The crucial argument against IE is its terrible CSS support but it's very difficult to get this across to ordinary users. Here's my suggestion. Create your site with as many features as possible which fail in IE but render perfectly in Firefox, Safari etc. Next insert Javascript or CSS IE browser detection into your home page which inserts into the IE rendered page something along these lines:
This site will display better in a browser which supports web standards. Here's an example to show you the difference.
The example is a link to a screenshot of the home page rendered in Firefox and a link to the Firefox download page should also be added. This way we don't lock out IE users but make IE's shortcomings as obvious as possible thus dispelling the pernicious M$-cultivated illusion that sites with IE workarounds are the standard. For this to work it needs to be a standard response developed by the web standards project so that it becomes familiar when users see it on different sites. The only way to defeat M$ is to play them at their own game.
Actually I don't have a problem with the Terminal fonts since the fixed width fonts in console mode are perfect. It's the general GUI fonts which are the problem. They're all over the place and nowhere near what you get on Windows or, better still, Mac OS X. OK, Linux doesn't have the benefit of Adobe PDF rendering but all the effort going into "desktop Linux" is missing the point when the most basic visual feature of all - font rendering - is so backward.
I just don't get it. Everyone takes it for granted that Linux can wow disgruntled Windows users yet the first thing they're going to see is UGLY FONTS and think "What the ****". Still, after all this time. Maybe X or the font rendering engine just isn't up to it and needs something completely fresh but I'm sick of looking at dirty, grubby fonts all over the place in "desktop" Linux. They're simply an embarrassment. Firefox is one of the worst offenders. Yes, you heard me, OSS's flagship product can't render fonts properly. That includes MS TTF fonts as well. I've seen pages which work fine in Firefox/Win/OS X look utterly mangled in Firefox/Linux. Hasn't anyone noticed that on menus and application interfaces you often find characters bumping into one another with variable, arbitrary amounts of random bolding all over the place. Linux is NOWHERE NEAR ready for the desktop while this continues.
Who said anything about MVC? Using templates, as with most large sites, makes the whole CSS redesign thing redundant. With Perl's Template Toolkit I can develop a much more fine-grained library of components than the crude CSS layout model has to offer. It won't break in IE6/5.5/5.0 etc. either. Productive use of time matters to me. I wasted far too much time with CSS bugs when I was into it. Template Toolkit put an end to all that.
The fault is in the wheelchair, not the ramp. If screenreaders and text browsers can't parse simple HTML (yes, tables are simple) then they're inadequate for their purpsose. Don't blame web designers for using HTML tables when CSS-P support is laughable.
Doesn't anyone question the twisted logic of the accessibility fascists? Isn't it the responsibility of the screen-reader manufacturers and text browsers to come up with something that can handle table-based layouts rather than insisit the vast majority of websites be re-engineered to cater for a tiny minority with inadequate browsesrs? Note, I'm not aiming here at genuine accessibility issues like colour contrasts etc., just the tired CSS layout crap. CSS layout is and always was ****ed. That's why tables are still commonly used. CSS layout was originally CSS-P - bascially an afterthought/hack.
Since when was the OSS community interested in helping M$ improve its game? M$ has declared open warfare on OSS many time so isn't it about time we told them to just **** off? Tell them it's great just as it is then, hopefully, it will die the death it should do.
Am I the only one who thinks 1280 is ridiculous for a 13.3" screen width? Gone are the days of 14" at 1024. Why? We're not all into video editing and, no, upping the view options within OS X does not compensate.
I spent years wading through the quagmire of DHTML/CSS/Javascript compatibility issues and eventually realised that it was a full time job getting it right. 'Trouble was the job went largely unrewarded as the end user was only interested in how pretty it looked and it's difficult to get a client to pay you properly for time spent working round compatibility problems. Eventually I got wise and realised M$ had screwed up the CSS and Javascript game beyond recovery and decided to concentrate my energies where my time would be rewarded. I've been working with Perl, PHP, MySQL and PostgreSQL ever since and haven't looked back. For front-end design I keep it simple - basic CSS and no Javascript. That way I can sleep at night and wake refreshed to concentrate on the aspects of web development which add real value to a site. "Web 2.0" won't tempt me back into the fray as IE5/6 issues will haunt web developers for many years yet, regardless of what Vista and IE7 brings.
One area of web development I think is very much neglected is semi-dynamic web development with Template Toolkit and cron. The content of many dynamic sites only changes periodically so it can often be better to have templates generate static pages periodically from your database with a cron script instead of coding the whole site in PHP, Perl/CGI or whatever.
Honestly, with titles like "Debian Woody", "Breezy Badger", "Dapper Drake" etc. is it any wonder the rest of the world thinks the Linux crowd are a bunch of Nerdy Nutcases?
Why this "first generation" phenomenon with Apple, which users seem to take for granted? I mean they're not exactly short of resources so why on earth haven't they tested these things? Is it too much to expect a technician to sit down with one of the new Macbook Pros and, duh, see it gets too hot? Isn't that one of the first things Apple should have tested when releasing a model with a new chip architecture? It seems Apple are walking on water right now to the extent that they can get away with releasing untested products. Why is no-one outraged by all this?
Apple = good customer service? Do me a favour. Maybe the U.S. experience is different than over here in the U.K. as my experience with Apple has been less than encouraging. Apple U.K. has an appalling relationship with their delivery service which often leads to deliveries to the wrong address and months of delay. Refunds are a nightmare and I've had to contact Apple to get them to explain why they over-charged my credit card. Surface politeness counts for nothing when you have a grossly incompetent infrastructure causing chaos in the background. Want your credit card details removing from their database? No can do. I was told I would have to file a lawsuit to get them to remove my data.
Now MySQL 5 has so many new features has anyone tested how much faster it is, using InnoDB, compared with Postgres? If it isn't much faster I can't see any reason to go with MySQL because speed has always been MySQL's selling point. The whole choice of table type thing always seemed clunky to me with MySQL.
Well, I've just seen the screenshots on the Novell website and the font rendering is just the same, plain ugly, half anti-aliased mess it always has been with Linux. "Similar to Mac OS X"? Where did they cook that one up? Mac OS X has first-rate font rendering due to its PDF rendering engine. Linux doesn't come anywhere near. I use Linux for all my server work, and that's where it shines. Please give this desktop Linux nonesense a break..... or get someone to re-engineer the xfont server or whatever else is required to make desktop Linux at least look decent on the eye.
I use Linux and OS X almost exclusively, apart from checking web pages in IE, but I have to say that much open source software runs better on Windows than on Linux. I can't fathom why. OpenOffice is an absolute dog on Linux and spreadsheet columns frequently lose their settings. Font rendering is still inferior on Linux, at least with most out-of-the-box distros. Seen that wonderful flaky Courier Knoppix uses by default in dialogue boxes? Hideous. Default fonts in Mozilla/Firefox are appalling on Linux to such an extent that I dread Firefox/Linux ever being adopted within the company I've developed a large website for. Linux is still pretty damned ugly compared with Mac OS X and Windows and sadly it's eye candy that wins new users. Until the graphics and font rendering improve OUT OF THE BOX I can't see desktop Linux taking off.
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The crucial argument against IE is its terrible CSS support but it's very difficult to get this across to ordinary users. Here's my suggestion. Create your site with as many features as possible which fail in IE but render perfectly in Firefox, Safari etc. Next insert Javascript or CSS IE browser detection into your home page which inserts into the IE rendered page something along these lines:
This site will display better in a browser which supports web standards. Here's an example to show you the difference.
The example is a link to a screenshot of the home page rendered in Firefox and a link to the Firefox download page should also be added. This way we don't lock out IE users but make IE's shortcomings as obvious as possible thus dispelling the pernicious M$-cultivated illusion that sites with IE workarounds are the standard. For this to work it needs to be a standard response developed by the web standards project so that it becomes familiar when users see it on different sites. The only way to defeat M$ is to play them at their own game.
Actually I don't have a problem with the Terminal fonts since the fixed width fonts in console mode are perfect. It's the general GUI fonts which are the problem. They're all over the place and nowhere near what you get on Windows or, better still, Mac OS X. OK, Linux doesn't have the benefit of Adobe PDF rendering but all the effort going into "desktop Linux" is missing the point when the most basic visual feature of all - font rendering - is so backward.
I just don't get it. Everyone takes it for granted that Linux can wow disgruntled Windows users yet the first thing they're going to see is UGLY FONTS and think "What the ****". Still, after all this time. Maybe X or the font rendering engine just isn't up to it and needs something completely fresh but I'm sick of looking at dirty, grubby fonts all over the place in "desktop" Linux. They're simply an embarrassment. Firefox is one of the worst offenders. Yes, you heard me, OSS's flagship product can't render fonts properly. That includes MS TTF fonts as well. I've seen pages which work fine in Firefox/Win/OS X look utterly mangled in Firefox/Linux. Hasn't anyone noticed that on menus and application interfaces you often find characters bumping into one another with variable, arbitrary amounts of random bolding all over the place. Linux is NOWHERE NEAR ready for the desktop while this continues.
Who said anything about MVC? Using templates, as with most large sites, makes the whole CSS redesign thing redundant. With Perl's Template Toolkit I can develop a much more fine-grained library of components than the crude CSS layout model has to offer. It won't break in IE6/5.5/5.0 etc. either. Productive use of time matters to me. I wasted far too much time with CSS bugs when I was into it. Template Toolkit put an end to all that.
The fault is in the wheelchair, not the ramp. If screenreaders and text browsers can't parse simple HTML (yes, tables are simple) then they're inadequate for their purpsose. Don't blame web designers for using HTML tables when CSS-P support is laughable.
So let me get this straight. Tables are BAD and so are columnar layouts. Wow, this CSS sure expands your range of options.
Ever heard of templates? They make a lot of the CSS redesign issues redundant.
Doesn't anyone question the twisted logic of the accessibility fascists? Isn't it the responsibility of the screen-reader manufacturers and text browsers to come up with something that can handle table-based layouts rather than insisit the vast majority of websites be re-engineered to cater for a tiny minority with inadequate browsesrs? Note, I'm not aiming here at genuine accessibility issues like colour contrasts etc., just the tired CSS layout crap. CSS layout is and always was ****ed. That's why tables are still commonly used. CSS layout was originally CSS-P - bascially an afterthought/hack.
There's also no way you can approximate what the CSS float attribute does with only tables
You're right. It's impossible to reproduce all the float bugs with tables.
Since when was the OSS community interested in helping M$ improve its game? M$ has declared open warfare on OSS many time so isn't it about time we told them to just **** off? Tell them it's great just as it is then, hopefully, it will die the death it should do.
My templates are (I'm sure) parsed on each invocation though.
Apache::Template with mod_perl will allow you to have Template-Toolkit preloaded.
PHP5's mysqli extension enables you to use prepared queries.
'Sounds like a rudimentary form of Lincoln Stein's CGI.pm . See http://search.cpan.org/ for more.
Am I the only one who thinks 1280 is ridiculous for a 13.3" screen width? Gone are the days of 14" at 1024. Why? We're not all into video editing and, no, upping the view options within OS X does not compensate.
I spent years wading through the quagmire of DHTML/CSS/Javascript compatibility issues and eventually realised that it was a full time job getting it right. 'Trouble was the job went largely unrewarded as the end user was only interested in how pretty it looked and it's difficult to get a client to pay you properly for time spent working round compatibility problems. Eventually I got wise and realised M$ had screwed up the CSS and Javascript game beyond recovery and decided to concentrate my energies where my time would be rewarded. I've been working with Perl, PHP, MySQL and PostgreSQL ever since and haven't looked back. For front-end design I keep it simple - basic CSS and no Javascript. That way I can sleep at night and wake refreshed to concentrate on the aspects of web development which add real value to a site. "Web 2.0" won't tempt me back into the fray as IE5/6 issues will haunt web developers for many years yet, regardless of what Vista and IE7 brings.
One area of web development I think is very much neglected is semi-dynamic web development with Template Toolkit and cron. The content of many dynamic sites only changes periodically so it can often be better to have templates generate static pages periodically from your database with a cron script instead of coding the whole site in PHP, Perl/CGI or whatever.
What, you mean the model of releasing a new version every 5 years? Great!
Honestly, with titles like "Debian Woody", "Breezy Badger", "Dapper Drake" etc. is it any wonder the rest of the world thinks the Linux crowd are a bunch of Nerdy Nutcases?
Why this "first generation" phenomenon with Apple, which users seem to take for granted? I mean they're not exactly short of resources so why on earth haven't they tested these things? Is it too much to expect a technician to sit down with one of the new Macbook Pros and, duh, see it gets too hot? Isn't that one of the first things Apple should have tested when releasing a model with a new chip architecture? It seems Apple are walking on water right now to the extent that they can get away with releasing untested products. Why is no-one outraged by all this?
Apple = good customer service? Do me a favour. Maybe the U.S. experience is different than over here in the U.K. as my experience with Apple has been less than encouraging. Apple U.K. has an appalling relationship with their delivery service which often leads to deliveries to the wrong address and months of delay. Refunds are a nightmare and I've had to contact Apple to get them to explain why they over-charged my credit card. Surface politeness counts for nothing when you have a grossly incompetent infrastructure causing chaos in the background. Want your credit card details removing from their database? No can do. I was told I would have to file a lawsuit to get them to remove my data.
If they don't get it out soon Perl 6 may beat them to it. Alright then, maybe that's a bit crazy.
'Programming Perl' by Larry Wall
Now MySQL 5 has so many new features has anyone tested how much faster it is, using InnoDB, compared with Postgres? If it isn't much faster I can't see any reason to go with MySQL because speed has always been MySQL's selling point. The whole choice of table type thing always seemed clunky to me with MySQL.
Well, I've just seen the screenshots on the Novell website and the font rendering is just the same, plain ugly, half anti-aliased mess it always has been with Linux. "Similar to Mac OS X"? Where did they cook that one up? Mac OS X has first-rate font rendering due to its PDF rendering engine. Linux doesn't come anywhere near. I use Linux for all my server work, and that's where it shines. Please give this desktop Linux nonesense a break ..... or get someone to re-engineer the xfont server or whatever else is required to make desktop Linux at least look decent on the eye.
How the **** do Apple get away with selling a desktop computer with a 5400rpm hard drive and have everyone believe it's cool/innovative? Beats me.
I use Linux and OS X almost exclusively, apart from checking web pages in IE, but I have to say that much open source software runs better on Windows than on Linux. I can't fathom why. OpenOffice is an absolute dog on Linux and spreadsheet columns frequently lose their settings. Font rendering is still inferior on Linux, at least with most out-of-the-box distros. Seen that wonderful flaky Courier Knoppix uses by default in dialogue boxes? Hideous. Default fonts in Mozilla/Firefox are appalling on Linux to such an extent that I dread Firefox/Linux ever being adopted within the company I've developed a large website for. Linux is still pretty damned ugly compared with Mac OS X and Windows and sadly it's eye candy that wins new users. Until the graphics and font rendering improve OUT OF THE BOX I can't see desktop Linux taking off.