Seeking a Browser Compatibility Reference?

Fr05t asks: "Gone are the days of being able to use the W3C specs for DHTML and Javascript as a solid reference for every browser. To make things worse I've been finding more and more I'm required to build richer web content that runs on all browsers. I've found many books that have a chapter on Browser Compatibility, but is there such a thing as a complete guide to the incompatibilities between IE, Netscape, and Opera? I'd even settle for a site dedicated to the documentation of the browser SNAFU."

Comments

Re:A few rules of thumb

[aWalrus]

And using document.all is unnecessarily wrong. This was a proprietary extension introduced by Microsoft. It does not comply with the standard way of referencing elements used in the Document Object Model (DOM) and should not be used except when programming backwards compatible code for Internet Explorer 4 (I think 5+ supports the correct DOM references). This is bad practice, and I think it's a good think that the mozilla developers decided to leave it out, or else it would promote breaking the correct hierarchical structure.
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Balance Money & Time

[gilgongo]

Take the following facts:

1. MSIE 5 commands about 40% of the market.
2. MSIE 6 commands about 30% and rising.
3. Netscape 4 has about 5%.
4. Netscape 6 has about 5% and rising.
5. All of these browsers render things differently.

Next, take the following fact:

The more work you spend making your code compatible, the more time/money you burn.

Then consider this:

Why do you want to spend this money/time on making your site compatible? How much time/money are you will to spend?

In practice, I use the following rough formula:

Code for the Majority Browser, then the next one in market share, then the next one until you reach the "10% Horizon" or until you think you're spent enough money/time (whichever is sooner).

The lower the market share of the browser, the less point there is making your code compatible with that browser.