If you are a professional, you "code" to meet documented standards, design specs, or API. You test your code (or in this case "web pages") with the target programs (e.g. browsers). If the code follows the spec., the defect is in the target program, or the spec. is wrong, so submit a defect report against the offending part.
If the defect won't be repaired in time for your next release, then code a workaround, preferably within the spec. or as an exception to the particular target.
Contrast this with non-professionals: write the code to work with what you think most everyone else has, and test with a particular version that you have on your system. If it works, you're done. Actually the non-professional method might work, but ONLY if an attempt is made to fix 100% of all the problems reported back to them.
A core software engineering axiom: high quality is achieved *by design* not by testing.
This is true because it is impossible to remove all defects from code with testing alone. If you have a problem believing this, then this will really fry-your-brain: if your code (or web page) doesn't work with the target browser, then you might think that this is a defect with the browser (e.g. because it used to work with a previous version). But how can you prove that if there is no spec.? The vendor will always tell you that this is a feature, and that the defect is in your code!
Of course this particular topic of incompatible web browsers has been around for some time:
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with
Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be
yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when
you had very little chance of reading a document
written on another computer, another word processor,
or another network." --Tim Berners-Lee in
Technology Review, July 1996
See the "Viewable With Any Browser" campaign web site for more details: http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
The fundamental flaw that I see in this book (extrapolating
from the review) is that the Gaia Theory is not even
considered to be a factor. I.e. once life starts, even
bacterial life, then life can have major impacts on the
climate. Inorganic science alone can not explain how it is
possible for this planet to so stable for life.
For example, the sun is 30% warmer than when life started.
That must mean there is less greenhouse gases now than in
the past. Sure enough, core samples from hundreds of
thousands of years ago show CO2 levels that are higher than
now. Plant life (mostly microscopic) has been converting
the CO2. Of course the CO2 levels can't go much lower, so
there will be a state change coming in a few thousand years.
Inorganic science can't explain why we have had an oxygen
atmosphere for so long. With out life it is just plain
impossible.
Some of the speculations in the Gaia Theory are mind
boggling. For example, since lower CO2 levels result in
colder temperatures, that would mean there would be more
life during ice ages. So the bulk of the life would be in
the oceans. As the microscopic sea creatures like diatoms
convert CO2 to their shells, these shells start forming
sedimentary deposits that are so heavy that they cause the
sea floor to press down enough to increase subduction rates
and volcanic actions at the plate edges, which releases CO2
gases, which then end the ice age.
Of course this is all still theory, but the book's assertion
that everything must be "just right" is it's fundamental
flaw, because once single cell life starts using the water
and atmosphere, the inorganic sciences will not be able to
explain the supposedly "fragile" systems that life creates.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are a professional, you "code" to meet documented
standards, design specs, or API. You test your code (or in
this case "web pages") with the target programs (e.g.
browsers). If the code follows the spec., the defect is in
the target program, or the spec. is wrong, so submit a
defect report against the offending part.
If the defect won't be repaired in time for your next
release, then code a workaround, preferably within the
spec. or as an exception to the particular target.
Contrast this with non-professionals: write the code to work
with what you think most everyone else has, and test with a
particular version that you have on your system. If it
works, you're done. Actually the non-professional method
might work, but ONLY if an attempt is made to fix 100% of
all the problems reported back to them.
A core software engineering axiom: high quality is achieved
*by design* not by testing.
This is true because it is impossible to remove all defects
from code with testing alone. If you have a problem
believing this, then this will really fry-your-brain: if
your code (or web page) doesn't work with the target
browser, then you might think that this is a defect with the
browser (e.g. because it used to work with a previous
version). But how can you prove that if there is no spec.?
The vendor will always tell you that this is a feature, and
that the defect is in your code!
Of course this particular topic of incompatible web
browsers has been around for some time:
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with
Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be
yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when
you had very little chance of reading a document
written on another computer, another word processor,
or another network." --Tim Berners-Lee in
Technology Review, July 1996
See the "Viewable With Any Browser" campaign web site for
more details: http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
For example, the sun is 30% warmer than when life started. That must mean there is less greenhouse gases now than in the past. Sure enough, core samples from hundreds of thousands of years ago show CO2 levels that are higher than now. Plant life (mostly microscopic) has been converting the CO2. Of course the CO2 levels can't go much lower, so there will be a state change coming in a few thousand years.
Inorganic science can't explain why we have had an oxygen atmosphere for so long. With out life it is just plain impossible.
Some of the speculations in the Gaia Theory are mind boggling. For example, since lower CO2 levels result in colder temperatures, that would mean there would be more life during ice ages. So the bulk of the life would be in the oceans. As the microscopic sea creatures like diatoms convert CO2 to their shells, these shells start forming sedimentary deposits that are so heavy that they cause the sea floor to press down enough to increase subduction rates and volcanic actions at the plate edges, which releases CO2 gases, which then end the ice age.
Of course this is all still theory, but the book's assertion that everything must be "just right" is it's fundamental flaw, because once single cell life starts using the water and atmosphere, the inorganic sciences will not be able to explain the supposedly "fragile" systems that life creates.