Do you support CSS2? What about French? | The Coffeehouse

themaffeo

<rant>

First of all, let me say I’m all for standards. Yup, 100% whole-heartedly support the little guys. Hope everyone starts using them more and more every day – yes, that includes IE.

But allow me to get off the ‘IE-sucks-and-makes-my-site-unreadable’ train at this stop and go no further for the rest of the way is filled with fanatics.

Sites like http://www.meyerweb.com/ and http://www.zeldman.com/ are heavy promoters of standards and equally heavy with their anti-IE sentiments. They, like many others, site the various incompatibilities that IE has with accepted W3C standards. In order to prove we should care to bother that a website renders perfectly in Firefox, Opra or Safari, the accepted reason is that a ‘business cannot afford to cut off 5-10% of their customers.’ They go on to say that spending countless hours in anguish over whether to use a transitional or strict document type or contemplating the use of over is that in the long run going to provide much more money through added business. No argument from me here. I would never tell expect a business to summarily write off part of their consumer base. But the argument itself is based of a lie. I have seen sites that render poorly in Mozilla compared to IE, but I’ve seen precious few that didn’t display at all. In addition, while the ‘holier-then-thou’ sages on the mount decry the few users who do get abandoned, they completely ignore an even larger audience:

Is there a copy of your site in a different language? According to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm as well as other well documented sources, English is not the only language of the web. In fact, only 36.3% of web users have English as their primary language – yes while all the monkies are screaming that your page might not render correctly to the 8% of users who don’t use IE, over 70% of users have difficulty with you page for a completely different, more basic reason – they don’t speak your language.

Sure, many people are bi-lingual, but even though you might have taken 4 semesters of Spanish in High School, do you find it a seamless transition to Spanish only web sites?

Oh, I hear you screaming: ‘What about online translators!’ For people who complain that IE bumps your div item 3px over to the right I’m surprised you would even suggest such a mangling tool. Watch what happens when a simple paragraph from Zeldmen’s own site is translated into French, and then back into English:

“Last year, a friend with no knowledge of HTML, eager to create her first website, asked me to recommend a book that would help her learn what she needed to know. Nothing in my web design library fit the bill. All the books I owned (and a couple I’d written) presumed a certain amount of knowledge and experience. And books targeted at absolute beginners were filled with bad, mid-1990s advice. My friend asked for help and I could not provide it.”

Now using world.altavista.com (babelfish) we translate to French then back to English to result in:

“L'année last, a friend without the knowledge of the HTML, eager to create its first Web site, required me to recommend a book which l'aiderait to learn this qu'elle had to know. Nothing in my library design d'enchaînement n'a adapted the invoice. All the had books j'ai (and a couple that I writes) supposed a certain quantity of knowledge and d'expérience. And of the books aimed to the absolute beginners were filled of bad, council of medium of the Nineties. My friend asked for l'aide and I could not provide it”

The point is, we all know IE has some rendering problems. I know this, you know this, MSFT knows this and probably even your grandma. However, let’s stop complaining that the incompatibilities are effecting marketing of our websites unless we are intent on also providing multiple translations as well.

</rant>

bishfish

Could not agree more!

Seems to me some of the CSS fanatics have lost all peripheral vision; what is that old quote: "A fanatic is one who having lost sight of his objective, redoubles his effort."

Harping on about standards is wasted space, there is a standard that 90% of the world uses, it has 'IE' in front of it - live with it.

Keskos

Beer28 wrote:
take matters into your own hands. Get a copy of VC++6 or 7 and fireup an SDI application template and start painting away with CPen and CBrush to display HTML and CSS code.

MS can make as good or as bad products as they want, and they usually do. You however can make software however you want.

Better yet just use firefox, I use it and it works well. Do you really think MS coders are losing sleep over their lack of adherance to standards? I think they are proud of it, or something. Their coders strike me as people that feel they are above standards or are not bound to them in interviews. Or they feel that their code is better for not having followed standards. That may not be the case, but it's the impression that I get by seeing them on video and reading transcripts. When your OS is as widely used as Microsoft's nothing that trivial is going to effect the bottom line, because ordinary users don't care.

I've run into IE display problems like everybody else when coding up web content.

It is absolutely false if you claim that only IE is non-standard. It is, simply put, a fanatic view which simply makes absolutely false accusations. You can't prove that IE programmers are proud of their software as it is and you can never ever prove that IE intentionally made mistakes. I urge you to backup your claims with facts, rather than your observations. If you are making a serious claim you should be able to back it up instead of simply making the accusation. You can't even prove that there is a completely standard complaint browser, because there is none. It is one thing to criticize IE and point to problems, it is another thing to make up stories about IE and its programmers. Opera also doesn't adhere to standards. Right now I have a page with css and html only, no javascript whatsoever, validator validates it, the damn opera doesn't show it properly. It messes up float:left and float:right. Are Opera programmers proud to be non-standard complaint? I don't think so. I think it is simply too hard to implement a browser.

I think the problem is again just another Microsoft bashing. With no credibility and no responsibility people will never stop making false accusations.

warren
atom heart mother

Beer28 wrote:
Do you shine their shoes in your spare time?

at any rate, here's a good link for people to browse

http://www.w3.org/

The W3C seems intent on making HTML and CSS *more difficult* with every iteration. They promote concepts like "separation of style and content", as if it were the One True Way, when there are millions of average people who really don't care about that sort of thing... they just want to put some text, pictures and links on a personal webpage... this *used* to be easier under, say, HTML 3.2 which supported tags like , but no, that had to be deprecated in favour of promoting a more conceptually difficult and more complex system.

Have you read, for example, sections 9 and 10 of the CSS 2.1 spec? Merely the subject of placement of objects has become so convoluted and bloated, that it loses sight of what the point is.

Or how about CSS 3, which is five years in the making AND STILL NOT DONE? They aren't even writing software!

In short, the W3C is taking it's sweet-ass time to deliver standards that very few people care about. Users visit websites for their content, not based on whether or not the developers used CSS2 or 3 or XHTML or whatever. Many of the world's most popular websites (everything from the BBC to Homestar Runner) aren't "valid" according to the W3C, and that proves without a doubt, that they aren't relevant. People should stop worshipping at the feet of Tim Berners-Lee and got on with making websites people want to visit.

Keskos

warren wrote:
Beer28 wrote:Do you shine their shoes in your spare time?

at any rate, here's a good link for people to browse

http://www.w3.org/

The W3C seems intent on making HTML and CSS *more difficult* with every iteration. They promote concepts like "separation of style and content", as if it were the One True Way, when there are millions of average people who really don't care about that sort of thing... they just want to put some text, pictures and links on a personal webpage... this *used* to be easier under, say, HTML 3.2 which supported tags like , but no, that had to be deprecated in favour of promoting a more conceptually difficult and more complex system.

Have you read, for example, sections 9 and 10 of the CSS 2.1 spec? Merely the subject of placement of objects has become so convoluted and bloated, that it loses sight of what the point is.

Or how about CSS 3, which is five years in the making AND STILL NOT DONE? They aren't even writing software!

In short, the W3C is taking it's sweet-ass time to deliver standards that very few people care about. Users visit websites for their content, not based on whether or not the developers used CSS2 or 3 or XHTML or whatever. Many of the world's most popular websites (everything from the BBC to Homestar Runner) aren't "valid" according to the W3C, and that proves without a doubt, that they aren't relevant. People should stop worshipping at the feet of Tim Berners-Lee and got on with making websites people want to visit.

I agree html become harder and harder for average users and average users still do not have tools to visually and reliably edit html pages in the new iterations. W3C is shooting itself in the foot, and watch those who will cry wolf and accuse Microsoft again for their own faults. The XHTML has zero chance of surviving in real world.

Watch how people react when they read all the hype that somehow they have to support standards to be morally correct, whereas those who try to pressure you to move to "standards" will make tons of money by making a simple page in 10 days just to be "standard complaint". This is a big scam. Even those "standards" guys have no clue what they are doing. They are good at one thing only and that's Microsoft bashing. There are few people who honestly believe in standards, but they say the same things as the other zealots who simply try to make as much money as possible.

Dr. Shim
Inaniloquent monomathical people inlapidate me.

I agree with the original post. This is a very interesting point, indeed!

I am dissapointed with the countless arguments over which browser is ethically more sound. Whether it renders style-sheets this way or that, and how bad that is.

Our customer's could not care any less about these trivial things! Who is our intended audience, as Web developers? Not the guys who worry about DIV tags! There are tones of technologies out there to create a Web site! Why are we bothering with HTML in the first place?

Vladimir

Allow me to introduce myself. I have been invloved with web development since the version 3 browsers, so i hope i speak with some sort of experience. As it stands at the moment, i use FireFox. reason, i think it's a better browser. Fact, it supports style sheets better. Fact, it supports the w3c DOM better.

I did use IE, reason, it was the most stable browser.

However, times have changed. The Mozilla project have produced a pretty damn good browser, whilest, Microsoft have sat back and done nothing. This is a big shame, When IE4 came out, i spoke of nothing but praise towards it. You could even say I was guilty of Netscape bashing. But my veiw towards IE has changed recently, Yes, IE is a good browser, it hasn't significantly changed for years, proving when it was rewritten, Microsoft did a good job.

As far as standards go, let me make one point. The W3C Specifications are exactly that, Specifitions. They aren't rules that all browsers must render exactly the same, they are more like guides. Having said that though, even you IE fans must surely realise that in order for the web to move forward, everyone has to be reading from the same manual!

Blogs by Meyer and Zeldman aren't there to promote Mozilla, or IE. They are there to form some kind of forward thinking disscusion. Instead of critising them for anti Microsoft-IE statements, try joing in the disscusions, that way, everyone can try and get on.

As for the W3C, there specifications aren't really targeted at todays web. In years to come, the internet isn't only going to be on computers, it will be on phones, fridges, tv, watches, advertising billboards, books, everywhere. The W3C know this, and are trying to do something about it now. Microsoft, also know this, but if they do something now, it won't gain them any market share. It would be unprofitable. Fair enough, Microsoft is a company and needs to make money.

This isn't Microsoft bashing is it? However, Microsoft do need to wake up and start re-developing IE

OrderedList

To be honest, I can understand where you're coming from. It was hard for me to make the eventual switch to standards because that meant letting go of some habits and methods that I had become accustomed to. But what I find interesting is that it seems you truly believe that the progression of the web to standards is some conspiracy to make their lives more difficult, or to put themselves on a pedestal. This is simply not the case. Standards exist to prolong the usage and usability of the web. Just imagine if every model of video card produced had a different port to connect to a monitor. Monitor manufacturers would have to create different monitors for each manufacturer, or even model lines, or at least produce adapters for them all. It's simply more effective and efficient to engineer to standards. Do you have to adopt them? Not at all. But the benefits, in my opinion, far outweigh the cost of learning and progressing in your own field of work!

And not to be picky, but last I checked 100% - 36.3% was 63.7%, and not over 70%.

themaffeo

OrderedList wrote:

It's simply more effective and efficient to engineer to standards. Do you have to adopt them? Not at all. But the benefits, in my opinion, far outweigh the cost of learning and progressing in your own field of work!

Let me be clear. I don't have a thing against standards. If you read my opening sentance I thought I was putting that concept first and foremost. My 'rant' - if you will - was directed at the people who post messages complaining how microsoft is making it impossible for them to reach their audiance/develop a good website/call their mother - or whatever.

And yes, I do try to make sure I come pretty close to the HTML Transitional spec when I develop sites - but if my page doesn't completely validate because 'backround isn't an element of whatever' then I'm not gonna beat myself over the head.

OrderedList wrote:

And not to be picky, but last I checked 100% - 36.3% was 63.7%, and not over 70%.

Whops. I guess those college math courses didn't do their job. Go figure, I can find the area under a curve but not subtract. Sheesh. I guess I should edit my original post but stuff like that is to funny to take out. =)

Blkbam
Bam, Bam! Bam, Bam Bam!

Dr. Shim wrote:

Our customer's could not care any less about these trivial things! Who is our intended audience, as Web developers? Not the guys who worry about DIV tags! There are tones of technologies out there to create a Web site! Why are we bothering with HTML in the first place?

warren wrote:

Users visit websites for their content, not based on whether or not the developers used CSS2 or 3 or XHTML or whatever. Many of the world's most popular websites (everything from the BBC to Homestar Runner) aren't "valid" according to the W3C, and that proves without a doubt, that they aren't relevant. People should stop worshipping at the feet of Tim Berners-Lee and got on with making websites people want to visit.

This is the bottom line right here and now. Clients and users. I've heard all the talk from web developers about standards and lack there of but no one is ever talking about what the "USERS" and "CLIENTS" want. (I don't know if I can stress that any more than that.)

Never once have I seen a blog entry or post from one of those two points of view asking for a change. Those are the people who "PAY" for the content, clients at least, to exist on the web. Though they want it accessible to all, they understand that it won't happen so what to they ask, "Get it out to as many as possible." Even the most non-technical of my clients can grasp this concept.

Me billing my client an extra 5 or so hours to make a site standardized is not only wasteful but seems like a tactic by me to squeeze an extra buck.

My point is not to write bad code, my point is to use what works for right now. If you care about what code your site uses that much, do like the programmers did when frames and javascript support wasn't always available and write two pages or maybe three. What ever you need to tickle your fancy.

Rather than cry from the heavens that this browser doesn't do this or that do something about it. Write your own browsers and implement whatever standards you feel is necessary. As stated in the original post, how many of you so called "Standards are a must!" people offer multiple languages on your pages or even use alt tags accurately to display for disable people. How many of you actually change the size of you browser text just to see how it affects your pages.

I'm all for standards too but I don't think you can just turn on a switch and turn off sites that currently work. Yes it would be nice if all of the browsers rendered the same way but you know what, they don't. Each has it's own set of inconsistencies and glitches and I know that FF's problems will become more and more clear as more people use it. Don't believe me, check their forums.

I use both IE and FF. My clients clients are mostly on IE but I don't ignore the possibility that some may be on FF or some other browser so I test on as many as possible. FF has good dev tools built in. Other than that I could care less about the browser.

Jim Dabell

I believe some of the points raised in this thread are common misconceptions.

1. Internet Explorer doesn't follow the specifications, neither does Firefox. It's unfair to criticise Microsoft!

Firefox supports virtually all of the CSS 2 specification.
Internet Explorer supports about half of the specification.

The Firefox developers work on fixing rendering bugs they find.
The Internet Explorer developers haven't worked on its CSS support in about three years.

If Internet Explorer supported CSS to the same degree as its contemporaries, you wouldn't see so much criticism of it. It is completely fair to judge Internet Explorer's rendering engine harshly against engines like Gecko.

2. Not everyone can speak English; if your website isn't multilingual, that matters more than browser compatibility, and you are hypocritical if you promote browser compatibility if you don't have a multilingual website.

That depends upon your target demographic and the ease of translation. There are massive amounts of websites that are only aimed at a (reasonably) local community. It is unreasonable to expect these types of websites to be multilingual in the same sense that it is unreasonable to expect people you meet on the street to be able to converse in any arbitrary language.

Furthermore, making something compatible with most browsers is a case of "don't screw up". It's fairly easy. Making something multilingual is either a case of taking courses for years beforehand or spending money on a translator every time you update your website. Neither of these are realistic options for personal and small organisation websites.

3. The W3C are slow - CSS 3 still isn't done!

CSS 3 is a group of specifications, not just a single one. As of writing this comment, 10 of these specifications are ready to be implemented, and browsers like Firefox are in the process of doing so.

Popular websites are not valid, therefore validity is unimportant.

That's faulty logic. It shows that validity is not a necessary property of a popular website. It doesn't show that validity is not a desirable property of a popular website.

For example, if your website is invalid, but displays okay in most major browsers, you may think that's okay. But if a search engine has trouble parsing your website because its syntax is off, that will be an unnecessary impediment to your website becoming popular.

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

Damn... my trollmeter keeps pegging while I read this thread.

NO browser is 100% standards-compliant. The standards are an ideal that will never be attained.

It is the responsibility of the web developer to stick to the standards as much as possible.
It is the responsibility of the browser engineer to stick to the standards as much as possible.
If everyone does their job the user will be happy.

That being said, here's my IE wish list:
* 24-bit PNG transparency support
* position: fixed
* Provide an equivalent version for Mac/Unix/Linux (those three are all one big OS now, guys)
* Stop making up proprietary features - go through the W3C (scrollbar-face-color, indeed... chroma(), indeed... <!if[raining()]> indeed...)

themaffeo

Maurits wrote:

It is the responsibility of the web developer to stick to the standards as much as possible.
It is the responsibility of the browser engineer to stick to the standards as much as possible.
If everyone does their job the user will be happy.

Nicely put.

In addition, I may have misrepresented www.myerweb.com as can be seen through this post: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2004/08/19/public-rabidity/

Although for the record, I'm not rabid. I get my shots regularly.

Oh, and for the sake of fairness:
http://kbreit.dyndns.org:8080/archives/000810.html
Has a nice rebuttal of my argument. He has a good point - but I still think i'm right. (naturally) =)

brookswilliams

warren wrote:

The W3C seems intent on making HTML and CSS *more difficult* with every iteration. They promote concepts like "separation of style and content", as if it were the One True Way, when there are millions of average people who really don't care about that sort of thing... they just want to put some text, pictures and links on a personal webpage... this *used* to be easier under, say, HTML 3.2 which supported tags like , but no, that had to be deprecated in favour of promoting a more conceptually difficult and more complex system.

Have you read, for example, sections 9 and 10 of the CSS 2.1 spec? Merely the subject of placement of objects has become so convoluted and bloated, that it loses sight of what the point is.

Or how about CSS 3, which is five years in the making AND STILL NOT DONE? They aren't even writing software!

In short, the W3C is taking it's sweet-ass time to deliver standards that very few people care about. Users visit websites for their content, not based on whether or not the developers used CSS2 or 3 or XHTML or whatever. Many of the world's most popular websites (everything from the BBC to Homestar Runner) aren't "valid" according to the W3C, and that proves without a doubt, that they aren't relevant. People should stop worshipping at the feet of Tim Berners-Lee and got on with making websites people want to visit.

First, just because a tag is depreciated in a newer version of X/HTML, it doesn't mean that modern browsers like Mozilla, Safari, or Opera won't render it properly. You can write a document in HTML 3.2 if you want to. Nobody is going to kill you for doing so.

People get agrivated with Microsoft because THEY HELPED WRITE THE SPEC and then they didn't follow it.

I often write specs for my work and I've found that even the messiest parts of the X/HTML are cleaner and easier to understand than most of my work. That is why it takes so long. They want to get it right.

I am a web designer and I use Firefox as my default browser. It is a better browser that IE right now. I wouldn't use IE at all if I had a choice. After IE gets an upgrade, then I will consider moving back to IE. But for now, I am strictly in the Mozilla camp.

DMassy
Driving!

This is an interesting discussion so I thought I'd jump in from the IE team and add a few thoughts of my own. On the IE team we acknowledge that we have fallen behind in some areas of support for W3C recommendations when compared to other browsers. As Maurits stated thought no browser is 100% compliant with all the W3C recommendations. Our focus on Internet Explorer has always been implementing functionality that allow web developers to build powerful solutions.

A few comments on Maurits' request list:

24-bit PNG transparency support
We have certainly heard the feedback here and are looking carefully at how we can complete this work. In the meantime I blogged about this and some possible workarounds. We understand that these workarounds are not perfect but can at least allow some use of this feature.
position: fixed
We'll certainly be looking at this amongst other requests as we move forward. Dean Edwards has posted some great work to help in this area with what he calls IE7. Again we understand that these worarounds are not perfect but they can ease some of the pain here.
Provide an equivalent version for Mac/Unix/Linux (those three are all one big OS now, guys)
I have to set your expectation low there I'm afraid. It'd be interesting to understand the reasons behind this request though.
Stop making up proprietary features - go through the W3C (scrollbar-face-color, indeed... chroma(), indeed... <!if[raining()]> indeed...)
Many of the items we have implemented over the years are in direct response to requests from customers who are building real world solutions. Sometimes these items then make their way into recommendations such as aspects of the DOM and sometimes they do not. We specifically note in every reference page for IE on MSDN if functionality falls within a recommendation or not so that developers can be aware when they are using functionality that falls outside a particular recommendation.

Our primary focus recently has been around security and you can see the results of that in Windows XP SP2. As we move forward we certainly want to pay attention to easing some of the pain that web developers are feeling. Of course the Wiki for Internet Explorer is a great place to leave feedback and suggestions and be sure that the Internet Explorer team will see it.
Thanks
-Dave Massy
Program Management Team
Internet Explorer

DMassy
Driving!

Hi Beer28,
We have no plans at this time to offer Internet Explorer on these platforms. At one stage there was indeed a version of Internet Explorer for some flavors of Unix but this was discontinued long ago due to lack of customer demand.
Thanks
-Dave

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

DMassy wrote:

Provide an equivalent version for Mac/Unix/Linux (those three are all one big OS now, guys)<>
I have to set your expectation low there I'm afraid. It'd be interesting to understand the reasons behind this request though.<>

I was afraid so. Smiley

Seems to be a corollary of the "IE is part of Windows" postulate.

Here's my reasoning.
Despite the ideals of the standards, many web developers are going to opt to code for "whatever works for most people". In fact, some web developers are going to code for "whatever works on my machine at the time I write the code."
If the web developer is running Windows XP/IE6 at 1024x768, their page will look nice for every one else running Windows XP/IE6 at 1024x768. Great. But there's still fair percentage of people running IE5.5 so any IE6-isms in the page might not work as expected.
That's fine, if anyone complains, tell them to upgrade to IE6. Problem solved.
When Longhorn/"IE 7" comes out, some rendering behavior may change causing the page to look funny. This usually happens when a bug is fixed - any code that relied on the buggy behavior then breaks. That's fine - rewrite the code to work in "IE 7". When the thousands of users of Windows XP/IE6 complain, tell them to upgrade. Problem (sort of) solved.
But here's the big problem. What about people who run Macs? Or other flavors of Linux or Unix? They're up a certain creek without a paddle. If they complain, what does the support department tell them? "Upgrade to IE 6." "I can't, there isn't an IE 6 for Mac." "Oh yeah, that's right. Well, deal with it as best you can then." "But I can't add this product to my cart because 'Add to Cart' isn't responding to my mouse." "Sorry, but we designed our cart to work in the most popular browser. Get a Windows machine." "But I spent $2000 on my Mac and I want to buy your product." "Sorry, you'll have to go to our competitor whose website is more standards-friendly."

See? If your browser 90% of the market, developers will code to your peculiarities. Users who can't use your browser won't be able to make use of services that depend on your peculiarities.

I can see how this is a Good Thing (tm) from Microsoft's perspective - but from a support perspective you're turning away money because your developers are lazy (or tempted by proprietary features.)

Dr. Shim
Inaniloquent monomathical people inlapidate me.

This was an interesting discussion. I really liked how it started out. I believe the point was, does my client care about how standards-compliant their page is? No. They want it to meet their expectations. I find it hard to argue this, because in the last analysis, they are the one's who pay you, and determine wether the job has been done sucessfully. (Or not.)

If 80% of all their users use Internet Explorer 5.5, then you will gear the site towards this user-agent. If it is for Mozilla 1.1, then you will build the site for that agent. People use what helps them. As much as we love technology and respect standards, the bottom line is that the user is king.

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

Dr. Shim wrote:
If 80% of all their users use Internet Explorer 5.5, then you will gear the site towards this user-agent. If it is for Mozilla 1.1, then you will build the site for that agent. People use what helps them. As much as we love technology and respect standards, the bottom line is that the user is king.

I can't tell you how strongly I disagree with this logic. First of all it's self-referential. If Safari users can't use your site, guess what, they won't come back.
What if the highway system worked this way? "80% of all users of this road drove small cars, so we made the lanes narrower." No, you agree upon a set of rules, and everyone tries to follow them as best they can.

RaisinBread

Your argument is fallacious. The 'language of the web' is easy to conform to. There *can* be some things that we all agree on. IE has decided not to agree to play nicely with what others have called standards. You can't standardize all communication. There's no *standard* to apply to. French is a different way of communicating something. Nothing is inherently wrong with using French instead of English. You might as well tell everyone else that they need to adhere to a new English standard. Eric's website complies to *standards* set by recognized Internet entities. IE does not. It adheres to English standards (within reason, I'm sure) and it also applies to other standards (XHTML, CSS, etc.). Don't cry wolf because he doesn't adhere to French standards. He's not French (least I don't think he is.... I'm totally wrong if he is). You might as well call him hypocritical for not offering braille or audio-only versons of his site. I bet he even references non-metric measurements too... *gasp* He's not complying to those standards either!! And what does marketability have to do with anything? If you want to market the French, you write according to french standards. If you want to measure your Mars probe, you decide on a standard. If you want to write a browser to search the web, you should adhere to the standards.

rh2600

So let me get this straight... It took you all that just to point out that there are other languages used on the web? Wow...

As you begin to point out in paragraph 6, the point of increased standards support is actually pivotal to being able to easily develop multilingual sites. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Gotta love that last line though, by that rational the whole Longhorn Team shouldn't bother fixing any bugs in the release until there is a version for every language in the world. Nice one.

I don't think its very polite to describe Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman (they are people, not just sites, some respect please) as monkies.

Posts like this continue to make channel9 look like a naive astroturfing effort brought down by its own contributor's trolls.

You just keep defensively navel gazing, while the rest of us get on with making the web a better place for developors and users of all languages.

Keep up the good work.

themaffeo

People continue to miss the first line of my post:

“First of all, let me say I’m all for standards. Yup, 100% whole-heartedly support the little guys. Hope everyone starts using them more and more every day – yes, that includes IE.”

I would ask that people would please not confuse other’s posts with mine.

I will take RaisinBreads reproof in stride, as it seems to be another version of the rebuff I posted earlier: http://kbreit.dyndns.org:8080/archives/000810.html The argument is logical, even quite sound – but lets just say I believe that lingual communication is just as important as graphical communication

Rh2600: Your message saddens me a little as I was not trying to be rude – though I may have come across as such. (hence the ‘rant’ tag warnings) I did not refer, or at least mean to refer to Either Zeldman or Meyer as ‘monkies’ – though I admit after re-reading my first post I can understand how you might make that connection. Let me say that I have great respect for the technical abilities of both Zeldman and Meyer – though I may not fully agree with their opinions at all times. I even went so far as to link back to two posts rebutting my original post, one of them from Meyer himself.

I do not wish to be overly repetitive, but I fully believe in standards - W3C and otherwise. My intent was to show a few, yet vocal zealots – who’s post I have been reading over the past few months – that while they are focused on a 5% margin, their web site may be inaccessible to an even larger percentage.

I’m sorry if I seriously offended anyone – if you are not a ‘rabid’ zelot – please ignore the post as it was not directed at you nor your friends.

In any event, in your collective fury against my original post please remember: 1) I believe in standards 2) I believe in realistic uses of standards not zelotry.

There is really have nothing more to say on the subject - at least from my end.

rh2600

Great,

So lets conclude this by :

1. Re-iterating that multiple language sites are a great idea.

2. The best tools to utilise to efficiently and effectively develop websites in multiple languages would be CSS and XHTML.

3. These tools work best when they work consistently to a standard.

Bring on more standards compliance in IE! Smiley

That just leaves us have to consider the ramifications of the vastly varying sizes of copy in different languages. Ever tried redesigning an english page into german? Yikes, there's like twice as much text!

philmc

Me billing my client an extra 5 or so hours to make a site standardized is not only wasteful but seems like a tactic by me to squeeze an extra buck.

Actually, if you made your client's site standards-based, using (x)html and css, they would probably save much more money in bandwidth charges over the lifetime of the site than you had charged them for the extra time.

manickernel
anticipate consequences..

Beer28 wrote:
Do you shine their shoes in your spare time?

... and cheerfully cleans the urinals in Redmond.