I think a lot of the reactions here are off the mark. Fellow slashdotters are complaining about buying a game and then having "advertisements forced down our throats."
Anyone with small children and a computer is probably familiar with the either free or nominally-priced games featuring Hot Wheels, Barbie, Buzz Lightyear, Tonka Trucks, and other well-recognized properties. These are games that are fairly fun for the kids to play, where the product is a major component of the game, and there are sometimes links to the websites of the products.
The games I have seen in the genre tend to be lightweight, but get the kids excited enough about it to want to go home, install it, and play it.
I believe that the market size of 1 billion would be primarily bourne by the companies who want to place their products as part of their promotions budgets, and not on the end-consumer.
The web will continue to be filled with crappy HTML until enough people stop using IE.
Well, I'll agree with you for the first part, "The web will continue to be filled with crappy HTML," but I don't buy the cause-and-effect that you are putting forth. Crappy HTML exists for a myriad of reasons, and my experience is that the user using IE is not a direct cause of an author writing bad markup.
As for IE on the desktop, I will certainly concede buchanmilne's point above aboutIE requiring a never-ending parade of security patches. That's just life in the Windows world.
The point I am more focused on is that there is a real management and maintainence cost that comes with making this choice, most of which will occur long after the enthusiastic Mozilla boosters have moved on. As a loyal Galeon (Linux) and Crazy Browser (Windows) user, I certainly don't need to be convinced that other browsers are better for a lot of people.
But you have to realize that 80% of the cost of software is in the ongoing maintainence, and there are a lot of people in organizations at all levels who are familiar with IE, have "dummies" books, etc. There is a real cost that an organization will incur when the initial enthusiastic boosters roll out their alternative browser, and eventually move on. Who will provide support then? Who will push out new releases and bug fixes? While we here in Slashdot Land turn our nose up at IE, the basic instability and constant fixes needed have resulted in some very useful tools for managing the long-term costs. Windows update comes to mind.
We have a hard time acknowledging reality here sometimes, and the reality is that the browser wars have been settled - IE, like it or not, is the default choice due to it being bundled with every copy of Windows, the default desktop environment. People know it, expect it, and have become accustomed to its behavior. It is the leader, and so if we expect IE users to adopt Moz-derived browsers, then we have to make it easy for the users.
We also have a very hard time here acknowledging what is most important in a browser. The geeks here will crow about how "standards compliant", and start dropping three-letter acronyms XML, XUL, W3C, and so on, and go on about this or that techno feature. I would propose that the most important thing is that it be as useful as possible to non-technical end users.
This is where Microsoft does a good job. They focus on usability (and not security, to be sure). IE was helped out in the battle for the desktop by it being bundled, but by the 4.0 generation, it was just a whole lot better experience for the end user.
That's why it grates me to hear the original comment about "properly coded" websites. HTML was never designed to have to pass through a compiler or verifier before being deployed, so the problem is designed-in. Improperly coded websites exist, get over it. Changing everyone to [insert client of choice here] will never change this fact.
Mozilla has never had a problem rendering any properly coded site for me.
[Emphasis added]
It always rubs me the wrong way when geeks here on slashdot argue how perfect the world would be if all the hack web authors wrote "properly coded" websites. It is just a undeniable reality that the web is chock full of wrongly-coded, badly-coded, intentionally-broken code, and it is important that any browser degrade gracefully under such circumstances[, at which Mozilla does a very respectable job].
Sitting back in a chair and ruminating about "properly coded" sites is not an option.
More on topic, I think that it is a huge mistake if the original poster forces his [ahem, non-standard] choice on the unsuspecting users. As IE is already installed on all Windows desktops already, and since all websites are written with IE as the target, he is setting himself up for a rude awakening.
>Mozilla is stable, fast and support correct standards.
(Empahsis added.)
Ahh, in every Mozilla story, I let myself get suckered into this same discussion. Always some self-selected spokesman who seems to think that he knows what the "correct" standard is for you and me.
No doubt this person thinks the "correct" standards are the various three-letter acronyms that various standards bodies publish long after the various technologies have been implemented in divergent ways.
Well, here comes your clue: your so-called "correct" standards don't matter a whit. Unlike the tech elite, most users just want to be able to access content on the internet. If that means supporting broken HTML, then broken HTML must be supported. If that means displaying Flash, Windows Media, or <put favorite propritary technology here>, then that means making the effort to either support it, or to degrade gracefully.
Arrogant comments like yours further alienate the 99.44% of users who are not tech wizards, and will help keep Mozilla and its offspring as just interesting sideshow, as a single-percentage niche player. If you look at what real users actually use, it is overwhelmingly InternetExplorer. Users will not consider switching to a browser where its proponents, instead of trying to support non-standards and de-facto standards, just pontificate about how what they want to do is somehow "non-standard." <sarcasm>Yes, that'll help the cause.
OK, Mr. Correct Standards, since you know what the correct standards are, please tell us what significant website you run which only adheres to "correct standards", IE be damned. And while you're at it, please provide us with the number of paying users that your website has.
Here's my prediction: you don't run any website of significance. You don't have any paying customers. So no surprise that it's no big deal to you if you don't care about more than 95% of internet users. You'd be singing a different tune otherwise.
P.S. Galeon is the king, Phoenix the pretender to the throne
Re:First amendment? Gimme a break!
on
The Wireless City
·
· Score: 2
No, I wasn't talking about evesdropping at all
You introduced the word "evesdropping."
On the other hand, the government selectively making websites unavailable to users is censorship, and is a violation of the first amendment as interpreted many, many times by the Supreme Court.
I don't suppose that you could cite any cases, either already seen by the Supreme Court, or pending before the Supreme Court, that address the very common situation of public libraries (i.e. government entities) making websites unavailable.
The right to be heard is just as important as the right to speak.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there is no right to be heard.
>And even if they're 'responsible' enough to censor the information (in violation of the first amendment)
Nice troll attempt. Like most other clue-challenged individuals who fall (or blisfully ignorant dive on purpose) into this trap, you are comparing the apples of communications in a private context with the oranges of government attempting to control speech, especially political speech. It is the latter which is protected by the first amendment.
Just because someone gives you internet access does not mean that they owe you a pedestal. In a private context (such as a workplace or even a public park) the provider of the services can do whatever the hell they want to do. If you don't like it, get off your fat duff and go somewhere else, or better yet, go start your own venture where you can attract all others of your ilk - you can call it "ClueLessNet".
Thanks for the "translation." It's worth even less than I paid for it.
Um, no. There are two kinds of standards, committee standards and de-facto standards. Of these, de-facto standards are most important, because they tend to address real-world user expectations and experience.
W3C puts forward nice, ivory-tower, theoretical committee standards, and it would be great if all players tried to conform to them. But to blindly insist on only following W3C standards and ignore the de-facto standards as dictated by the marketplace is arrogant and delusional.
In my experience, the people who express hard-core insistance on W3C standards, and disdain for de-facto standards, tend to be those who either don't have paying customers or run websites of insignificance.
The goal is to serve the user. Like it or not, the user uses IE.
>the interesting battle is to get enough users to use standards compliant browsers
Ahhh, the tired standards bandwagon... Here we go again...
developers can finally just write according to web standards and know their websites can work for more than 99% of users
Here's the clue: you can do that now. You code for the browser that has the 99% market share. Like it or not, that browser is InternetExplorer. With a fraction of a point in market share, the Mozilla-based browsers can only follow, and try to duplicate the IE experience, "standard" or otherwise.
Though we here don't seem to acknowledge it, real end users don't give a rat's ass about "standards". They just want to get their work done. Preaching about how a browser, which many claim has an inferior user experience (e.g support for "non-standard" stuff like flash, or whatever), fully supports some-incomprehensible-acronym standard is a losing strategy.
Please don't mention standards again.
IE is the standard.
But Microsoft is not alone: the KaZaa music-sharing software is designed so that KaZaa's business partner can rent out the use of your computer to their clients. These malicious features are often secret, but even once you know about them it is hard to remove them, since you don't have the source code.
Huh? As usual, while trying to fake an appearance of reasonability, the foaming at the mouth gives him away...
If you install spyware and then later learn about their maliciousness, why on earth do you need the source code to remove them? And which source code? Windows? KaZaa's?
RMS as MCSE: "Sorry ma'am, it is not possible for me to delete that file. That would require access to source code."
>Ah, so we have standards, but we should ignore them because everyone else does?
No, dear AC. InternetExplorer, in its various versions, comprises well over 90% of the market. Therefore, InternetExplorer is the standard. This is true, regardless of how you feel about the situation, regardless how you feel about Microsoft, whether you like it or not.
Anybody who codes his site to some "standard" that happens to exclude 90% of the universe, and then pontificates that the world should change, deserves his site to die a death of scorn and insignificance he has chosen.
>My site conforms to W3C standard precisely and as a result it fails to render properly in IE6. Oh well.
Hmmm, let's see if we can sum up this arrogant fellow's attitude:
"*I* am compliant with the W3C, IETF, and EIEIO standards. Therefore, the world must change around *me*.
"Nevermind that I arrogantly dismiss over 90% of the universe, they must change to suit my limited world view."
Clue follows:
The world uses IE. IE 5, IE6, IE 4, whatever. You and I and everyone else here who dabble in Mozilla and Mozilla-derived browsers (such as Galeon, my favorite) are, percentage-wise, down in the noise. Our market share is insignificant, and it is not likely to be significant for a long time to come.
The world uses IE. Real world users don't give a rat's ass about standards compliance - they just expect to be able to use the tool and have it work. Real users do not deserve some dufus riding in on his high horse screaming "It's all your fault, you should have used a standards-compliant HTTP rendering client!"
If you are so arrogant as to dismiss 95% of your audience, then your site must not really be worth visiting.
Every time I hear about anohter buffer overflow, I scratch my head and ask, "Why doesn't anybody use libsafe? This is a library which, once installed, protects all processes, regardless whether they have been patched or not.
It transparently replaces the libc functions that are the usual targets of stack smashing attacks, and checks whether the stack frame has been overrun. If the stack has been smashed, the process gets terminated forcefully, and root (or other designated contact) gets an e-mail with all the details.
This has been out for several years now, and I am amazed that no major distribution includes this in a standard server install.
By your same reasoning, President Bush is also privileged, elite, and college-educated. Does that make him the least bit intelligent?
Huh? Where did that come from?
The original AC post claimed that the perpetrators of 9/11 were uneducated and brainwashed (and seemed to imply that they themselves were somehow "victims" of fanatic indoctrination, but we're not going to go there). That statement is patently false. I corrected the record.
So, to answer your logically-flawed question: if President Bush is also privileged, elite, and college-educated, then that makes him privileged, elite, and college-educated.
>Don't forget, the suckers who crashed planes into WTC&Pentagon were uneducated ones
The "suckers" who crashed planes into WTC & Pentagon were privileged, elite, and college-educated.
Re:My Question
on
Ask Larry Wall
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>Compare that to Java where even if you just want to print "Hello World" you have to understand inheritance, polymorphism and static class methods.
Ahhhh, Grasshopper, if only that were true.
I have seen firsthand so-called "professional programmers" using Java to create some of the worst God-awful spagetti code I have seen in my 15+ years of . No matter what the virtues and ideaology behind any language, someone can come along and screw it up beyond recognition.
Power tools in the hands of amateurs regularly results in the loss of limbs.
Slashdot Mirror
Says Nigel... "But ours goes up to 65."
Anyone with small children and a computer is probably familiar with the either free or nominally-priced games featuring Hot Wheels, Barbie, Buzz Lightyear, Tonka Trucks, and other well-recognized properties. These are games that are fairly fun for the kids to play, where the product is a major component of the game, and there are sometimes links to the websites of the products.
The games I have seen in the genre tend to be lightweight, but get the kids excited enough about it to want to go home, install it, and play it.
I believe that the market size of 1 billion would be primarily bourne by the companies who want to place their products as part of their promotions budgets, and not on the end-consumer.
Well, I'll agree with you for the first part, "The web will continue to be filled with crappy HTML," but I don't buy the cause-and-effect that you are putting forth. Crappy HTML exists for a myriad of reasons, and my experience is that the user using IE is not a direct cause of an author writing bad markup.
As for IE on the desktop, I will certainly concede buchanmilne's point above aboutIE requiring a never-ending parade of security patches. That's just life in the Windows world.
The point I am more focused on is that there is a real management and maintainence cost that comes with making this choice, most of which will occur long after the enthusiastic Mozilla boosters have moved on. As a loyal Galeon (Linux) and Crazy Browser (Windows) user, I certainly don't need to be convinced that other browsers are better for a lot of people.
But you have to realize that 80% of the cost of software is in the ongoing maintainence, and there are a lot of people in organizations at all levels who are familiar with IE, have "dummies" books, etc. There is a real cost that an organization will incur when the initial enthusiastic boosters roll out their alternative browser, and eventually move on. Who will provide support then? Who will push out new releases and bug fixes? While we here in Slashdot Land turn our nose up at IE, the basic instability and constant fixes needed have resulted in some very useful tools for managing the long-term costs. Windows update comes to mind.
We have a hard time acknowledging reality here sometimes, and the reality is that the browser wars have been settled - IE, like it or not, is the default choice due to it being bundled with every copy of Windows, the default desktop environment. People know it, expect it, and have become accustomed to its behavior. It is the leader, and so if we expect IE users to adopt Moz-derived browsers, then we have to make it easy for the users.
We also have a very hard time here acknowledging what is most important in a browser. The geeks here will crow about how "standards compliant", and start dropping three-letter acronyms XML, XUL, W3C, and so on, and go on about this or that techno feature. I would propose that the most important thing is that it be as useful as possible to non-technical end users.
This is where Microsoft does a good job. They focus on usability (and not security, to be sure). IE was helped out in the battle for the desktop by it being bundled, but by the 4.0 generation, it was just a whole lot better experience for the end user.
That's why it grates me to hear the original comment about "properly coded" websites. HTML was never designed to have to pass through a compiler or verifier before being deployed, so the problem is designed-in. Improperly coded websites exist, get over it. Changing everyone to [insert client of choice here] will never change this fact.
Yes it is, it says so right up on that little icon there at the top.
It always rubs me the wrong way when geeks here on slashdot argue how perfect the world would be if all the hack web authors wrote "properly coded" websites. It is just a undeniable reality that the web is chock full of wrongly-coded, badly-coded, intentionally-broken code, and it is important that any browser degrade gracefully under such circumstances[, at which Mozilla does a very respectable job].
Sitting back in a chair and ruminating about "properly coded" sites is not an option.
More on topic, I think that it is a huge mistake if the original poster forces his [ahem, non-standard] choice on the unsuspecting users. As IE is already installed on all Windows desktops already, and since all websites are written with IE as the target, he is setting himself up for a rude awakening.
Basic software truism: The first 90% takes 90% of the time. :)
The last 10% takes the other 90% of the time
-Steve
Click here to download!!!
For a moment there I thought you said that roundabouts increase safety. Because, of course, that would not make any sense whatsoever.
Actually, Passport was an acquisition, not a Microsoft innovation.
Ahh, in every Mozilla story, I let myself get suckered into this same discussion. Always some self-selected spokesman who seems to think that he knows what the "correct" standard is for you and me.
No doubt this person thinks the "correct" standards are the various three-letter acronyms that various standards bodies publish long after the various technologies have been implemented in divergent ways.
Well, here comes your clue: your so-called "correct" standards don't matter a whit. Unlike the tech elite, most users just want to be able to access content on the internet. If that means supporting broken HTML, then broken HTML must be supported. If that means displaying Flash, Windows Media, or <put favorite propritary technology here>, then that means making the effort to either support it, or to degrade gracefully.
Arrogant comments like yours further alienate the 99.44% of users who are not tech wizards, and will help keep Mozilla and its offspring as just interesting sideshow, as a single-percentage niche player. If you look at what real users actually use, it is overwhelmingly InternetExplorer. Users will not consider switching to a browser where its proponents, instead of trying to support non-standards and de-facto standards, just pontificate about how what they want to do is somehow "non-standard." <sarcasm>Yes, that'll help the cause. OK, Mr. Correct Standards, since you know what the correct standards are, please tell us what significant website you run which only adheres to "correct standards", IE be damned. And while you're at it, please provide us with the number of paying users that your website has.
Here's my prediction: you don't run any website of significance. You don't have any paying customers. So no surprise that it's no big deal to you if you don't care about more than 95% of internet users. You'd be singing a different tune otherwise.
P.S. Galeon is the king, Phoenix the pretender to the throne
You introduced the word "evesdropping."
On the other hand, the government selectively making websites unavailable to users is censorship, and is a violation of the first amendment as interpreted many, many times by the Supreme Court.
I don't suppose that you could cite any cases, either already seen by the Supreme Court, or pending before the Supreme Court, that address the very common situation of public libraries (i.e. government entities) making websites unavailable.
The right to be heard is just as important as the right to speak.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there is no right to be heard.
Nice troll attempt. Like most other clue-challenged individuals who fall (or blisfully ignorant dive on purpose) into this trap, you are comparing the apples of communications in a private context with the oranges of government attempting to control speech, especially political speech. It is the latter which is protected by the first amendment.
Just because someone gives you internet access does not mean that they owe you a pedestal. In a private context (such as a workplace or even a public park) the provider of the services can do whatever the hell they want to do. If you don't like it, get off your fat duff and go somewhere else, or better yet, go start your own venture where you can attract all others of your ilk - you can call it "ClueLessNet".
Thanks for the "translation." It's worth even less than I paid for it.
Duh,
-Steve
Sounds about right. You're talking about Java, right?
Oh, BASIC.
Nevermind...
Two words: child abuse.
Um, no. There are two kinds of standards, committee standards and de-facto standards. Of these, de-facto standards are most important, because they tend to address real-world user expectations and experience.
W3C puts forward nice, ivory-tower, theoretical committee standards, and it would be great if all players tried to conform to them. But to blindly insist on only following W3C standards and ignore the de-facto standards as dictated by the marketplace is arrogant and delusional.
In my experience, the people who express hard-core insistance on W3C standards, and disdain for de-facto standards, tend to be those who either don't have paying customers or run websites of insignificance.
The goal is to serve the user. Like it or not, the user uses IE.
Ahhh, the tired standards bandwagon... Here we go again...
developers can finally just write according to web standards and know their websites can work for more than 99% of users
Here's the clue: you can do that now. You code for the browser that has the 99% market share. Like it or not, that browser is InternetExplorer. With a fraction of a point in market share, the Mozilla-based browsers can only follow, and try to duplicate the IE experience, "standard" or otherwise.
Though we here don't seem to acknowledge it, real end users don't give a rat's ass about "standards". They just want to get their work done. Preaching about how a browser, which many claim has an inferior user experience (e.g support for "non-standard" stuff like flash, or whatever), fully supports some-incomprehensible-acronym standard is a losing strategy.
Please don't mention standards again. IE is the standard.
So, if we follow this reasoning, pretty soon now Phoenix will shrink to zero size, infinite performance, and have all possible features.
-Steve
Huh? As usual, while trying to fake an appearance of reasonability, the foaming at the mouth gives him away...
If you install spyware and then later learn about their maliciousness, why on earth do you need the source code to remove them? And which source code? Windows? KaZaa's?
RMS as MCSE: "Sorry ma'am, it is not possible for me to delete that file. That would require access to source code."
-Steve
No, dear AC. InternetExplorer, in its various versions, comprises well over 90% of the market. Therefore, InternetExplorer is the standard. This is true, regardless of how you feel about the situation, regardless how you feel about Microsoft, whether you like it or not.
Anybody who codes his site to some "standard" that happens to exclude 90% of the universe, and then pontificates that the world should change, deserves his site to die a death of scorn and insignificance he has chosen.
Hmmm, let's see if we can sum up this arrogant fellow's attitude:
"*I* am compliant with the W3C, IETF, and EIEIO standards. Therefore, the world must change around *me*.
"Nevermind that I arrogantly dismiss over 90% of the universe, they must change to suit my limited world view."
Clue follows:
The world uses IE. IE 5, IE6, IE 4, whatever. You and I and everyone else here who dabble in Mozilla and Mozilla-derived browsers (such as Galeon, my favorite) are, percentage-wise, down in the noise. Our market share is insignificant, and it is not likely to be significant for a long time to come.
The world uses IE. Real world users don't give a rat's ass about standards compliance - they just expect to be able to use the tool and have it work. Real users do not deserve some dufus riding in on his high horse screaming "It's all your fault, you should have used a standards-compliant HTTP rendering client!"
If you are so arrogant as to dismiss 95% of your audience, then your site must not really be worth visiting.
It transparently replaces the libc functions that are the usual targets of stack smashing attacks, and checks whether the stack frame has been overrun. If the stack has been smashed, the process gets terminated forcefully, and root (or other designated contact) gets an e-mail with all the details.
This has been out for several years now, and I am amazed that no major distribution includes this in a standard server install.
-Steve
Interesting, but wrong, comparison. Actually, if he were in China, there would be no fear of prosecution for software piracy.
-Steve
Huh? Where did that come from?
The original AC post claimed that the perpetrators of 9/11 were uneducated and brainwashed (and seemed to imply that they themselves were somehow "victims" of fanatic indoctrination, but we're not going to go there). That statement is patently false. I corrected the record.
So, to answer your logically-flawed question: if President Bush is also privileged, elite, and college-educated, then that makes him privileged, elite, and college-educated.
Clear now? Good.
The "suckers" who crashed planes into WTC & Pentagon were privileged, elite, and college-educated.
Ahhhh, Grasshopper, if only that were true.
I have seen firsthand so-called "professional programmers" using Java to create some of the worst God-awful spagetti code I have seen in my 15+ years of . No matter what the virtues and ideaology behind any language, someone can come along and screw it up beyond recognition.
Power tools in the hands of amateurs regularly results in the loss of limbs.
-Steve