference between that and Flash?

If every other web site jumped off of a bridge, would yours?

>Flash has been shipping with the major browsers for like ... years. It's 
>up to developers to force their audience to use reasonably current technology.

My, that's pig-headed.

It's our jobs as developers to be at least somewhat accomodating, even if 
that means more work.  The problem I have is that most developers think 
that our users owe us something.  Why don't they upgrade?, well they must 
just be morons or Luddites.  We'll force them to upgrade, that'll show 'em.

And for those who are at public terminals, slower machines, older machines, 
slower land-lines (rural areas, etc.), WebTV, PDAs and other wireless 
devices, text readers, text browsers, those who are blind or otherwise 
handicapped?  Ah well, who cares, they make up only a small percentage of 
my users.

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't make everything look like useit.com 
(God no).  But, come on, not everyone cares about the latest and best just 
because your site does.  If you can't provide an HTML alternative to your 
Flash site, if you do things in CSS that will make your site nonfunctional 
to those without CSS capabilities, you're basically telling your users to 
get lost.

--Ben


<!-----------------------
Ben Dyer
Senior Internet Developer
Imaginuity Interactive
http://www.imaginuity.com
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