I dream of creating beauty like these.

Man, I have a lot to learn.
11:44:31 PM |   

He quotes Jeffrey Zeldman at A List Apart:
"Q. Your website looks nice in Internet Explorer 6, but really bad in Netscape 4.7... Please explain the logic of designing only for one browser.

"A. Thanks for writing. We don't design for only one browser. We design for all browsers and devices by authoring to W3C recommendations including XHTML 1.0 Transitional and Cascading Style Sheets.

"As a result, A List Apart displays properly in Opera 5, Opera 6, MSIE5, MSIE5.5, MSIE6, Netscape 6, and Mozilla, while its text is available to any browser or Internet device, from Netscape 1.0 to Palm Pilots and web phones."

I think this is a reasonable tradeoff. In my workplace there's long been a push to use IE only, but the reasoning hasn't been so much for its better support of W3C standards but for its Windows-only bells and whistlery. (I think making sites viewable only in Windows is more dumb than investing effort accommodating old browsers.)

This misguided, platform-specific push for IE has made non-Windows users (like me) defend Netscape browsers in the past. Now, though, the non-IE alternatives are generally excellent (Mozilla, Netscape 6, Galeon, et al.), and the benefits of W3C-standard sites are compelling. So now I'm championing upgrading Netscape Communicator 4.x installs. It's time.
5:13:52 PM |   

Side observation: Mark's taste in Linux distributions is sweet, too:

"When I was installing Debian, a long-time Debian user emailed me with advice and also said that once I got it installed and had used it for about a month, I'd Get It and become a real snob about issues like this [attending to Galeon dependencies]. Well, it's been less than 48 hours, and I've actually only used it for about 5 hours because I still have to boot into Windows during the day, but I already Get It, and I've already become a real snob about issues like this.

Difficult? apt-get install galeon worked wonders for me."

Amen.
2:08:16 PM |   

"'There aren't many Mac users left,' says Jeff Hecker, a systems admininstrator at the Democratic Policy Committee, which uses Macs to analyze data and create visual displays for Senate debates. 'The PC bigots (at the SAA) have, for the most part, driven them out of the Senate.'"

Rob observes, "This story strikes me for how ridiculous it is. The story itself is fine, but this is a pretty extreme example of the gulf between those who still can't see Macs as real computers and those who just want a choice. It is also a good example of why Microsoft is the most powerful company in the computer industry--that people are so locked in to the idea that it is best to have one way to do things and that being different is bad..."

Meanwhile, I notice that most of the people I consider really knowledgeable are moving away from Windows and toward Linux and Mac OS X. For me personally, use of MS$ products is unethical and unthinkable, but for all of us, I maintain that platform diversity is the sweet spot that makes maximum productivity and security sense.
1:48:14 PM |   

I'm seeing, too, that "alpha geeks" are migrating to Mac OS X in increasing numbers. Most are well aware of the exponentially increased empowerment a Unix OS and tools gives them compared to, say, Windows, as they've been playing with Linux and the BSDs for several years. Then along comes Mac OS X, which offers most of the Unix power and much of the openness of Linux, and in addition runs all existing Mac software, too. And on Apple hardware that's an utter delight to work with.

There are still many reasons to use Linux and the BSDs--I depend on Debian GNU/Linux and NetBSD for server boxes I administer--but moving to Mac OS X for hands-on use has become a pretty easy decision to make.
1:33:39 PM |