[plug] police & nurses credit society netlink page

[Onno Benschop]

It is entirely possible that I misread the message from Simon, but I'm
pretty sure I got it right. If no, apologies in advance.

On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 10:16, Simon Scott wrote:
> Its a very good idea to try to determine the capabilities of the browser so 
> you dont send unrenderable crap, and can safely use the more advanced 
> features of some of the browsers. I think everyone should at least have a 
> text only version, a basic HTML version, and then a more advanced version 
> with js etc. XML and XSL will help you with this too.

No, this is IMHO rubbish.

Un-render-able crap is a function of pandering to stupid browsers. You
can create completely usable websites/applications that do not require
Javascript/et-al to function.


> The main problem is that developers dont test on all the different browsers, 
> and thus have no idea of the capabilities of the majority of them.

That's because every stupid moron with some idea of "the better browser"
can and does decide to make a new web browser. They don't adhere to
standards and expect the web-developer to address their specific crap
requirement.

As a web developer of many years it is completely unreasonable to expect
that I maintain a database of some 40 browsers to check my web
application. I write my code so that it produces simple HTML which
renders in any table compatible browser.

Is this a perfect solution? By no means, but it makes that the user base
is as wide as it can be.

Will I write code that can only be used by XYZ browser? Only if the user
on the other end requires it, otherwise I'll be staying right away from
that.


> Also, there are few resources on the net that give a true, independent evaluation 
> of each browser and lays it out in an easy to read format.... if someone 
> finds this let me know :)

There used to be something like this. It would visit the URL you
specified and render it using a browser specified by you. But it's been
a looooong time since I saw that and I've not been looking lately.


> Then again, I doubt very much that these yahoos would bother to try to support 
> other browsers in that way.

I'm thinking that you're shooting off your mouth here and "as one of
those yahoos", I'll refrain from shooting you down in flames.


> ... something else must be corrupting the html.... 
> has anyone ever tested the output of IIS based on the browser ID you send it? 
> ;)

> How does the pncs site html differ with the 2 different browser IDs?

The same way the UniCredit site does. Some extra Javascript appears to
be sent, but that's been all I've been able to determine...


Onno Benschop 

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