Slashdot Mirror
MozillaZine Editorial On Netscape Criticism
RAD Kade 1 writes "An editorial on mozillazine.org is criticizing recent criticism against Netscape. Netscape stories will also no longer be posted on mozillazine.org, only Mozilla-related items."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The WSP is the Web Standards Project. They've posted a criticism of MozillaZine's criticism of Flanagan's original criticism.
Our site is down, because our host's network has been overrun. Hopefully it will be back up later today. --chris http://www.mozillazine.org/
Great site! From what i can see on the css bug page, mozilla has *far* more of the happy green boxes than ie5. In fact, a few of the smaller tables it is the only one with all green (eg: box sizing properties).
:)
Funnily enough, going to the site in konqueror rendered a white page with a few colored lines, and white text (on a white background)
As it is, web developers will have to deal with NS4 bugs for years to come.
Your point being? We've had to deal with bugs and incompatibilities in IE and Netscape both for years, and bitched and moaned about it the whole time. Finally Netscape puts out a browser that is standards compliant (or will be once the bugs are worked out), and you're bitching about that too? If they had put out an intermediate release, it wouldn't have made the situation any better. It still wouldn't be standards compliant. You still would've had to rework your existing apps to use it, and you'd still have to do it again when NS6 was released.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
An intermediate release should have supported the existing standards that NS4 tried to support before tackling anything more difficult
Had they tried to make a standards-compliant release before devoting their effort to Mozilla, we'd still be at least a year away from seeing a stable, fully functional release of Mozilla. Mozilla was originally based on the Netscape 4 code-base, but that was scrapped after about a year when they decided that it was just too unwieldy to work with. Then they started from scratch to build what we know as Mozilla today.
They shouldn't have tried to implement new standards until they had released a browser that didn't butcher the existing ones.
What new standards? They've been getting the support for the oldest standards down first and then moving forward from there. Yes, they've been adding features and stuff as well, but when you've got a lot of developers working for free, and the rest working to produce something that consumers will want to use, you pretty much have to add the features. They could crank out a browser that adheres to standards, but doesn't have many features, and then nobody would want to use it, so it wouldn't really be helping anyone. Better to just let them get the final product out when it's finished. Maybe it will serve as an incentive for Microsoft to finally start adhering to standards as well.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That is my point - the first release after opening the source should have been to simply let web developers write standards-compliant code without hobbling their code and writing convoluted workarounds for Netscape.
That's what they were planning as I understand it. The problem was that the existing code sucked and was proving to be unworkable, so they scrapped it and started over. Maybe they could have kept at it until they got it to at least the point where IE is (which still isn't very good), but the end product would still be crap due to the fact that the codebase sucked. Look how often Netscape crashes. I am glad they decided to start over and do it right.
Microsoft have released three revisions of Internet Explorer since Mozilla was opened, and each one of them supported HTML, CSS and DOM better than Netscape.
And yet no version of IE really supports the standards completely, and the Windows version doesn't even come within sight of full support.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
eh?
The same people who are saying that Netscape 6 shouldn't be released because it isn't standards compliant are the same people who just recently said that Netscape should've released an interim browser between 4.7x and 6.x that at least implemented some standards.
What's increasingly becoming important, though, is that the people doing this criticism are not programmers. They are web developers. mozillaZine's stance is largely taken because the people doing the majority of the flaming are not people actively involved in bettering the project. They're like Monday morning quarterbacks.
FWIW, I've been using the Mozilla nightly builds for at least 6 months and they've been, for the most part, rock-solid. Yes, every once in a while something crops up stylesheets or the DOM (there's a particularly annoying bug right now where DOM form objects contain element entries from other DOM form objects), but for the most part, the code is solid, and some of the improvements (like incrememtal table display) are beautiful to use.
If you do get it running, visit one or two simple websites and check the memory/CPU utilization in the Task Monitor. Be careful not to misinterpret the numbers.
This is the most bloated software I have ever seen... and it doesn't appear to be leaking. This triples Lotus Notes R5 with the Client and Designer running!!!
The Virtual Memory utilization creeps up to 100MB, and judging by the sluggish performance of my machine, and how long it takes to bring up the process when it has been idle for a few hours, I have no reason to believe that these numbers are not a close reflection of the truth. Right now, with six windows open, and my mail open with over 20 MB of mail, Netscape 4.7 shows less than 14MB in use.
I can't even read newsgroups in mozilla, the video refresh on a P-Pro 200 w. 128MB of RAM is unbearable. It is as sluggish as 256 colours on an unaccelerated ISA video card.
I keep hoping this all gets cleared up before release, but there is no indication of it. While it appears to be a very slick product, and in many areas there are definately speed improvements, I cannot burden my machine with that bloated code.
I just launched m17 on my K6-2 500 w. 96M of RAM and it took 26 seconds. I hit the about button and over 16MB were being consumed. I've seen little difference between memory utilization of M17 and Beta3
The worst part used to be that it offers no new features. Now the worst part is that it offers no new features, is bloated, all the while adding more complexity to web development.
Every bit of FUD I have read has confirmed what I have personally witnessed.
(I'll go to Karma hell for this.)
I'd say web developers (like myself) have a better perspective on what's what than the programmers of the mozilla project. We're the ones whose jobs depend on this stuff working right - and we'll be stuck with having to code to that platform for _YEARS_ to come. Any flaws in the platform are ours to deal with for a very long time, as opposed to the programmers who can simply upgrade their browser whenever they want. Web developers have to code to every piece of junk put out by the 'big two' (MS & Netscape) for the past 2 years, so we're understandably more concerned than most about standards-compliance and common-sense layout.
Correct me if Im wrong, but it seems that he is say that it is not Netscapes fault that it blows now. He thinks that we should take into consideration that they are being forced to release before they are ready, and to put features in that they dont want. Thats a real shame that that is happening, BUT, that doesnt change the fact that it BLOWS.
on the other hand, I do think that peanuts are cute.
Its true that Mozilla contains dubious features for ticklist-compatibility with NS4.0 and IE4+. Thats inevitable. Anyone who's ever worked for a software product company will know that releasing version n+1 with less features than version n is suicide, even if the features were stupid in the first place. Perhaps more effort should have gone into differentating Mozilla from Communicator, so that Mozilla could just have been a good browser, but that might have raised other problems.
Skinning however is not such a dubious feature. Its a side effect of a brave attempt to do something which is very hard: create a cross-platform framework for user interfaces. The old Netscape front ends (one per platform) were an immense obstacle to development. They proliferated, and they tended to accumulate features that should have been elsewhere (URL completion in the Windows version). Netscape felt they were committed to supporting the Unix versions as a differentiator fromm MS, and yet could not justify the development resources to support something used by only a few percent of their users. *Thats* why NS4.0 on X is so crash-prone and slow: the FE code is buggy as hell, and pulls a lot of nasty X tricks.
Mozilla does its UI using its rendering engine precisely in order to get away from this problem. A side effect is that you can write pretty chrome, but that was not the purpose. You may feel the decision was wrong, and Galeon et al would seem to show that you might be right, but its an utterly different issue from sidebars and "What's related?".
Is there a moderately objective site that explains what browsers are and aren't compliant with what? I've read all the assertions here that Mozilla is "the most standards compliant". I've read that IE 5 on the Mac is the most compliant. iCab and Konqueror are touted as compliant. I'd be interested in seeing a thorough review.
I don't think it specifically covers IE 5 on Mac or Konquereror, but I've always found Rich in Style to be a great resource for testing compliance and documenting the state of browsers.
I have just downloaded Mozilla for the first time in a long time. I like it much better than IE. I went to 98lite and noticed that the final version for ME was released. The 2000lite will come soon. Until then, I guess I'll have to waste my disk space. Mozilla is much nicer than people let on.
Completely false.
--- This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine. ---
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
*THIS* is what the article (and external mozilla contributors) are complaining about. Because of the PDT being so ultra-conservative, there are at least *40* (if not much more) fixes that have gone into the trunk (Mozilla), that haven't been allowed into the branch (Netscape 6).
No, I don't use Mail/News on Mozilla. I have occasionally tried the newsreader. It works, though the list scrolling is slow. As the same code handles mail there shouldn't be to big problems handling huge mailboxes. If there are, it would be valuable help to report them.
But back up your mail before giving it a try :-). Oh, and check the build bar on Mozillazine to see which builds are good ones to test.
Well here's mine. I've been using Mozilla nightly builds as my main browser for close to a month. It renders sites beautifully. Way better than the old Netscape 4.
Also people should notice that Mozilla/Netscape 6 can be patched later. So it's really not a big deal if the first one is not perfect. Rendering all those standards and doing it right is not easy but Mozilla does it nicely already.
I think they do have a point. Like several people pointed out on Mozillazine, Mr. Flanagan is complaining that the the most standard-compliant browser is not compliant enough. Someone even called this Bugzilla abuse as nobody gets to see Microsoft's uncensored bug database.
Mozilla is a big project and it's pretty useless for outsiders to decide what should be fixed next. There's a lot of bugs to fix and features to create and only those programmers know what to do next.
I also think that Mozillazine is right in distancing themselves from Netscape 6. Mozilla is another project and the decision makers are not same. Netscape 6 will be released sooner while Mozilla will continue to evolve until it's rock solid.
While I'm writing this I'd like to bring up an alarming thing about Mozilla. After testing a lot of nighly builds, I have to say that the Linux builds are not nearly as far as Win32 builds. I'd love to see more contribution to the Linux development. If you don't have the skills and time to hack code, download nighly builds, report bugs and confirm old ones. It does help creating Mozilla the best browser there is. Complaining and jokes about Mozilla being dead won't.
I get mozillazine.org unknown host. anyone have a mirror?
I think a release of netscape 6 is a good thing , even with bugs (lets face it we'll all upgrade with every new release anyway or use mozilla 1.0), it means the developers can go back to getting lot of stuff checked in to the development tree again (things have been slow due to the strict nature of checkins just before Release to Manufacturing). Hopefully we'll see some preformance improvements! -not that it's so bad just now, but we do need to give people goals in their lives, especially downtrodden mozilla developers...
I mean, other than an example of a software project that's gone horribly wrong, does Mozilla or Netscape really have any relevence to anything?
Ah well, they will be an interesting footnote in history if nothing else, I suppose...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
But in the case of Netscape 6 the problems with CSS and DOM support are more in the area of bugs rather than deviations from standards (like in older versions of Netscape).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is a Slashdot post criticising the other posts' criticism of the article criticising the criticism of Netscape. Sheesh ... critics ...
Egad! If you did that, your web pages would LOAD FAST! People would quickly and easily GET INFORMATION! Oh, goodness. That would be a total disaster.
It's so much better to hide the fact that the site has no real purpose behind randomly placed rollover buttons (that requre the download of no fewer than six images for a single button) and little starts swirling around the cursor.
As soon as Netscape 6 is released, a huge number of pending bug fixes and new features that are currently waiting to be checked into the Mozilla trunk will be checked in. (This is already happening actually.) Let them stabilise for about a month, and then Netscape management --- if they want to --- can cut another branch and release Netscape 6.1 after another month or two of QA.
So Netscape could, if they want to, release a much improved 6.1 within three months of NS 6.0. Of course, I have no idea what their actual plans are.
Hmmm. The fourth sentence I quoted contradicts the second. But seriously, do you think that the beta hangs without starting on everybody's computer? Don't you think the reviews would be a bit worse if it did? And note the word ``beta'' in that sentence.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
ahhh.. I think a lot of open source coders look for some sort of leadership in the project and will accept it with open arms. A very basic part of the open source development process is the odd numbered release schedule. Say you have a program that is version 0.1.1.. you would expect it to be buggy and no new features are going to show up until 0.2.0.. When the minor version number is odd we do bug fixes, when the minor version number is even we do feature implementation. The real problem here is a lack of automated tests. For each class in the project there should be a thorough testing class that can generate go/no go responses for regression testing. Patches to the code base that do not comply with the odd versioning system or the testing regime or even the documentation requirements should be politely declined.
How we know is more important than what we know.
mmm.. infinite regression.
How we know is more important than what we know.
ahh... vegetarian's don't usually go around shooting things.. you should see some medical attention. I personally would just walk past and do nothing and if I saw a greenie on the way I would flip the bird at them and then ask them what THEY are gunna do about it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
While the person you are replying to didn't make this point, here is the one being overlooked...
The people bitching about NS6 not being standards compliant right now are the same exact people who said about a month ago "Dangit, hurry up and release the thing and fix the bugs later."
Run the testcases attached to those bugs, and posted in the bug comments.
The one that shocked me the most was the table cellpadding bug. That is a huge regression. On top of that, the patch is already written, but it is not going to make it into the Netscape 6.0 tree unless something is changed.
The regressions being patched will not hold up the release at all. Apply the patches, Netscape, and we all will be happy.
EverCode
too many times /. posts one viewpoint and then fails to post an article pointing to a formal response from the person or group as a reaction to the flood of /.'ers. I think the mozillazine editorial should get screen time just as much as the original web standards article did.
This editorial does make some good or at least interesting comments and made me re-think my knee-jerk reaction to the first article posted here.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
An editorial on mozillazine.org is criticizing recent criticism against Netscape
I hate meta-criticism. Dammit, That was meta-meta-criticism. AGHHH.
It's not even about bad press, it's about the years that web develoeprs will have to put up with the bugs while waiting for 7.0, which will probably be, given Netscape's track record, no better.
Some of these bugs aren't minor, they're fairly serious "you can't use the DOM properly on a table" types of problems, and things which used to work in 4.x and don't anymore. In its current state, all Netscape 6 will do is create another browser to code for, with another set of quirks and bugs.
There is some help if you don't use the DOM, since things like HTML 4 and CSS seem to be working pretty well.
But I guess the problem is that the Netscape people want to release no matter what, and you almost have to beat on them with a book to get them to include fixes. Anybody remember a few weeks ago when we had the bug that was causing large grey lines in everything? They had to be browbeaten to include a fix for that.
That reminds me of Microsoft, who suffers severe criticism for doing it. So why should Netscape get special treatment?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I've been debating whether or not to post. :)
I will, with this disclaimer. I work for Netscape, but not in product development.
It's true that standards in PR3 are broken - CSS doesn't display correctly, or at all, for example. However, I believe this is temporary, and that standards compliance is a big issue with Netscape in general. Evidence of that is here, although it may seem like propaganda-speak.
I've also had the privilege of trying out some of the internal nightly builds, and they have come a long way. There's still a ways to go, but keep in mind, Netscape 6 is still in the pre-release stage. Out of respect for my employer, I'm trying not to divulge too much information, so please understand why this post is a little detail-thin.
"During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I was riding the pogostick."
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
There are a lot of really cool things you can do with Mozilla and ForumZilla is just the begining.
Tony
If you read a little deeper you'll see that he replies to a reply to his posting. He plans on posting "news" on Netscape, but not "reviews, criticism" and other info (sorry, I'm not digging up the link or quoting it verbatim for you). Personally, I imagine he's just frustrated from the flamage coming from both directions (pro- and anti- NS) and from those inside and outside the Mozilla community and is trying to distance what he puts his effort into, the Open Source project Mozilla, from the corporate entity Netscape.
There are the same tree. NS6 is just a branch of the mozilla tree
i started that page loading in a separate window.
as i type this, most of the navigation controls (in netscape 4.75 unde win95) are gone, and little bits of the desktop are showing through. i tried to reply to the parent in a new window: "NETSCAPE CANNOT CREATE EMPTY DOCUMENT" or some such thing. (i'm just using the same window now, before i reboot.)
i tried to save a file from a different page, and not only was the file save window rendered badly, the fonts inside that window were all wrong.
nice. very nice.
[|]
ONLY if you happen to be running linux ,mac, or winblows.
Otherwise, you are indeed stuck in "well first compile this, this this, AND this. and THEN go through a very long compile"
THe REALLY irritating thing is that they CLAIM to support other platforms for binaries. But just try clicking on some of the other "nightly build" links on the TOP PAGE. The i386-solaris link has been non-functional for about a YEAR now, I think.
And what a beast of a source tree. I mean, geez, it's larger then the ***X WINDOW SOURCE ***
personally, i think it would behoov them to fix those few bugs, even if it does push the launch date back a week or two. if for no other reason than to keep crititcs from lambasting them for releasing a product with known bugs (MS: "see, open source doesnt work"). i think the negative press that they might receive will more than counter the bonus of a faster release. its taken this long already, might as well dodge the criticism and wait another week or two.
Do yourselves a favour and try the NS 6.0 or Mozilla out for yourselves. It is very standards compliant, fast, open source and cross platform. If you don't like it then delete it. Unlike IE 5.5, Mozilla can be downloaded and installed in an hour without the need to reboot or replace half of your system DLLs to do it.
And forget about IE 6.0 for a while. It's at least six months or more away from release.
Well.. I know it's there, and i'm not ashamed of using it. But the main reason I support IE and not NN is because it supports the standards better.
It's that same with alot of people I know, They use IE becasue they know it's a better browser.
And when someone who isn;t computer literate asks, I tell them to use IE,
It's got nothing to do with advertising. It's to do with that fact the people are getting sick using javascript and/or making 2 sites for differnt browsers.
I'm a web designer, stuff like CSS is very usefull to me. I get excited when new this like this come out, and want to use them on web-pages. But I usaly never do, becasue my site won't come out in a certian browser. That's the problem, not advertising.
That's nice. But the point is that they're still not the same.
These people who scream that Netscape isn't bug-free, then wail that it's taking too long to finish make me think of the old joke about the crotchety old woman in a deli: "Such horrible food...and in such small portions!"
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
I think that delaying Netscape a week or two to fix some bugs is really important. The delay would be a much lower price then bad press. The Guys who just say "Hey, why care about Netscape, we have Mozilla", just aren't right: Microsoft will start bitching and say: "Look at Netscape 6: It was released with a lot of known bugs, and that's the way it is with all Open-Source Software!". Managers will believe that, they don't know the difference between Netscape and Mozilla. And the whole community pays the price.
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
"Second, these aren't showstopper bugs; it isn't worth delaying Netscape another year for all the minor bugs that have been discovered. It hurts me to say this, but that's life with web browsers."
... They can be corrected, and will, but when ?
:)
Want a preview of some what should be considered a showstopper ? There are some very bright and motivated people interested in the problem. But it does show some very deep internal problems with the mozilla code. If IE can do this page in 90 secs and mozilla chugs along to make it in 900.. then something is seriously wrong. There are a few others that trouble me much
My hat is off to the mozilla team, all its contributers and hackers alike, you've built a very solid browser, So Far.... now on to the 10% thats left. (well 15%
Just because the release of 6 has some bugs doesnt mean they shouldnt release it. Get it out there, let the bugs be identified, let users evalutate it, Im sure they will release fixes and patches to all these bugs later. I think some of these netscape critics havent worked in a tense business situation before. Deadlines are important and hell they have to make some money to compete against the monster macrohard.
But it's a tough pill for a traditional software organizaton to swallow. The Netscape PDT probably understands the pressure from marketing and management to get the product out, better than they understand the pressure from programmers to get the product right. They are comfortable letting another little bug slip through (it can be patched later, right?), but the deadline is a big bad monster that cannot be allowed any slack.
I think we need to make them uncomfortable. We need to make the PDT realize that technical issues--especially standards compliance--are not pawns. Mozilla and Netscape will be the better for it.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
The anger about this issue is not just some loopy over-reaction by a bunch of nutcases. I'm an ex-web developer precisely because this keeps happening.
It is worse, worse, FAR worse, to partially and imperfectly implement a technology than to leave it out altogether. CSS and the DOM are unusable because of the half-assed implementations by both Microsoft and Netscape. What's more developers won't be able to use them with confidence, and without agonising work-arounds (the if browser='Netscape6.0' kludges) until the last buggy implementation is out of circulation. How long will it be until the last of your audience stop using the current crop of browsers? Three years? Four? Five? However long it is, Netscape have just added another year or two for you. Thank you Netscape.
This is in no way a minor issue, when the platforms you're writing for are so flaky that you can actually crash them using nothing but Style Sheets!
Well, you may argue that Netscape had no option but to demonstrate it's utter contempt for it's users and developers yet again; the hard-headed realities of the marketplace made them do it. They had to release a browser before standards compliance was complete, therefore they had to release a browser that breaks the standands. No, here's the other option:
Release Netscape 3.0. Throw in the some pretty themes, the irritating sidebars, the instant messaging, crappy mail client, crappier authoring tool, pile on the new bells and whistles to your hearts content and call it Netscape Everything Suite 6.0 Platinum Professional Millenium Edition. Who's gonna care that is doesn't even attempt to handle HTML4, CSS, or the DOM? Not most users. Not the "web designers" who create tables full of gifs in Dreamweaver.
And here's the best part: people can put together sites that are standards compliant, confident that their content will be ready for future browsers that will implement the standards properly, and "degrade gracefully" in browsers that don't.
In the meantime, we can encourage people to use Links. It may not look too pretty, or support the latest standards, but at least it doesn't break them.
Aol did a good job of filling the Internet with more crappy users than "in the know" users. Maybe they can fill the Internet with more crappy browser users instead of IE users. (not that IE is any better)
Icebox
There isn't any reason why these goals have to remain incompatible. For OSS companies to compete with proprietary vendors they will have to come to some sort of compromise. It is amazing the problems people will put up with (daily crashes) just to get a little functionality (Windows). You can read a story a day about how some project, Open or Closed, has its deadlines moved around for one reason or another. Programmers everywhere end up shipping something that isn't as good as they would like it to be. It is just a tug of war between the people who know the code and the people who know the consumers.
Icebox
I've read all I can get my hands on, and it seems as if the only things lacking are facts. Claims abound, but I have yet to see any real-world facts. Flannigan's original article listed about a dozen bugs which he claims will end the world, and the retorts claim that nobody will ever notice them. Perhaps someone here would care to give an impartial opinion?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
With all the bitching about standards compliance flying around... are there any published compliance reports? It'd be nice to see how the different browsers really do stack up.
I just downloaded the miz nightly - My first one in a few months, and I'm really impressed with how far they've come since then, but I'm not really competent to decide if it's 'standards compliant' or not. It brings up all my favorite sites just fine.
That show stopper is taking IE 5.5 five minutes and counting. Not that I am proud to be using IE, but it is what I get at work. I don't count that as a bug against mozilla. Maybe a bug in the web page design. (BTW we have two t1's so it is not a bandwith issue into the building, maybe from the site.)
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
The Mozillazine rant makes no sense. David Flanagan says Netscape 6 should be as good as Mozilla's best, not compromised by marketers. Instead of realizing that Flanagan is supporting the efforts Mozilla has made, Mozillazine goes into Nixon enemies mode. And trashes the WaSP while they're at it. I intended to reply on Mozillazine, but it's down. Here's the WaSP reply to Mozillazine.
can't act. can't sing. can dance a little.
No, they're just learning from Slashdot!
sulli
RTFJ.
I think that since AOL bought Netscape, the Mozilla project isn't quite the same. Ok, the team is doing a great work, but since then the image of netscape became so attached to Mozilla, that any critcs related to Netscape are related to the project either.
I have to say that Aol simply blew Netscape. An entrerprise like them simply should not have left a such promessing browser on their on. Other example is ICQ. Why did AOL bought it, if they still try to impose AOL Instant Messager?
I still hope netscape 6 become a great success, and fight again against IE, but I have already tested it and its java, javascript and css implementation just sux.
see, i COULDN'T CARE LESS whether or not it conforms to a given set of standards. i just want the darn thing to work as i'd expect it to, which right now, i'm sorry, NS6 (and mozilla) are a LOOOONG way from doing. if they diverged from the standard, but did it smoothly and intelligently, then that would be JUST FINE. trust me, we web dev folks will FIGURE IT OUT. but unfortunately, NS conforms to the standards in a clunky and unwieldy way while IE continues to be just plain smarter.
pezpunk
Internet killed the video star,
i could live a little longer in this prison
I am using the current NS 6. I would like to see the bugs worked out before it get released. Crashing while scrolling through my email for instance. I would also like to see NS release the standards compliant browser they are promising. NS has never released a standards compliant browser, they allways throw in a bunch of propriatary garbage.
Netscape chose to hold of and not release a 5.0 version of their browser because it wasn't good enough. Why not make sure the NS 6 is that they were promising?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
First, marketing. Every day they have that lousy 4.x browser, they suffer. Lots of people will upgrade to the latest released browser, but not nightly builds of Mozilla. Give them something that works, even if not perfectly, to build the brand instead of destroying it.
Second, these aren't showstopper bugs; it isn't worth delaying Netscape another year for all the minor bugs that have been discovered. It hurts me to say this, but that's life with web browsers. What is worth doing is releasing bugfixes after the product is out. Kind of like Microsoft does for Internet Explorer.
Isn't the credo for both dot com's and open source projects, "release early, release often"? Personally, I think they should have released as soon as it was better than Netscape 4.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
we needed tensile infomediaries the transition, the Web-preparation of collaboration of the trade name and ocular globes of the connect-and-game of the target if Mozilla is always to reach its goal of the affluent execution in the robust tests patterns of the and-service that saying, would be interesting to see if the community of Mozilla can compete with Microsoft by the content without threads e-e-enabling of envisioneer of the initiatives of the company.
Everything is but a number spoken by itself.
So they're critisizing the critisizing of Netscape, and as a result they will stop covering Netscape, which is about the worst form of criticism imaginable. Is it just me or doesn't this compute? syntax error?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
make that criticizing...twice. Doh!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
I shoot the animal, I'm a vegetarian.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I have to ask this. Did anyone else here post to the duplicate story about the Armada? If so, I'd be interested in the results that had on your karma....It costed me a point for every post.
Oh and moderators, I don't give a flying fuck if you want to moderate this to -6, but have the decency to wait till I had an answer, will ya?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Check out this comment from LinuxToday.
2 000-11-07-007-04-OP-CY-SW-0000
Evidently Netscape 6 comes with a utility that reports every file downloaded off the internet back to Netscape.
<br>http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=
All Netscape needs is a proper advertising strategy so that everyone can be proud of using it. If version 6.0 goes ahead as planned, then they will be taking a step in the right direction.
If people would write for the least common denominator more often, instead of (a) rushing to embrace all those cool new ways of doing things or (b) writing the code two or three times, the world of computing would be a much better place.
- Forget serious javascript, DOM is not portable across platforms
- Forget DHTML and serious layout, looks different across browsers/platforms
- Forget stylesheets, looks different and is not equally supported across platforms
If we produce one page, least common denominator, then we might as well continue with 3270 terminals from the 70s.If Netscape releases a browser that has major design flaws in relation to what it supports and how well it supports it then they might as well leave the release be.
For years now, web developers has been forced to produce sites that supports two or more flavors of browsers in order to target the majority of the likely users of their sites.
For e-commerce sites this is not really a choice. You can't say "Let's just support one browser because that's easiest", when that effectively blocks out a huge chunk of your potential customer base.
Neither is it very likely that you can opt to support full DHTML support in two or more platforms simply because you need to write each page specifically for each browser.
The third option is to go for the least common denominator and that is forgetting about all those cool new ways of doing things simply because of the pain in the ass it is to write the code two or three times.
The most likely outcome if Netscape releases a sub-standard browser is that quite a few sites will stop paying the cost to support two browsers and go for one. If Netscape hopes the sites will go for Netscape then I think they will be hugely disappointed.
IE has been out there, is working (well enough, bugs yes, but generally it works), and does not appear to be disappearing anytime soon.
I think there comes a time when enough is enough. If Netscape can't see that that time is about to be passed in the near future then I'm not too sorry if their browser simply dies.
If they release a kick-ass browser that is stable, supports the necessary standards (again, well enough), then it's a welcome addition.
If however we need to make Pre-NS6 pages, IE pages, and Post-NS6 pages, then I'm afraid that we're flogging a loosing horse.
<flame>For years now, Microsoft has been criticized for releasing software with huge amounts of bugs into the public.
I guess this makes Netscape a Microsoft wannabe </flame>