May 30, 2000

5:27 PM

could we have expected anything less? man, visualize whirled peas (one whirled, one browser)...
posted by cadence (8 comments total)

I don't get it?

I thought it was "well known" that NS 6 would have non-compatible DHTML, since it was being coded to the W3 DOM and not to the current NS4 / IE4 models.
posted by adamv at 5:39 PM on May 30, 2000

I don't get it either. Mainly because I program DHTML every day and already made a workaround. Basically it's like having a 3rd browser out with a 3rd DOM. Now instead of branching between IE and Netscape, it's IE, NN4, and NN6. Big whoop.

I think the ones who are scared by all this are the ones who are writing shitty (difficult to maintain) code. It was obvious to me long ago that the browsers were going to change at some point. Those who write easily maintainable code should have no real trouble switching to NN6 as far as I can tell.
posted by vitaflo at 6:17 PM on May 30, 2000

It was, but it's not to the large number of people who claim they "know" DHTML but really just cut and paste everything.

Sadly, lots of scripting authors don't actually understand programming, and adding a new DOM and new methods to the mix are going to make them crash big time. Though I'm not sure the ones who need it are going to be seeing the news on internetnews.com or NetMechanic, frankly.
posted by teradome at 9:16 PM on May 30, 2000

i do a lot of 'laundry' work, unfortunately. for me, this is going to mean that i get a lot of crap i *didn't* code that I will have to rewrite.
posted by cadence at 9:27 PM on May 30, 2000

The worst part about this FUD piece, IMHO, is that "Netscape 6" isn't even done yet. It's a few months away. If you want to know how it's going, check out Mozilla, where code is being fixed and added 'round-the-clock. Sheesh.

Ditto on the cut-and-pasters. More web authors should learn the HTML/CSS/etc. specs first, know what's possible, then create their own stuff. The more complex this stuff gets, the less useful "view source" becomes.
posted by creon at 1:26 AM on May 31, 2000

Well, Netscape 6 isn't being done by the Mozilla team -- I thought they pulled a beta and began adding stuff to make it a Navigator/Communicator bundle. Which isn't to say that it won't be debugged.
posted by dhartung at 10:35 AM on May 31, 2000

This article is marketing crap. Target audience: misinformed closet luddites masquerading as, big air-quotes, web developers. "Why learn the specs? Buy our diagnostics tools!" Hope the mouthbreather who wrote the "article" got a nice kickback from NetMechanic...

I think Netscape's doing a *very* brave and noble thing by saying goodbye to bugwards-compatibility and should be *applauded*, not made into Bad Guys, for dragging the web kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Can't believe this article didn't even touch on that. Incompatibility my ass.
posted by Sapphireblue at 11:16 AM on May 31, 2000