One reason people do open source software could be compared to scientific research. Sure there are a lot of things researched to make someone a lot of money. But there are other things (a lot of times less glamorous but still important... think foundation work) that people work on simply because they know it can be done, and it'd be a shame to know that there's something that should have been discovered but hasn't been because no one's paying attention to it.
For me, the motivation is the idea that software these days can be so buggy and so non-intuitive (user interface), and there's really no reason why it couldn't be... no reason why we can't come up with completely new and different ideas on what it means to have a gui (are windows really a neccessity? could there be something easier? [resist the stupid doors joke]) or what really differentiates an OS from an Application. Stuff like that. If no company makes it, then I will.
I'm not sure if it's possible, but wouldn't it make sense to create low-power PDA's out of this stuff? Machines that could hold their states without power would be amazing coupled with displays that can hold an image without power (electronic-paper, etc). Then you could have a machine that only uses electricity when things are changing, and uses almost no electricity otherwise. There wouldn't be an off button... no need. The the instant you've hit a key the processor would kick up and handle anything that's needed. Then the instant your done the electricity would turn off again. You could pick one up, do a few things (while the processor is only on when it's actively computing... in between key strokes it would actually be turned off) and just throw it down when you're done, cause it's been in off mode from the moment you stopped typing.
Something usable like that would be so casual, I can only see it gaining huge acceptance by everyone... think a day-planner type book, where you can interact with it almost the same, but it's also a PDA and a E-Book reader, and a place to jot notes all at the same time, perpetually powered by a solar-charged battery. Awesome.
I can't help but comment on this one, simply because I've had the same questions and now I've found some of them answered.
I am currently a junior in the computer engineering major at my university, and I had been thinking for a while whether or not I want to switch to computer science. I've loved programming since I was 12, and it's what I really like doing. Hardware seems neat, but it's not really where I have my passion. I came into college after hearing the same vague things you've heard and decided to do the CE route. For the first two years I've taken engineering courses, which means a lot of physics, math, and a lot of electrical engineering courses. At the beginning of this year, I was about ready to switch to CompSci only because it's been two and a half years, and I still haven't taken any computer programming classes (skipped all the lower level ones), and it's been nothing but hard work in Electrical Engineering courses. CE / EE / Any engineering majors are very intensive. There's a lot of physics (3 classes), a lot of math (up to calculus III and beyond) and a lot of hardware design courses. But finally, in the second semester of my junior year, I finally feel comfortable in my major.
Right now I'm designing a small embedded CPU in hardware, learning about fundamental OS theory and design, fundamentals of programming languages, and next semester compilers and real OS's. Great stuff... but it took 2 and a half years of insane amounts of work to get here. I know I could've dropped out and taken the easy route of CompSci sophmore year, and it would have been so much easier. But I stuck it out, and I'm glad. CompSci deals with a lot of algorithms and math, but any Engineering has a few less algorithms and a whole lot more of everything else.
For me, it came down to the challenge. My easy way out was CompSci, where I could've taken the courses that I liked and learned what I wanted to, but everything would have come very easily to me. But I chose CompEngineering, where almost all the courses where very challenging and tested me not only in aptitude for learning, but also in dedication and motivation. And now in my second half of my junior year, with the 20 other people that stayed in the program, I'm finally happy with my major.
That's the college perspective, from one CE. But as far as job experience for me, it's been a piece of cake to walk into any job and know I can do it... not only the programming, but a whole lot more because of my education. I've been working as a web applications (database integration) programmer, will be working soon as a standard MFC / C++ programmer in the summer, and hope to get into some think tank / theoretical research in computers at some point. Having a hardware background and having designed (and built, not just studied) a computer from resistor to CPU to OS to Compiler, will be for me a huge advantage. At least, I hope so. Check back with me in 8 years, I'll know by then.
I'm actually kinda surprised. Usually I see a lot of strong opinions, and some idiots. But I was actually kind of offended by your remarks, and I find it a bit ironic.
I am that "Web Designer" you talk about, and I have griped about the issues at hand. I wish everyone was using an adequate browser when viewing the internet. And I find myself hardly wishing for more eyecandy as much as I wish that simple HTML worked consistently. For example, I consider tables to be basic HTML since they've been around since as long as I can remember. But I'm still waiting for tables to display absolutely correctly in all circumstances. And I'm not refering to eye-candy little one pixel glitches. I'm talking about a whole page being displaced and throwing half the graphics on the page onto another column simply because tables work when nested inside one tag but not when nested inside an obscure combination of three tags. These are the stupid little things why people need compliant browsers.
I haven't read a comment as long as yours that is as poorly researched or knowledgeable. The things you quote about basic and "Good" html is amusing. It seems you've never really tried to publish real HTML, aside from this fanciful "de facto" standards list. It's interesting that your list magically ends up with nothing more than plain text. That would set the web back years... say, to the year 1984 or so.
That's really what the web is all about, after all: serving the lowest common denominator; refuting "web standards" in favor of plain text; limiting and choosing that everyone will view things and express things in a simplistic way that one person chooses. That's the web that I grew up with.
And it's kinda ironic, because we have exactly what you're talking about. Our service may not be consistent... sometimes we can't fix a problem. But we always try, and we've had people bring their computers in, we've done on-site troubleshooting (and found a few bugs in major commercial software that way). Things that our national competitors can't do (the ones in the area, anyway). Our major local competitor was bought out by a national company, and they lost a lot of customers to us. We've also received a lot of AOL refugees. We charge an arm and a leg by today's standards, but people want to use us, because they can depend on the customer service. And even while we're losing customers to Cable (that have been with us since we started... crazy), we're still signing up new customers. We don't even advertise. So I guess the national lime-light for small ISP's is over, they're not the money maker they were. But there's still a strong niche for people that don't like national impersonal services.
I've had this idea for a while, and I still wonder if anyone else has been thinking about it. It's nothing new, but this Thinkpad brings up the idea again.
I've always wanted someone to make this idea into a PDA. Imagine a single clipboard with a paper-like front that sits there with a page of text on it. Then you could push a button and a new page of text appears, indistinguishable from a laser printed (or typeset) page. Then you use the stylus to make notes in the corner, where the small PDA chips embedded in the clip part track your movements and create the lines under your pen simulating writing and drawing. Then you push another button and you can write a quick email and send it off.
If you could actually make this sort of appliance, (which shouldn't be hard with MIT's e-paper and a small embeded chip that only consumes power when you're actively doing something) you could have an essentially always on electronic writting / display tablet. With the ability to read and write like a normal piece of paper, but the power of a computer's ability to store and display hundreds of pages of text, you could replace school textbooks, novels, hostpital charts, almost anything you can think of. And with a display and chip that only use power when active (ie. refreshing with a new page or drawing with the stylus), you should be able to go days / weeks on a single battery. It could become the single most useful PDA-like device.
The possibilities are just too much. But I've never heard of anything like it, and I'm curious if anyone's ever had this occur to them too. With news of the new light-interference static display technology, you could have a full color pad too. Think about it a bit, and about how many normal uses it could serve, and it gets more exciting. Anyone else see this?
This is really interesting, because I tried out messenger a2z just recently on my quest for a nice win32 cross-vender instant messenger. I read a soft core article about jabber and messengera2z. I installed ma2z to see what it was like, it sounded nice on paper. It didn't work well however, and seemed to be an incomplete program, not allowing very good integration into major AIM / ICQ / MSN networks. Then I took a look at the process manager in win2000, and was taken aback... 20 megs memory usage. I've never seen a program use that much, and I was suddenly very suspicious.
I visited they're webpage, and realized that this messenger was nothing more than another app for them to offer as a part of their whole "portal" centered business. They offer a bunch of vanilla pp's to brand with your logo. This seems kinda shady... I don't want to use an app that's only purpose is so the company has something free to hand out, like party favors or cheap watches.
But it also concerns me. Companies that offer free services usually gain revenue from more obscure sources, like agregate information about consumers. I'm just curious as to what this program is... badly done ripped off port that they were too lazy (and thought they wouldn't get caught), or some insidious market scheme (like all that memory usage and stuff going towards doing something shady while you work). They've shown some of either their character or their incompetence. Either way, this is definately some company I'm cautious of.
Did anyone doing the disassembling see anything curious about memory usage or if there's anything shady in their program? Just curious.
It's a good point... balancing between Windows Friendly (and limiting), and Linux powerful (and confusing). And I think we need both. Windows does extremely well on the friendly side, but like you say you're at the mercy of MS to decide what you can and can't do. And most of the time they decide to let you have 80% control, with that remaining 20% becoming a serious issue if you want to do something complicated. Linux allows you do to everything... but the easy, idiot friendly parts are lacking.
I think both can coexist, in the very nature of seperate distributions. Even on the same computer, you should have the option of installing idiot friendly parts (probably a bunch of nice front ends and helpful docs). There's a lot of work in this area, but it's still only half easy, and for other things you have to delve into the real linux stuff. I'd love a system that is as easy to use as windows, stable as linux, with the option to drop down to console and cfg files when I need to tweak something complicated. But for all of my daily tasks (setup and everyday use), I'd love for linux to be point-and-click obvious. Right now, I think it's safe to say that linux distro's are a little lopsided in favor of the tech side, and could use some work on being idiot friendly.
This excludes, of course, distros that try to avoid any bloat at all... idiot friendly is in it's nature more bloated than console-type stuff.
Just a thought from a simliar windows-experienced-trying-to-get-into-linux guy.
No binaries or screenshots are dumb. (got the attention... ok, here we go: )
I love open source simply because of the freedom of it. I've never contributed to a project, simply because I lack the knowledge yet, but I love knowing that I do so many different things with the software I download. I don't have to worry about paying money for software that I'm really not completely satisfied with (taking away precious tuition money), instead I know I got something that was born out of people's volunteer efforts. The people that make these programs do it because they want the program to be good, not because of any business presures.
Because of this, it seems backwards to require that people download the source only. Granted, this is completely within the project managers' rights, but it just seems contrary to the nature of the product. Requiring people to download the source is simply a restriction, not a freedom. Freedom is letting people do what they want. If people want to use the software only, and not contribute, then why would you want to cut those people off?
Same with screenshots... it may seem so superficial, but that's the first thing I go for (right after a description of what it does). I know what I need in programs, and one of them is a UI that means I can do my work quickly and efficiently. Not having screenshots doesn't even make any sense towards the getting people involved thing; what good will not letting people have screenshots do? I think his reasoning is that if you're at all interested in this program, even seeing what it looks like, then you should have to go all the way and download source code, take the time to compile it, then you can see anything you want. The next step would be taking any sort of description off the webpage and making people download the source code to look at the comments inside to see what it does.
Seem extreme? What're you doing on a lesser scale when you remove things that make it easier for people to get into project? (which by no way means programming... how many times have I heard that the best way to start helping is with non-programing tasks, faq, documents, etc?)
Of course, I really don't have the soapbox to stand on, never having been in his place. But as a person on the other side of things, this is definately what I appreciate about projects.
I'm looking for recomendation and pointers on CVS type software for website management. We basically use all windows machines (I know), win2000 and NT servers, and we need a program to automatically update, check in/out webpages (for concurrent development without running over each other's toes), and journalling. The journalling is important (to be able to keep whole versions of the website in case we need a rollback).
Does anyone have anything like this implemented? I think we'd need a GUI, since we're all windows. I'm looking for something polished, not awkward. Any recomendations or ideas? (No "use unix" comments... it's not an option)
Netscape Compliance, the question of innovation
on
Netscape 6.0 Released
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· Score: 1
I've heard a few arguments on this, and there's something that stands out to me. If people are complaining about Netscape compatibility, then aren't they just developing for IE only?
No. People complaining about Netscape (and IE) compatibility are comparing to the standards. When you code something into a page and it displays incorrectly, according to the standard and other more compliant browsers (and also compared to plain common sense of what a browser should do), then it's unacceptable. It's not a matter of proprietary IE extensions. I wouldn't use those any more than now I would use the Netscape layer tag.
And that's the thing... if any browser fully implemented all of the standards correctly, it would be the most exciting and capable browser out there. So much of what people complain about in compatibility are things that already have a standard, and have a full set out standard for years, and it's just that the compainies making the browsers have ignored them or just haven't gotten them right yet.
Standards compliance = no innovation?
I'd have to say no. The fact that my linux box can now talk to my windows box through SMB sharing doesn't make the different OS's network drive methods any less innovative. The fact that my webpage, done through tables and minimal javascript, displays correctly on most browsers doesn't make those browser less innovative. There's plenty of room for innovation. But implementing a standard incorrectly is not innovation. Implementing the functional equivalent for a standard that is incompatible requires a justification. What does the new method provide that the standard does not? If there's no gain, then that's what makes people call things "proprietary". I'd love it if IE and Netscape were fighting out the field on innovative features. But I can't even think of any examples, because they aren't even done with the basics. If SSL was incompatible from browser to browser, would that make online banking any more enjoyable? I'd love them to expand, make things more secure and work better. But on the standards that make sense and are the best choice, let them conform. I'd love to be able to sit at work and develope for 5 year old standards (most standards are older than you think), and not worry about Netscape / IE / Anything else out there screwing it all up.
I think I might have got some nitpicky details wrong. But I do believe the crux of it is true. Let me know if I'm wrong (if my opinion is wrong... heh).
James
---- Signatures are the refuge of the weak minded.
Slashdot Mirror
Is this patented? *hmm*
One reason people do open source software could be compared to scientific research. Sure there are a lot of things researched to make someone a lot of money. But there are other things (a lot of times less glamorous but still important... think foundation work) that people work on simply because they know it can be done, and it'd be a shame to know that there's something that should have been discovered but hasn't been because no one's paying attention to it.
For me, the motivation is the idea that software these days can be so buggy and so non-intuitive (user interface), and there's really no reason why it couldn't be... no reason why we can't come up with completely new and different ideas on what it means to have a gui (are windows really a neccessity? could there be something easier? [resist the stupid doors joke]) or what really differentiates an OS from an Application. Stuff like that. If no company makes it, then I will.
That's why I'll always want open source.
I'm not sure if it's possible, but wouldn't it make sense to create low-power PDA's out of this stuff? Machines that could hold their states without power would be amazing coupled with displays that can hold an image without power (electronic-paper, etc). Then you could have a machine that only uses electricity when things are changing, and uses almost no electricity otherwise. There wouldn't be an off button... no need. The the instant you've hit a key the processor would kick up and handle anything that's needed. Then the instant your done the electricity would turn off again. You could pick one up, do a few things (while the processor is only on when it's actively computing... in between key strokes it would actually be turned off) and just throw it down when you're done, cause it's been in off mode from the moment you stopped typing.
Something usable like that would be so casual, I can only see it gaining huge acceptance by everyone... think a day-planner type book, where you can interact with it almost the same, but it's also a PDA and a E-Book reader, and a place to jot notes all at the same time, perpetually powered by a solar-charged battery. Awesome.
Seems stupid enough to me
Damn the man.
I am currently a junior in the computer engineering major at my university, and I had been thinking for a while whether or not I want to switch to computer science. I've loved programming since I was 12, and it's what I really like doing. Hardware seems neat, but it's not really where I have my passion. I came into college after hearing the same vague things you've heard and decided to do the CE route. For the first two years I've taken engineering courses, which means a lot of physics, math, and a lot of electrical engineering courses. At the beginning of this year, I was about ready to switch to CompSci only because it's been two and a half years, and I still haven't taken any computer programming classes (skipped all the lower level ones), and it's been nothing but hard work in Electrical Engineering courses. CE / EE / Any engineering majors are very intensive. There's a lot of physics (3 classes), a lot of math (up to calculus III and beyond) and a lot of hardware design courses. But finally, in the second semester of my junior year, I finally feel comfortable in my major.
Right now I'm designing a small embedded CPU in hardware, learning about fundamental OS theory and design, fundamentals of programming languages, and next semester compilers and real OS's. Great stuff... but it took 2 and a half years of insane amounts of work to get here. I know I could've dropped out and taken the easy route of CompSci sophmore year, and it would have been so much easier. But I stuck it out, and I'm glad. CompSci deals with a lot of algorithms and math, but any Engineering has a few less algorithms and a whole lot more of everything else.
For me, it came down to the challenge. My easy way out was CompSci, where I could've taken the courses that I liked and learned what I wanted to, but everything would have come very easily to me. But I chose CompEngineering, where almost all the courses where very challenging and tested me not only in aptitude for learning, but also in dedication and motivation. And now in my second half of my junior year, with the 20 other people that stayed in the program, I'm finally happy with my major.
That's the college perspective, from one CE. But as far as job experience for me, it's been a piece of cake to walk into any job and know I can do it... not only the programming, but a whole lot more because of my education. I've been working as a web applications (database integration) programmer, will be working soon as a standard MFC / C++ programmer in the summer, and hope to get into some think tank / theoretical research in computers at some point. Having a hardware background and having designed (and built, not just studied) a computer from resistor to CPU to OS to Compiler, will be for me a huge advantage. At least, I hope so. Check back with me in 8 years, I'll know by then.
And good luck in college.
James
I am that "Web Designer" you talk about, and I have griped about the issues at hand. I wish everyone was using an adequate browser when viewing the internet. And I find myself hardly wishing for more eyecandy as much as I wish that simple HTML worked consistently. For example, I consider tables to be basic HTML since they've been around since as long as I can remember. But I'm still waiting for tables to display absolutely correctly in all circumstances. And I'm not refering to eye-candy little one pixel glitches. I'm talking about a whole page being displaced and throwing half the graphics on the page onto another column simply because tables work when nested inside one tag but not when nested inside an obscure combination of three tags. These are the stupid little things why people need compliant browsers.
I haven't read a comment as long as yours that is as poorly researched or knowledgeable. The things you quote about basic and "Good" html is amusing. It seems you've never really tried to publish real HTML, aside from this fanciful "de facto" standards list. It's interesting that your list magically ends up with nothing more than plain text. That would set the web back years... say, to the year 1984 or so.
That's really what the web is all about, after all: serving the lowest common denominator; refuting "web standards" in favor of plain text; limiting and choosing that everyone will view things and express things in a simplistic way that one person chooses. That's the web that I grew up with.
And it's kinda ironic, because we have exactly what you're talking about. Our service may not be consistent... sometimes we can't fix a problem. But we always try, and we've had people bring their computers in, we've done on-site troubleshooting (and found a few bugs in major commercial software that way). Things that our national competitors can't do (the ones in the area, anyway). Our major local competitor was bought out by a national company, and they lost a lot of customers to us. We've also received a lot of AOL refugees. We charge an arm and a leg by today's standards, but people want to use us, because they can depend on the customer service. And even while we're losing customers to Cable (that have been with us since we started... crazy), we're still signing up new customers. We don't even advertise. So I guess the national lime-light for small ISP's is over, they're not the money maker they were. But there's still a strong niche for people that don't like national impersonal services.
Damn Preview Button.
A while ago they started a project at MIT for . They store a whole bunch of little balls in the paper that are half white and half black, and rotated to display the correct color. The electronics to control the balls were printed on the paper itself, and the resolution was pretty high (I think they were shooting for laser quality, and it wasn't too far off). It was static, so required no power once set. They wanted to use it to have books that could function (and in fact be) normal books that you could read, but the pages themselves could be rewritten at the push of a button.
I've always wanted someone to make this idea into a PDA. Imagine a single clipboard with a paper-like front that sits there with a page of text on it. Then you could push a button and a new page of text appears, indistinguishable from a laser printed (or typeset) page. Then you use the stylus to make notes in the corner, where the small PDA chips embedded in the clip part track your movements and create the lines under your pen simulating writing and drawing. Then you push another button and you can write a quick email and send it off.
If you could actually make this sort of appliance, (which shouldn't be hard with MIT's e-paper and a small embeded chip that only consumes power when you're actively doing something) you could have an essentially always on electronic writting / display tablet. With the ability to read and write like a normal piece of paper, but the power of a computer's ability to store and display hundreds of pages of text, you could replace school textbooks, novels, hostpital charts, almost anything you can think of. And with a display and chip that only use power when active (ie. refreshing with a new page or drawing with the stylus), you should be able to go days / weeks on a single battery. It could become the single most useful PDA-like device.
The possibilities are just too much. But I've never heard of anything like it, and I'm curious if anyone's ever had this occur to them too. With news of the new light-interference static display technology, you could have a full color pad too. Think about it a bit, and about how many normal uses it could serve, and it gets more exciting. Anyone else see this?
Just curious, as always. Feedback, please!
James
This is really interesting, because I tried out messenger a2z just recently on my quest for a nice win32 cross-vender instant messenger. I read a soft core article about jabber and messengera2z. I installed ma2z to see what it was like, it sounded nice on paper. It didn't work well however, and seemed to be an incomplete program, not allowing very good integration into major AIM / ICQ / MSN networks. Then I took a look at the process manager in win2000, and was taken aback... 20 megs memory usage. I've never seen a program use that much, and I was suddenly very suspicious.
I visited they're webpage, and realized that this messenger was nothing more than another app for them to offer as a part of their whole "portal" centered business. They offer a bunch of vanilla pp's to brand with your logo. This seems kinda shady... I don't want to use an app that's only purpose is so the company has something free to hand out, like party favors or cheap watches.
But it also concerns me. Companies that offer free services usually gain revenue from more obscure sources, like agregate information about consumers. I'm just curious as to what this program is... badly done ripped off port that they were too lazy (and thought they wouldn't get caught), or some insidious market scheme (like all that memory usage and stuff going towards doing something shady while you work). They've shown some of either their character or their incompetence. Either way, this is definately some company I'm cautious of.
Did anyone doing the disassembling see anything curious about memory usage or if there's anything shady in their program? Just curious.
It's a good point... balancing between Windows Friendly (and limiting), and Linux powerful (and confusing). And I think we need both. Windows does extremely well on the friendly side, but like you say you're at the mercy of MS to decide what you can and can't do. And most of the time they decide to let you have 80% control, with that remaining 20% becoming a serious issue if you want to do something complicated. Linux allows you do to everything... but the easy, idiot friendly parts are lacking.
I think both can coexist, in the very nature of seperate distributions. Even on the same computer, you should have the option of installing idiot friendly parts (probably a bunch of nice front ends and helpful docs). There's a lot of work in this area, but it's still only half easy, and for other things you have to delve into the real linux stuff. I'd love a system that is as easy to use as windows, stable as linux, with the option to drop down to console and cfg files when I need to tweak something complicated. But for all of my daily tasks (setup and everyday use), I'd love for linux to be point-and-click obvious. Right now, I think it's safe to say that linux distro's are a little lopsided in favor of the tech side, and could use some work on being idiot friendly.
This excludes, of course, distros that try to avoid any bloat at all... idiot friendly is in it's nature more bloated than console-type stuff.
Just a thought from a simliar windows-experienced-trying-to-get-into-linux guy.
James
No binaries or screenshots are dumb. (got the attention... ok, here we go: )
I love open source simply because of the freedom of it. I've never contributed to a project, simply because I lack the knowledge yet, but I love knowing that I do so many different things with the software I download. I don't have to worry about paying money for software that I'm really not completely satisfied with (taking away precious tuition money), instead I know I got something that was born out of people's volunteer efforts. The people that make these programs do it because they want the program to be good, not because of any business presures.
Because of this, it seems backwards to require that people download the source only. Granted, this is completely within the project managers' rights, but it just seems contrary to the nature of the product. Requiring people to download the source is simply a restriction, not a freedom. Freedom is letting people do what they want. If people want to use the software only, and not contribute, then why would you want to cut those people off?
Same with screenshots... it may seem so superficial, but that's the first thing I go for (right after a description of what it does). I know what I need in programs, and one of them is a UI that means I can do my work quickly and efficiently. Not having screenshots doesn't even make any sense towards the getting people involved thing; what good will not letting people have screenshots do? I think his reasoning is that if you're at all interested in this program, even seeing what it looks like, then you should have to go all the way and download source code, take the time to compile it, then you can see anything you want. The next step would be taking any sort of description off the webpage and making people download the source code to look at the comments inside to see what it does.
Seem extreme? What're you doing on a lesser scale when you remove things that make it easier for people to get into project? (which by no way means programming... how many times have I heard that the best way to start helping is with non-programing tasks, faq, documents, etc?)
Of course, I really don't have the soapbox to stand on, never having been in his place. But as a person on the other side of things, this is definately what I appreciate about projects.
I'm looking for recomendation and pointers on CVS type software for website management. We basically use all windows machines (I know), win2000 and NT servers, and we need a program to automatically update, check in/out webpages (for concurrent development without running over each other's toes), and journalling. The journalling is important (to be able to keep whole versions of the website in case we need a rollback).
Does anyone have anything like this implemented? I think we'd need a GUI, since we're all windows. I'm looking for something polished, not awkward. Any recomendations or ideas? (No "use unix" comments... it's not an option)
No. People complaining about Netscape (and IE) compatibility are comparing to the standards. When you code something into a page and it displays incorrectly, according to the standard and other more compliant browsers (and also compared to plain common sense of what a browser should do), then it's unacceptable. It's not a matter of proprietary IE extensions. I wouldn't use those any more than now I would use the Netscape layer tag.
And that's the thing... if any browser fully implemented all of the standards correctly, it would be the most exciting and capable browser out there. So much of what people complain about in compatibility are things that already have a standard, and have a full set out standard for years, and it's just that the compainies making the browsers have ignored them or just haven't gotten them right yet.
Standards compliance = no innovation?
I'd have to say no. The fact that my linux box can now talk to my windows box through SMB sharing doesn't make the different OS's network drive methods any less innovative. The fact that my webpage, done through tables and minimal javascript, displays correctly on most browsers doesn't make those browser less innovative. There's plenty of room for innovation. But implementing a standard incorrectly is not innovation. Implementing the functional equivalent for a standard that is incompatible requires a justification. What does the new method provide that the standard does not? If there's no gain, then that's what makes people call things "proprietary". I'd love it if IE and Netscape were fighting out the field on innovative features. But I can't even think of any examples, because they aren't even done with the basics. If SSL was incompatible from browser to browser, would that make online banking any more enjoyable? I'd love them to expand, make things more secure and work better. But on the standards that make sense and are the best choice, let them conform. I'd love to be able to sit at work and develope for 5 year old standards (most standards are older than you think), and not worry about Netscape / IE / Anything else out there screwing it all up.
I think I might have got some nitpicky details wrong. But I do believe the crux of it is true. Let me know if I'm wrong (if my opinion is wrong... heh).
James
----
Signatures are the refuge of the weak minded.