W3Schools WTF

Ice__Heat

I thought that W3Schools is a reliable site when it comes to Web Development and standards.

However, I found something a bit outdated:

What Browsers Do They Use?

Both of the two major Internet browsers (Netscape and Microsoft) have their own specialties and quirks that you must consider when designing your Web pages.

???????

http://www.w3schools.com/site/site_users.asp

Ice__Heat

Well, under that it says Mozilla is a big player TODAY on the internet.

But still it is confusing.

Kemp

I didn't know Microsoft was a browser. W3Schools... perpetuating the noob myth that every piece of software is called "Microsoft".

"What do you normally use for presentations?"
"Microsoft."

"Can you open Acrobat documents?"
"I think Microsoft can do that."

I think that they are trying to say that those are the major two types of browsers (IE/Microsoft and Firefox/Netscap)

For example if you were using Firefox:

if(browser=="Netscape")

would be 'true' in a javascript function.

Not really a WTF but it could be worded a little better.

aikii

I checked by myself navigator.appName, and indeed it gives Netscape ! I'm a bit surprised but that's certainly legacy stuff... like that silly "mozilla" in IE's user agent.

For w3schools, ok, to best honest that's not exactly a crappy site, but still it's getting old ( I couldn't find a mention about the date on the article ). Site design must not have changed since at least five years.

Appart from its good pagerank on google, w3schools is a very average reference. Most of the time examples are borderline ( I'm not saying they're WTFesque, though ) and it lacks good advices on page design.

I'd say nices references are

http://htmldog.com/

http://www.quirksmode.org/ ( not encyclopedic , but it's really great and very accurate )

http://www.alsacreations.com/ ( don't know if english content is as extended as the french one )

asuffield

@RobbieAreBest said:

I think that they are trying to say that those are the major two types of browsers (IE/Microsoft and Firefox/Netscap)

For example if you were using Firefox:

if(browser=="Netscape")

would be 'true' in a javascript function.

While this is true in a vague, web-browser-bizarreoid sort of way (for which freakiness we can thank Netscape Corp), it's rather misleading. There are many types of browsers, of which two are IE and Gecko (used by Firefox and other Mozilla stuff). Other types include Netscape (up to version 4), Opera, KHTML (used by Safari and Konqueror), etc. All of these are independent engines and behave very differently to each other. Notably, Gecko has got nothing to do with Netscape 4, it's a ground-up reimplementation with an entirely new set of design flaws. (Modern versions of Netscape are based on Gecko, but nobody uses them)

Cutting across that there is one big divide: whether the ECMAScript language host is Netscape Corp's Javascript, or Microsoft's JScript. IE implements only JScript, and almost everybody else implements only Javascript. They're two different languages that just happen to be fairly similar, and developers often have to select different code depending on which one is being used. However, this does not extend beyond the ECMAScript host: it has got absolutely nothing to do with the type of browser itself and all its CSS/layout quirks, for example. The Javascript/JScript distinction is the only part that's split along Netscape/Microsoft lines; everything else is pretty much unique to each engine.

Either the source of the statement was talking about ECMAScript variants, or it's just another dumb webhead who thinks that the web is all about javascript.

AbbydonKrafts

I'd say that page hasn't been updated since 1998.

Some users still have low resolution 640x480 monitors, but the trend is moving towards 800x600 as the low resolution standard. This Web site is designed to be best viewed on 800x600 or better resolution.

The trend is moving towards 800x600, eh? The website I designed in 1998 was for 640x480 because that was my monitor at the time. I have yet to see a computer made past 2000 that doesn't default to 800x600 out of the box - which users then typically jack up to at least 1024x768. I still make sites that look "ok" on 800x600 because some people, such as my wife, won't get off of Windows 98 computers that groan when you try to go higher. However, since I don't use floating/absolute DIVs like everyone insists on doing, my sites can dynamically size so larger resolutions aren't looking at half a screen of white space.

@asuffield said:

Either the source of the statement was talking about ECMAScript variants, or it's just another dumb webhead who thinks that the web is all about javascript.

Do you mean it's not?? :)

Thanks for posting that, good info to know. So 'navigator.appName' gets the variation of ECMAScript? Or is this a whole different WTF?

asuffield

@RobbieAreBest said:

@asuffield said:

Either the source of the statement was talking about ECMAScript variants, or it's just another dumb webhead who thinks that the web is all about javascript.

Thanks for posting that, good info to know. So 'navigator.appName' gets the variation of ECMAScript? Or is this a whole different WTF?

Sort of. All those related functions/variables are supposed to get the name of the hosting application - but because idiot web developers keep using these things to select between javascript and jscript, the browser implementers now lie (to maintain compatibility with all the broken websites out there) and it has informally become a way to select based on the language variation.

(This is similar to the reason why IE and Firefox's user-agent strings both claim to be each other at some point)

stratos

@aikii said:

I checked by myself navigator.appName, and indeed it gives Netscape ! I'm a bit surprised but that's certainly legacy stuff... like that silly "mozilla" in IE's user agent.
For w3schools, ok, to best honest that's not exactly a crappy site, but still it's getting old ( I couldn't find a mention about the date on the article ). Site design must not have changed since at least five years.
Appart from its good pagerank on google, w3schools is a very average reference. Most of the time examples are borderline ( I'm not saying they're WTFesque, though ) and it lacks good advices on page design.
I'd say nices references are

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Tutorials, References, and Articles | HTML Dog

QuirksMode - for all your browser quirks

( not encyclopedic , but it's really great and very accurate )

Alsacréations : Actualités et tutoriels web, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

( don't know if english content is as extended as the french one )

imho w3cschool should be banned, but that's just me.

If you want to look up what some piece of HTML or CSS does, there's this nifty site called www.w3.org. They seem to have made a pretty good guide on how it all works.

Next to that i also like to check up on quirksmode and read articles on www.alistapart.com, although some articles on A list apart are a bit crappy, and more experimental then usefull.

Spacecoyote

They should finally put that user agent trickery to rest...