[ILUG] compaq's search page and linux...

[Hunt, Bryan]

General stuff ......
The reason that they design web pages that crash browsers is that

a) Most web designers don't have a clue about computers/anything.
b) Their managers can't figure out how to generate a revenue stream 
   and instead focus on glitsy javascript generated dropdown menus
   so that they can look like the microsoft web site and add some 
   credibility to their incredibly low hits (usually most hits are
   from people working on the project anyway)

Compaq specific .......

   Considering what junk Compaq pc's are is it any surprise that their 
   web site is buggy and poor quality ?

--B




-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Moen [mailto:rick at linuxmafia.com]
Sent: 26 January 2002 03:43
To: irish linux users group
Subject: Re: [ILUG] compaq's search page and linux...


Quoting Ronan Waide (waider at waider.ie):

> Since the URL you hurled uses the customer as a lever....

Well, no.  The URL points out the reality that the customer is, well,
the customer.  If a Web site exists to communicate with customers, to
the extent it fails to do so, it fails to do its job.  But Rentmeister
details that better than I ever could have.

> ...if you create a page that follows the appropriate DTDs perfectly,
> and renders beautifully in My Favourite Browser but doesn't render
> properly in IE without breaking from the DTD, then a good 80% of your
> potential customers are going to have a, uh, sub-optimal 'web
> experience'. 

That's a beauty of a hypothetical you're asking everyone to buy into,
but it honestly doesn't hold water.  History suggests that pages with
sane levels of complexity that validate against reasonable DTDs _will_
display properly in MSIE.

If any amendment is necesary to what I said earlier, upon reflection, it
might be that HTML markup should be validated against a DTD, a required
capabilities list, _and_ should be actually skimmed by a thinking human
being, to make sure it's reasonable.  I'll bet that 90% of these problem
Web pages were never actually looked at, only generated by some idiot
Front Page / Page Mill / etc. pseudo-DTP package.

> From a purely fiscal point of view, it's better if the shoe is on the
> other foot, so the Mozilla/Opera/Galeon/Konqueror people can go hang.

No, from a purely fiscal point of view, it's better if _none_ of your
customers have to go hang.  

You should read Rentmeister -- or read him again, as required.

> Also, I think you might want to go back and redo that page.

Surely, it's not difficult to grasp that my name isn't Jahn Rentmeister?

> It's out of date....

No, it's not.  I suggest reading with more attention to the central
message, and less to ephemera.

> Of course, the point I was trying to make more strongly was that a web
> browser that crashes in the face of a given web page is broken,
> regardless of what sort of nonsense is on the web page.

The point Rentmeister was trying to make is in his essay.  Q.v.

> So I'll say it again: nothing on a web page should ever, ever make
> your browser crash.

This particular bit of additional foolishness is why I added the above
qualifier about sane levels of complexity.  About 70% of the problem
pages I see fail HTML validators:  They're objectively defective.  But
30% aren't outright wrong, just absurdly overstructured.  Which is 
where the necessary human oversight comes in.

-- 
"Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go
and 
make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen
window 
and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return
to 
the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube,
forum3000.org

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