Flutterby™! : Zeldman bashing clarification 2001-02-21 00:47:35+00

Zeldman bashing clarification

2001-02-21 00:47:35+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

A clarification on my Zeldman and Siegel bashing. If Zeldman were calling for the adoption of HTML4 and for the rest of us to autodetect people using Netscape 4.x browsers and tell them to turn JavaScript off, I'd be singing his praises. Upgrading browsers is not the right way to solve the problem. Upgrading the mindset of the designers and the publishers is.

It's not simply a matter of turning JavaScript off in Netscape 4, unfortunately. If you visit WedLog with Netscape 4, JavaScript turned off, and CSS on, you'll crash.

You'll crash because N4 crashes on perfectly valid CSS and HTML. So what are people supposed to do? Stop using HTML 4? Stop using CSS? All we can do is tell people that if they're using N4, they're either getting a crappy version of the Web, or there's just going to be certain pages that they can't get to at all.

BTW, it's not a Zeldman thing. This was a call for action by the Web Standards Project as a whole (of which I'm proud to be a Steering Committee member).

The versions of Netscape 4.x I've got lying around here work just fine visiting WedLog with JavaScript turned off and CSS turned on. Although the preferences box doesn't indicate this in any way, turning off JavaScript in Netscape 4.x effectively turns off CSS.

I call "red herring". I've checked WedLog with 4.08/Windows, 4.76/Windows and 4.76/Linux with JavaScript turned off and CSS turned on and had zero problems. In fact this is being typed in on 4.76/Windows after just having visited WedLog

I can continue the testing if you'd like, but I think you're confusing the issues.

(Further note: Dori and I are having an email discussion about Netscape versions, the true costs of upgrading, and the Web Standards Organization versus Zeldman. Maybe there'll be a summary here if we reach any conclusions.)

Can anyone point me to a precis? I'm about to have to care (6 big websites worth), and I'm a netscape patriot; it wouldn't do me to create things people can't see.

If you head over to A List Apart there are a bunch of articles on the types of differences that Dori has issues with.

In general, though, if you don't try to fuck with the user experience in unreasonable ways you'll do just fine. If you think you're smarter than the user at choosing things that users should get to set, you'll run into problems.

Given that most companies think their users are morons who should be dictated to, if you're building a commercial site you're hosed and need to learn all the subtle differences now.