Passing a single test suite isn't exactly the same thing as supporting the whole standard perfectly. Test suites, by their very nature, only test select subsets of the standard. A single general test suite cannot expose every possible bug in every feature. On top of that, this test suite only covers the selectors, which is a fairly simple and straight-forward part of the spec. Heck, even Internet Explorer supports a bunch of CSS 3 selectors. It's one thing to claim full support for selectors; it's quite different to claim that pseudo-elements with table display values in nested floats with negative margins always work correctly. It's great to see progress, and Firefox and Opera are both impressively close to full support for the current CSS 2.1 specification, but let's not exaggerate the situation. They both still have a lot of work to do (as does Safari, which was clearly behind overall in version 2.x and is likely still a bit so in version 3).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Safari and Konqueror have a big problem with the background property. If you have an element with a height or width smaller than that of the background image, give it no-repeat, and position the image off a bit to one side, the background image will repeat. I ran into this issue on my site when I wanted to use little raised icons next to my headings. If I remember correctly, a recent version of either Safari or Konqueror fixed this particular issue, but it's still pretty sad that it took this long.
You misunderstood. He was implying that my standards support tables may have been biased. I am not affiliated with WaSP or the Acid2 test.
In my tables, I try to accurately describe exactly what features are handled incorrectly under which conditions. The tables are very much laid out as the features are in the specifications and therefore I don't see any legitimacy to his argument that I shouldn't note IE's lack of "inherit" support on every applicable CSS property. I maintain a complete public log of every change made to the information and you can get an RSS/Atom feed on it. If he believes that there is bias in my tables (aside from the fact that all features are weighted equally regardless of real-world usefulness, which is done to avoid bias), he should say exactly what the problems are rather than falling back on an ad hominem response. I made my tables to be useful to web developers and researchers, and I certainly don't want any bias in them.
I wrote the "Internet Explorer is dangerous" article mainly in response to IE's obviously poor standards support, as well as their poor record of fixing security issues. I don't have any specific anti-Microsoft agenda, but rather an anti-outdated-software agenda. As long as IE or any other browser with significant market share is seriously behind the rest of the major browsers in standards support, I will call it out in the interest of fair competition and progress. But if Microsoft pulls a miracle and makes IE even close to as standards-compliant as Firefox and Opera, I'll gladly remove the article and instead just encourage people to upgrade.
That didn't come through correctly. What he means is "&" should be replaced with "&" in the HTML source in order to make it valid. This isn't a big issue since even the HTML 4.01 spec defines how user agents should handle this particular error, but the page is otherwise so near validation that it's sad for this little issue to rob Slashdot of the geek mental trophy that comes with perfect validation.
Google registered a domain, so therefore they must be planning a service around it? Wow. Let's take a look at some other domains Google has registered...
Gbrowser.com - I wonder how that's doing. Googleblows.com - Hm.. so much to speculate on. Googledoodle.com - A drawing platform, maybe? Googleporn.com - It's about time!
Here's my favorite: Googlemotherf**ker.com.
Google regularly buys domain names just so others won't. The fact that they bought googlecheckout.net might just mean they don't want someone else masquerading as a Google checkout service.
There are a few errors in this summary, and I'll try to address them one-by-one.
Opera 9 is not "the only browser to pass the ACID2 test". Safari passed it first, followed by iCab, then Konqueror, and Firefox recently passed it in the reflow branch that will be incorporated into Firefox 3 (the next version of Firefox to have any significant layout engine improvements).
That said, the Acid2 test certainly does not imply standards compliance. It really doesn't test that many things, and I can tell you right now that Safari's layout engine is overall buggier than Firefox and Opera. Even things like background images don't work properly in certain not uncommon situations (when the background is set to no-repeat, positioned off the side of the box, and the box is smaller than the single non-repeating image, Safari will actually repeat the background).
It does not remain to be seen whether IE7 is better. The current IE7 beta is feature complete, and the IE developers have said many times that the layout engine won't be changed before the final release. I've thoroughly tested the IE7 beta and added the information to my standards support tables. The overall CSS 2.1 support went from 52% to 55%, compared to Firefox and Opera which both have 93%, and the only CSS 3 additions were the four new basic selectors. HTML and DOM support did not change significantly.
As far as developing websites, for me it's always been easiest to write to the standards first so that it'll work nearly perfectly in just about everything first go, and then add a layer of hacks for Internet Explorer and maybe a tweak here and there for other browsers. The Internet Explorer developers have made it clear that they intend to "build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards", so if you continue to develop on a browser-by-browser basis from the start, you'll have to continue rewriting a lot of your site every time a new version of IE or something comes out with fixes for the bugs you're leaning on. Bill Gates himself said that they plan to release a new version of Internet Explorer every 9 to 12 months.
Google had a choice here: either provide Chinese residents with only the google.com service, which those residents had very unreliable access to, or provide the same google.com service as well as a reliable (but filtered) version that complies with local laws.
For a moment, forget that Google will profit financially from its position in China and just think about which action most benefits the Chinese residents. To me, it's a no-brainer: Google's decision here was the best one available. Was it perfect? Of course not. But it seems there was no better option.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that Google should boycott China. Why? A Google boycott of China wouldn't do anything to help the situation. China doesn't rely on Google like the free world does, and the impact of a boycott would be minimal. If you want real change to happen in China, the best move is to expose the Chinese residents to the most information from outside sources that you can possibly expose them to. That's exactly what Google is trying to do.
There is one reason we can't use just CSS for table-like layouts: Internet Explorer. Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Konqueror have all supported the CSS table displays for a long time now, but it looks like IE7 won't even support them yet.
Another problem, although it's much less of a problem, is Firefox's incomplete support for:before and:after. Technically, those pseudo-elements should be fully stylable to the point where you can position them and make them display as table cells, etc. Until this support is added to Gecko (Opera, Safari, and Konqueror already support it correctly), we can easily use empty divs as a workaround, but proper support for these pseudo-elements (and the new ones in CSS 3) would make fully CSS-based table layouts a breeze.
By your argument, it would seem unwise to install and use Firefox. It's a foreign piece of code (even though you can monitor its source code if you want, but who has the time for that?). It has the power to snoop through personal files on your computer and report the information back to mozilla.org. Since it has a huge user base and now an automatic and seamless update system, some malicious behavior could get installed into the program and we'd all be screwed without even knowing it.
But the thing is, that doesn't happen. If Google attempted this, the behavior would quickly be discovered (because, although *you* aren't reviewing the.js file constantly, *people* are reviewing the.js file constantly) and Google would get some seriously bad PR. There's no incentive for them to risk their image like that.
There's a reason that standards-conscious web developers really push to promote alternative browsers like Firefox and Opera. Internet Explorer is so far behind in standards support, it typically doubles or even triples the amount of time it takes me to develop a cross-browser webpage and also dramatically limits what I can do as far as lean code, style, and accessibility.
Take a look here to get a visual of how badly Internet Explorer is lagging behind other browsers: Standards support summary
I'm currently in the process of testing Firefox 1.5 for these tables, and I can say that the Total CSS support figure is now at 65%. For the mathematically uninclined, that's just about double Internet Explorer's. And from what I've heard about the IE7 development, it isn't going to make up much ground anytime soon.
That's a default style property you can set in your userContent.css (do a Google search to find out where it's stored). The default is line-height:1.3em or something around there. To make the line spacing smaller, add this to your userContent.css:
The Mozilla Foundation (a group) developed the Mozilla Application Sutie (a web browser). That became too bloated, so they started working on a spin-off called Mozilla Firefox (another web browser). Now that Firefox is mature, the Mozilla Foundation has announced that they will no longer be supporting the Mozilla Application Suite, and it has now been renamed to SeaMonkey and will be developed by a separate group.
So basically, the Mozilla Foundation (mozilla.org) created and develops the Firefox web browser.
Slashdot Mirror
Passing a single test suite isn't exactly the same thing as supporting the whole standard perfectly. Test suites, by their very nature, only test select subsets of the standard. A single general test suite cannot expose every possible bug in every feature. On top of that, this test suite only covers the selectors, which is a fairly simple and straight-forward part of the spec. Heck, even Internet Explorer supports a bunch of CSS 3 selectors. It's one thing to claim full support for selectors; it's quite different to claim that pseudo-elements with table display values in nested floats with negative margins always work correctly. It's great to see progress, and Firefox and Opera are both impressively close to full support for the current CSS 2.1 specification, but let's not exaggerate the situation. They both still have a lot of work to do (as does Safari, which was clearly behind overall in version 2.x and is likely still a bit so in version 3).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Safari and Konqueror have a big problem with the background property. If you have an element with a height or width smaller than that of the background image, give it no-repeat, and position the image off a bit to one side, the background image will repeat. I ran into this issue on my site when I wanted to use little raised icons next to my headings. If I remember correctly, a recent version of either Safari or Konqueror fixed this particular issue, but it's still pretty sad that it took this long.
You misunderstood. He was implying that my standards support tables may have been biased. I am not affiliated with WaSP or the Acid2 test.
In my tables, I try to accurately describe exactly what features are handled incorrectly under which conditions. The tables are very much laid out as the features are in the specifications and therefore I don't see any legitimacy to his argument that I shouldn't note IE's lack of "inherit" support on every applicable CSS property. I maintain a complete public log of every change made to the information and you can get an RSS/Atom feed on it. If he believes that there is bias in my tables (aside from the fact that all features are weighted equally regardless of real-world usefulness, which is done to avoid bias), he should say exactly what the problems are rather than falling back on an ad hominem response. I made my tables to be useful to web developers and researchers, and I certainly don't want any bias in them.
I wrote the "Internet Explorer is dangerous" article mainly in response to IE's obviously poor standards support, as well as their poor record of fixing security issues. I don't have any specific anti-Microsoft agenda, but rather an anti-outdated-software agenda. As long as IE or any other browser with significant market share is seriously behind the rest of the major browsers in standards support, I will call it out in the interest of fair competition and progress. But if Microsoft pulls a miracle and makes IE even close to as standards-compliant as Firefox and Opera, I'll gladly remove the article and instead just encourage people to upgrade.
That didn't come through correctly. What he means is "&" should be replaced with "&" in the HTML source in order to make it valid. This isn't a big issue since even the HTML 4.01 spec defines how user agents should handle this particular error, but the page is otherwise so near validation that it's sad for this little issue to rob Slashdot of the geek mental trophy that comes with perfect validation.
Google registered a domain, so therefore they must be planning a service around it? Wow. Let's take a look at some other domains Google has registered...
Gbrowser.com - I wonder how that's doing.
Googleblows.com - Hm.. so much to speculate on.
Googledoodle.com - A drawing platform, maybe?
Googleporn.com - It's about time!
Here's my favorite: Googlemotherf**ker.com.
Google regularly buys domain names just so others won't. The fact that they bought googlecheckout.net might just mean they don't want someone else masquerading as a Google checkout service.
There are a few errors in this summary, and I'll try to address them one-by-one.
Opera 9 is not "the only browser to pass the ACID2 test". Safari passed it first, followed by iCab, then Konqueror, and Firefox recently passed it in the reflow branch that will be incorporated into Firefox 3 (the next version of Firefox to have any significant layout engine improvements).
That said, the Acid2 test certainly does not imply standards compliance. It really doesn't test that many things, and I can tell you right now that Safari's layout engine is overall buggier than Firefox and Opera. Even things like background images don't work properly in certain not uncommon situations (when the background is set to no-repeat, positioned off the side of the box, and the box is smaller than the single non-repeating image, Safari will actually repeat the background).
It does not remain to be seen whether IE7 is better. The current IE7 beta is feature complete, and the IE developers have said many times that the layout engine won't be changed before the final release. I've thoroughly tested the IE7 beta and added the information to my standards support tables. The overall CSS 2.1 support went from 52% to 55%, compared to Firefox and Opera which both have 93%, and the only CSS 3 additions were the four new basic selectors. HTML and DOM support did not change significantly.
As far as developing websites, for me it's always been easiest to write to the standards first so that it'll work nearly perfectly in just about everything first go, and then add a layer of hacks for Internet Explorer and maybe a tweak here and there for other browsers. The Internet Explorer developers have made it clear that they intend to "build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards", so if you continue to develop on a browser-by-browser basis from the start, you'll have to continue rewriting a lot of your site every time a new version of IE or something comes out with fixes for the bugs you're leaning on. Bill Gates himself said that they plan to release a new version of Internet Explorer every 9 to 12 months.
Anyone else notice that Google is just about the only search engine there that isn't shown with an icon?
Google-fast search result.
Google had a choice here: either provide Chinese residents with only the google.com service, which those residents had very unreliable access to, or provide the same google.com service as well as a reliable (but filtered) version that complies with local laws.
For a moment, forget that Google will profit financially from its position in China and just think about which action most benefits the Chinese residents. To me, it's a no-brainer: Google's decision here was the best one available. Was it perfect? Of course not. But it seems there was no better option.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that Google should boycott China. Why? A Google boycott of China wouldn't do anything to help the situation. China doesn't rely on Google like the free world does, and the impact of a boycott would be minimal. If you want real change to happen in China, the best move is to expose the Chinese residents to the most information from outside sources that you can possibly expose them to. That's exactly what Google is trying to do.
There is one reason we can't use just CSS for table-like layouts: Internet Explorer. Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Konqueror have all supported the CSS table displays for a long time now, but it looks like IE7 won't even support them yet.
:before and :after. Technically, those pseudo-elements should be fully stylable to the point where you can position them and make them display as table cells, etc. Until this support is added to Gecko (Opera, Safari, and Konqueror already support it correctly), we can easily use empty divs as a workaround, but proper support for these pseudo-elements (and the new ones in CSS 3) would make fully CSS-based table layouts a breeze.
Another problem, although it's much less of a problem, is Firefox's incomplete support for
Using that tool, as well as some extra fiddling on my part, I managed to get IE 3 through 6 to all work side-by-side.
By your argument, it would seem unwise to install and use Firefox. It's a foreign piece of code (even though you can monitor its source code if you want, but who has the time for that?). It has the power to snoop through personal files on your computer and report the information back to mozilla.org. Since it has a huge user base and now an automatic and seamless update system, some malicious behavior could get installed into the program and we'd all be screwed without even knowing it.
.js file constantly, *people* are reviewing the .js file constantly) and Google would get some seriously bad PR. There's no incentive for them to risk their image like that.
But the thing is, that doesn't happen. If Google attempted this, the behavior would quickly be discovered (because, although *you* aren't reviewing the
There's a reason that standards-conscious web developers really push to promote alternative browsers like Firefox and Opera. Internet Explorer is so far behind in standards support, it typically doubles or even triples the amount of time it takes me to develop a cross-browser webpage and also dramatically limits what I can do as far as lean code, style, and accessibility.
Take a look here to get a visual of how badly Internet Explorer is lagging behind other browsers: Standards support summary
I'm currently in the process of testing Firefox 1.5 for these tables, and I can say that the Total CSS support figure is now at 65%. For the mathematically uninclined, that's just about double Internet Explorer's. And from what I've heard about the IE7 development, it isn't going to make up much ground anytime soon.
That's a default style property you can set in your userContent.css (do a Google search to find out where it's stored). The default is line-height:1.3em or something around there. To make the line spacing smaller, add this to your userContent.css:
body{
line-height:1.2em;
}
The Mozilla Foundation (a group) developed the Mozilla Application Sutie (a web browser). That became too bloated, so they started working on a spin-off called Mozilla Firefox (another web browser). Now that Firefox is mature, the Mozilla Foundation has announced that they will no longer be supporting the Mozilla Application Suite, and it has now been renamed to SeaMonkey and will be developed by a separate group. So basically, the Mozilla Foundation (mozilla.org) created and develops the Firefox web browser.