It’s worthy of note that Andy Clarke isn’t using any kind of browser detection (such as User Agnt sniffing) to send a different (but still good-looking) presentation to IE 6 users. Instead, he defines the CSS in such a way that IE 6 follows the rules it can understand, and more capable browsers, which understand more complex selectors, are able to parse the rules that override those default settings. The result is that IE 7, with its improved support for CSS 2.1 selectors, displays the site in the same way as Safari, Firefox, Opera, et al.
His site is really an excellent demonstration of how to use progressive enhancement to offer a better experience to more capable browsers, without discriminating against IE 6 users.
I don’t agree with the example in the article, because the black-and-white design looked still cool.
But here is a real coding horror! BAD BROWSER DETECTION.
What infuriated me a few weeks ago was a commercial site that I visit does not work on my Intel iMac. It’s browser detection sends you to a page that says you should run Safari or FireFox, and gives a link to both (huh, you can’t “download safari” for OSX).
You have NO WAY to enter site, no way to get out of that redirection page.
It works on my iBook. it probably fails somewhere in the CPU detection, probably assuming a Mac is a PowerPC or something.
I’ve contacted the company by email but they ignore the problem. I guess we’ll have to wait until a manager at the store chain buys an intel mac.
As with racism, you also get to the point where you can’t address valid criticisms anymore because you’re instantly categorized as a zealot or a “fanboy”. Many attempts to evoke a comparison between one technology and another by saying that one does it better than another seem to flag you as a troublemaker, troll, etc…
And these are often the same people who have problems with statements like “you’re with us or you’re against us”.
Ric is wrong, I was merely trying to emphasize that “The zealotry and vitriol of technological racism is not a particularly effective way to realize change”, and giving an example of a site that does not even work under IE.
If you won’t let me on to website X because it requires firefox, if anything, you are giving me the impression that you are a technological zealot (or lazy), and possibly even creating a negative view of firefox in my mind, thus being counter-productive (if you are a zealot).
“Usually browser detection is used to ensure that a web site renders properly for a variety of platforms”
In my experience, browser detection is most often used to exclude non-IE browsers from websites that would almost certainly render fine, usually with an obnoxious message about the assumed inferiority of your chosen browser. I have often come across these messages, and used user agent hacks in Firefox to get around it, only to find that the website works perfectly.
In a nutshell, I think its about time that IE users got a taste of this madness!
What a fragile bubble you must live in, where merely seeing something rendered in black and white evokes thoughts of segregation and racism.
Yeah, serving malformed pages to IE and taunting the user isn’t exactly the best way to get your point across, but this is just about the worst use of the race card I’ve ever seen.
It’s well known - or should be - that in the computing industry, if you’re in last place, the best way to pick up market share is to be compatible with the market leader. Bug compatible, if necessary. Microsoft used this strategy successfully in Excel (1-2-3 keystrokes, macros), Word (still has WordPerfect-compatible keystrokes) and Internet Explorer itself (numerous Netscape bugs were replicated). Heck, that’s why IE’s User-Agent string still starts with ‘Mozilla’, even in version 7.0.
Firefox is not bug-compatible with IE, and as such, numerous websites still don’t work. The ‘more-standard-than-thou’ attitude doesn’t cut it. In practice, I suspect that the number of sites coded, accidentally or deliberately, to work best with IE - whether in quirks mode or not - massively outnumbers the truly standards-compliant sites.
IE 7.0 isn’t quite bug-compatible with IE 6.0 - I’ve noticed a number of rendering issues on sites.
We’ll see how quickly IE 7.0 does take usage share from IE 6.0.
Firefox is, however, a massive success compared to that other Open Source poster child, Linux…
Not sure if you were responding to me. I may not have been clear in my frothy post
For my job, where I am paid to do whatever is required, we support IE, because it’s sadly so prevalent.
But for my personal site, I code for FF, Opera, Safari, Konq, etc. Or I should say, I code for modern browsers, as I don’t need to worry with special hacks and tricks. I just code it and that’s it.
The bottom line is that as long as you write your web pages in a standards compliant way, using the XHTML transitional DTD, you can make your sites look pretty much the same in all browsers.
There are many times I get frustrated and think it’s impossible, but I haven’t written a site using 2 different CSS sheets in years and all the sites look the same across the different browsers with very minor differences.
I’m more pissed off by extreme alternative-browser-evangelists.
There are sites that tout Firefox and discriminate Opera and Safari.
There are sites that tout Opera and discriminate Firefox.
Now, even though I’m an Opera zealot and personally despise the horror that I consider Firefox/Gecko to be (regarding standards compliance, security issues, general standard of coding, resource requirements, memory leaks, and the general lack of Fx usability until you install a zillion extensions), I would NEVER think about discriminating Gecko or KHTML browsers. I do discriminate against IE 5.x, though, but I consider that reasonable.
Even if you think a browser is inferior, suck it up. Laugh inside at those who use it, ridicule them in silence, but keep it for yourself.
Even if the PCs are quite the same, the all have a monitor, a mouse, CPU, etc…
the people that use it are quite different, they can be 10 years old to 90, can be experts or not.
I am a programmer, and I like firefox, but I don’t feel the need to ridicule anyone.
I am not expert in cars and engines, should I hear people laughing while I am driving my car?
Use whatever browser you like, and let people live.
How did you pull racism and segregation out of that? When I see the black and white use I see the comparison of black and white TV to color. So the reference to history is there, yes. But the only place I see racism and segregation implied is out of your own ass.
People that keep saying f*cking should start doing it …
I think is obvious that this matter doesn’t have the same consequences of racism, but the spirit is the same: people devided into classes, and obviously thinking their class is better…