Do web Developers care

about bobby?

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

how many of you produce websites to bobby's standards?  and how many of you actually care?

Jaz wrote:

about bobby?

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

how many of you produce websites to bobby's standards?  and how many of you actually care?

I didn't know about it but I care. I guess I'll get to work on fixing the problems.

The two companies I worked for and the one I consult for now don't care.  IE is the primary target.  If some minor UI discrepancies occur across browsers, it is considered trivial and not worth spending time on.  IE is the defacto standard but if that changes, then presumably these companies will change.

The last few companies I have worked really didn't care if the sites did not work in other browswers because they wanted the functionality that IE provided. Their attitude was "If you want use of our site you need to use IE"...

nuff said,

~ Knute

ME <sent to LARGE internet client>

* the Flash hangs in netscape/firefox/mozilla . Any thoughts? The original file hangs in all of them here..= no point in editing anything till you see that the original works in all browsers?

- or it only has to work in IE(has nothing to do with my changes - the original SWF only seems to work in IE

?

THEM <reply from LARGE internet client>

Let's not worry about these browsers. The majority of surfers use IE. We can put a disclaimer before the whole flash presentation that says it's only good for IE browsers.

Knute wrote:

The last few companies I have worked really didn't care if the sites did not work in other browswers because they wanted the functionality that IE provided. Their attitude was "If you want use of our site you need to use IE"...

nuff said,

~ Knute

That sounds like a very poor attitude to take. Sometimes IE isn't even an option (i.e. if you are not using Windows). Sites should at least work in other browser and if it is not law for a site to be accessible in the US then it should be (like it is in the UK). Any customer that does visit that IE site will simply get the product/service from a site that does work.

What functionality does IE offer over the alternatives (apart from ActiveX - which is part of  the reason why IE has so many security holes)?

There is no reason not to design new sites in a cross platform way as most (all?) modern browsers have decent JavaScript support.

I think governments should go after sites that only work in IE. Make site owners liable if their sites does not work for people just because they don't use IE.

Of course if a site is designed for an Intranet where everyone is using IE, it is probably fine to develop sites without taking other browsers into consideration. But what about when more and more users do not use IE, and may even use another OS (Redhat, SuSE, Mac OSX)? You would then have to redesign your entire site.

I say when people move from Windows as I think more and more companies will look at alternative systems (cost reasons, security, applications etc). I cannot see Windows having such a large share even by the Longhorn timeframe. It will probably still have near-monopoly status but perhaps 90% instead of 95%. Only time will tell though.

I'm starting to think it would be good if Firefox took a significant portion of the market (even through I find Open Source devs to be jerks). Then, large companies won't be able to ignore web standards anymore, we'll have World Wide Web War II between Microsoft and Mozilla and in the end, everyone (excluding Open Source) will win.

sbc wrote:

Knute wrote:The last few companies I have worked really didn't care if the sites did not work in other browswers because they wanted the functionality that IE provided. Their attitude was "If you want use of our site you need to use IE"... nuff said, ~ Knute

That sounds like a very poor attitude to take. Sometimes IE isn't even an option (i.e. if you are not using Windows). Sites should at least work in other browser and if it is not law for a site to be accessible in the US then it should be (like it is in the UK). Any customer that does visit that IE site will simply get the product/service from a site that does work.

What functionality does IE offer over the alternatives (apart from ActiveX - which is part of  the reason why IE has so many security holes)?

There is no reason not to design new sites in a cross platform way as most (all?) modern browsers have decent JavaScript support.

I think governments should go after sites that only work in IE. Make site owners liable if their sites does not work for people just because they don't use IE.

Of course if a site is designed for an Intranet where everyone is using IE, it is probably fine to develop sites without taking other browsers into consideration. But what about when more and more users do not use IE, and may even use another OS (Redhat, SuSE, Mac OSX)? You would then have to redesign your entire site.

I say when people move from Windows as I think more and more companies will look at alternative systems (cost reasons, security, applications etc). I cannot see Windows having such a large share even by the Longhorn timeframe. It will probably still have near-monopoly status but perhaps 90% instead of 95%. Only time will tell though.

They have been saying that Linux will overtake windows for a decade now and it only has 1% of the market. I doubt it will have 2% anytime soon.

They have still got some catching up to do with Linux. Specifically:

• Enterprise Managament
• Application Installation (lack of standard installation method, no 'Program Files' directory
• User Interface - could still be improved
• Training - many different distributions to take into account
• Linux versions of Windows Apps (still many apps that are only available on Windows)

The problem is that many custom apps are designed for Windows only, so migrating them to another language may be costly. Some apps don't suffer this issue as some (i.e. those written in Java, Python, Tcl-Tk, SmallTalk, C can often easily be ported to other OS's - as long as they don't use too many Windows specific features).

That is often the expense of moving to Linux. However once there I doubt many move back to Windows - as they have more freedom due to the ability to change to other distributions without many issues. I cannot see how Microsoft could persuade companies that have migrated to move back - they are having to convince people to stick with Windows and it is does not always work.

People have said in the past that Linux would be in a stronger position now. However, due to a lot of recent security problems (some haven't even been fixed yet - Download.Ject fix for IE, not the recent registry fix but a proper fix), the investment and promotion of Linux by large companies, the cost of upgrading and license fees of Windows and the increased awareness of alternatives, people are thinking of moving from Windows.

re "They have been saying that Linux will overtake windows for a decade now and it only has 1% of the market. I doubt it will have 2% anytime soon."

what if Doom 3 was released for Linux - 4 months before windows?

or a breakthrough on the oss side comes to fruition that ms cant replicate. ( perhaps a gnutella for phone calls - free) or something pretty big - something that will save people money and cost them nothing to load)

there is no reason to believe innovation cannot spur the cycle of change to move quicker than in the past

it will just take ONE REALLY good reason - and it could make it to 5 or 10% in a few weeks

..you never know

jamie wrote:

it will just take ONE REALLY good reason - and it could make it to 5 or 10% in a few weeks

not even...That is such a massive shift that it isn't even funny. The complexity level for installing linux is beyond the average user, not to menition even picking a distro. Hell even above average users can have problems installing linux. Linux does need a few killer apps, but what they need more is a unified face for the average user, and to work on just about any hardware that a user has. Until then Linux will stay off of peoples computers, and at best only be a second OS on the power users machine.

Jaz wrote:

about bobby?

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

how many of you produce websites to bobby's standards?  and how many of you actually care?

I care, but I don't....If I can achieve full standards complaince then I will, will I do an extra hour or two worth of work for it? Not if it's not worth it to my clients. I do try to stress to them the need for a standards compliant site, but in the end they pay me, so they make the final call.
I do start from the ground up with standards in mind, and anytime I do something for myself I do it with standards, especially since I don't use IE except for testing.

I guess I should have made myself clear. I CARE, so much so I just went outside and hugged a tree. But my managers who were paying my wages said we don't have time to develop for browsers that have so little market share.

That's just the brass tacks gang. It's all about money. Corporations today could care less about standards if they get in the way of making money quickly.

~ Knute

err.... i don't think you reall understand the site, Booby is all about the disabled not about firefox, mozilla and IE.

I got this from one of the threads on the Wiki

A comment on Linux

http://ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54

and oracle and redhat both flunk the bobby test ;(