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Browsing or NotJustBrowsing


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I am not in this forum to advertise or publicise my browser "NotJustBrowsing". During a routine search I found this site and found that possibly six thousand or so members of this forum don't know about NotJustBrowsing.To avoid discussion in "Introduction" area, I am starting to respond from this area

Just out of curiosity, have you had any problems or heard any negative reports distributing software that requires the .NET framework? I've been wondering about that.
Yes, I am aware of problems in this area1. People don't like to see a message telling them to install .Net Framework2. Zero Point builder utility run on WindowsXP/NT and not on Windows98. Since this utililty run at the end of installation of NotJustBrowsing it fails on Windows98 and on some WindowsXPs.Zero Point Builder utility creates "short cuts" and its code is Win32 based and not .NET based.I am working on this issue. Edited by Skemcin
Conversation split from: http://w3schools.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=8655
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To respond to your comment of how horrible? It was unfair of me to not explain what I really meant. Try and look at my point of view. You pop into the forum, your first post is all about the browser you created. I know nothing about your browser so I got o your website. The website looks very unprofessional, it looks like it was not thought out very much and the interface of the browser (from your screen shots) looks the same.Bright, pastel,clashing colors do not give a very good first impression. At that point you have probably lost most visitors who will never bother to download your browser regardless if it was the best browser in the world.

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I just want to point out a semantic argument as well. When people refer to a browser being a first-generation or second-generation browser, that typically refers to what that browser supports, not necessarily the features. The second-generation browsers differ from the first-generation browsers because they support a larger set of W3C specifications. Firefox is not a second-generation browser because it has tabs, it is because Firefox supports several of the more recent specs. Several years ago Opera had all of the features that are so popular today, but Opera was not referred to as a second-generation browser then because it supported basically the same standards as the other first-generation browsers.The point of this is that, since your browser uses the IE rendering engine, it will never be more then what IE is. You can add on all the features you want, but unless you add support for things like XHTML and CSS3 (or even CSS2), it's not going to be considered a third-generation browser. You might be touching now on some features that some of the majors may incorporate over the next several years, but any browser that is using the IE engine is not going to be thought of as anything other than a shell for IE. I'm not trying to discount your work, certainly .NET programming is a lot of fun and you can do a lot of cool things with it, and you definately have a good mind for thinking of new features, but that alone doesn't make it so far ahead of something like Opera 9 where you can say that Opera 9 is a second-generation browser while you have a third-generation browser. Making that claim comes off as misleading at best, and arrogant at worst. If you can get your browser to pass the ACID2 test and support a superset of specifications that the current browsers support, then calling it third-generation might be justified.

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To respond to your comment of how horrible? It was unfair of me to not explain what I really meant. Try and look at my point of view. You pop into the forum, your first post is all about the browser you created. I know nothing about your browser so I got o your website. The website looks very unprofessional, it looks like it was not thought out very much and the interface of the browser (from your screen shots) looks the same.Bright, pastel,clashing colors do not give a very good first impression. At that point you have probably lost most visitors who will never bother to download your browser regardless if it was the best browser in the world.
Thank you for your comments and taking time to look into NotJustBrowsing website.About my first post: I thought I should introduce myself first and say hello to everyone and then move to relevant section to tell about other things. I must say, people in this forum are very active and I hardly got the chance now to move to this proper place.One thing for sure, you are right about most of the things that you felt. Website is bound to be unprofessional because it is the only website that I created, needless to say that I am not professional in this area.I don't know where those bright colours are, to be honest. I think you may have seen contrasting rectangles surrounding particular elements in the browser, drawn (in picture) to emphasize the area under discussion. Particularly in this version there are ten light shades (for skin) to choose from and the rest of the colour scheme is also configurable.The main thing is that this browser present solutions to some of the problems related to current generation of browsers. Those people not suffering from any of these problems in their daily browsing routines, it has hardly anything for them.
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The main thing is that this browser present solutions to some of the problems related to current generation of browsers. Those people not suffering from any of these problems in their daily browsing routines, it has hardly anything for them.
That right there is why it is not a third-generation browser. The third-generation browsers will provide new benefits for everyone that uses them in the form of new specifications that the browsers support.
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I just want to point out a semantic argument as well. When people refer to a browser being a first-generation or second-generation browser, that typically refers to what that browser supports, not necessarily the features. The second-generation browsers differ from the first-generation browsers because they support a larger set of W3C specifications. Firefox is not a second-generation browser because it has tabs, it is because Firefox supports several of the more recent specs. Several years ago Opera had all of the features that are so popular today, but Opera was not referred to as a second-generation browser then because it supported basically the same standards as the other first-generation browsers.The point of this is that, since your browser uses the IE rendering engine, it will never be more then what IE is. You can add on all the features you want, but unless you add support for things like XHTML and CSS3 (or even CSS2), it's not going to be considered a third-generation browser. You might be touching now on some features that some of the majors may incorporate over the next several years, but any browser that is using the IE engine is not going to be thought of as anything other than a shell for IE. I'm not trying to discount your work, certainly .NET programming is a lot of fun and you can do a lot of cool things with it, and you definately have a good mind for thinking of new features, but that alone doesn't make it so far ahead of something like Opera 9 where you can say that Opera 9 is a second-generation browser while you have a third-generation browser. Making that claim comes off as misleading at best, and arrogant at worst. If you can get your browser to pass the ACID2 test and support a superset of specifications that the current browsers support, then calling it third-generation might be justified.
I have never been in such a good company before. Nobody explained this much about generations of browsers so I have the opportunity to let people know what my "third generation" actually means.In first generation, browsers were capable of displaying text and may be images. In second generation, browsers started dealing with multimedia.In third generation, rendering engine is only one part coupled with standards. Managing amount of information at our disposal is the main area that I consider to be the essential in third generation. Actually I am developing it to complete my vision of third generation. Generation gap will be clearly visible when it is completely implemented.
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In that case, you have a different definition of "first-generation", "second-generation", etc then the general public does. The transition between generations 1 and 2 of web browsers is a transition between standards like HTML and XML that help influence how the information available online can be used.Browsers did not start dealing with multimedia in the general public's definition of generation 2. Browsers have always dealt with multimedia. IE 3.0, released in 1996 (which, by my watch, is 11 years ago) was the first version of IE to have support for JPEG and GIF images, as well as audio and CSS. IE 3.0 was released about 13 months after IE 1.0. So if you are saying that generation 1 included text-only browsers, and generation 2 had images and audio, then that means that generation 1 lasted for 13 months, and generation 2 has been going on for 11 years. Javascript and DHTML started becoming popular in 1997 with IE 4, and the only thing that has really changed between IE 4 and 6 is better support for standards. There are a few bells and whistles, but the big one is better standards support.The fact is this: IE6, released in 2001, is a first-generation web browser, released 6 years after IE1.0. Firefox 1.0+, IE7, and Opera 7+ are second-generation browsers because of the expanded standards they support and the changing way in which those standards let the browsers access information online. For example, online information in the 90s was all about human consumption, but second-generation browsers are taking advantage of things like web services that are specifically for computer consumption. The more modern specifications allow for this type of interaction when you get into things like XML, RSS, and BitTorrent. If you really want a browser that the public (not only yourself) would refer to as "third-generation", it needs to have support for things like XHTML 2.0 and CSS3. 5 or 10 years from now XHTML 2.0 will again change the way people and computers access and use information, that is going to be the third generation. It's nice if your browser lets you open a bunch of pages side-by-side, or contains shortcuts to other files on your computer, but that is not the difference between second-generation and third-generation. If you want to have a tagline on your site that claims your browser is the world's first third-generation web browser, you might want to include a footnote that you are using your own personal definition of what it means to be third-generation. Because I think organizations like Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation would see you claiming to be third-generation and would laugh. Not the least because in order for a third-generation browser to be truly that, it needs to be able to use the standards that other sites are using to publish their information for the third-generation web. Websites today are not doing that, and the third-generation specs we will be using in the future have not been defined yet.http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Fall20....2ndgenweb.html

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What you are saying is perfectly valid in the context of standards. But the fact is that 95% of the browsing community using internet explorer don't know anything beyond HTM/HTML. My definition is based on the available speed of communication at the time and the volume of information available to browse through. First generation used 2400 9600 14400 28.8 56kb/s, second generation used ISDN and third generation is using Broadband 1Mb/s onwards.Which standard is followed by which rendering engine is one aspect but are they providing communication speed benefits to their users? Are browsers more capable of managing available information? How much information we are managing as compare to 10 years ago?If I am using IE rendering engine it means I am following standards that IE is following PLUS I have built-in advantage (in design) of communication speed as well as management of information.Now that we are into this discussion, I should let you know that I have built in capability of viewing every single page with your chosen browser (when available). As soon as I will add any browser engine component into my code, it will be ready to be chosen for any particular page. And all this is due to the fact that my browser is designed to keep these things in mind.Will this not sort out many of browsing standard problems? Creator of web page will only have to write which browsing engine this page is suitable for (or a user can select most suitable from a list) and I will display the page using that engine.Rendering engines can not be developed faster than the change/modification in standards and at the same time can not be made into a standard one solution in this diverse field of information presentation. This does not mean that we should stop looking for solutions to other problems surrounding information handling within browsing structures (browsers).People in Mozilla and Opera don't laugh at me they are keeping a good eye on my efforts. The whole point of watching side-by-side is to be able to view TV channels side-by-side along with other things that are suitable for viewing only side-by-side. communication speeds are reaching 8Mbits/s and TV is integrating into browsing life, is it not appropriate time to look for a side-by-side solution?

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Well, you're starting to contradict yourself. Originally you said that generation 1 was text, generation 2 was multimedia, generation 3 is information management, now you're saying that they are based on bandwidth. I agree that the boundaries between generations are blurry, but people have generally considered "Web 2.0" to be about sites that include things like AJAX, web services, etc, it doesn't have anything to do with bandwidth. Bandwidth is increasing like everything else is, but that is not what defines a new paradigm for the internet. People will generally use a given piece of information the same way regardless of whether it takes them 2 seconds to get it, or 2 milliseconds. And if you're saying that third-generation = broadband, then that would mean that we have been in the third generation for several years now, and that is not true. The difference between generations 1 and 2 happened some time between 2000 and 2005. The dot-com era of the late 90s was all about the first-generation internet, the companies from that time that are still around, like Google and Yahoo, are still around because their business models were able to adapt to the new standards and how people want to use online informaton.The point I'm trying to make is that the main factor that decides which generation we are in right now is the standards that we are using. Right now, we are using HTML, early XHTML, CSS, AJAX and Javascript in general, CGI and scripting, XML, etc. This is different from 10 years ago when everyone was using HTML, images, and Javascript for cheesy animations. The difference between then and now is obvious. We cannot be in the third generation at this point because the specifications that are required for us to be there are not supported yet, in fact they aren't even finished yet. If you want a glimpse at the third-generation web, this is the place to look:http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/

Which standard is followed by which rendering engine is one aspect but are they providing communication speed benefits to their users?
It is not the browser's responsibility to provide communication speed, that is the responsibility of the ISP. The browser can only be a detriment to communication speed, not a benefit. Best case, a browser doesn't slow down the ISP connection. But it will never speed it up.
How much information we are managing as compare to 10 years ago?
http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmvIf the amount of available information doubles every 18 months according to Moore's law, then there are several orders of magnitude more of information available now then there would have been 10 years ago. This is part of the reason behind the technology of the second-generation web, because there is so much information to sift through.
Now that we are into this discussion, I should let you know that I have built in capability of viewing every single page with your chosen browser (when available).
That's a good feature, but you're not the first one to do that. Netscape 8 alreay does that, for example.
Will this not sort out many of browsing standard problems? Creator of web page will only have to write which browsing engine this page is suitable for (or a user can select most suitable from a list) and I will display the page using that engine.
There can be some argument on this point, but I actually think this is a bad thing. The reason for all of these standards that you hear so much about is to provide a way for web developers to use one set of tools (i.e., a standard) to create everything, and since it is standard, it will look the same in every rendering engine that follows the same standard. This is to try and remedy the things that were happening 10 years ago, where everyone was making web sites specifically for one browser and just telling people to use that browser. Information should be machine-independent, and that is why we have standards. It might be good for the user if their browser keeps switching rendering engines to make the internet display like it should, but that is not going to help developers who aren't following the standards learn how to develop standard web sites.
Rendering engines can not be developed faster than the change/modification in standards and at the same time can not be made into a standard one solution in this diverse field of information presentation.
Exactly - which is why I think it is silly for someone to claim to be a third-generation piece of software when the third-generation standards do not exist yet.
People in Mozilla and Opera don't laugh at me they are keeping a good eye on my efforts.
I'm sure there are people watching you. When I looked at some of the features, I thought that there were some innovative things there. I don't think anyone is laughing at you because of features, that is where you are doing well. I think people are laughing at you because you are developing a shell for Internet Explorer using the .NET framework, with all the same limitations of IE, distributing this piece of software on a web site that you already stated was the first web site you've ever built, and calling this piece of software part of a generation of software that is more advanced then anything Opera or Mozilla has now. That would make me laugh if I was working there. But not the features, the features show promise. If you want to develop something that people take seriously, first you need to get away from .NET. .NET is fun to work with, but at the end of the day you have a piece of software that can only be run on a recent, updated version of Windows. You're not doing anything to help people communicate if you require them to download a 20+ MB framework to run your 5 MB application. People would sooner just not install your software rather then download the framework and go through reboots. Secondly, you need to get away from the IE engine. IE has a certain stigma associated with it that it will probably never live down, and it is the least advanced browser engine out there. That makes your third-generation claim laughable as well, the fact that IE is the least-advanced browser around. If you want a good starting point, download the code for Mozilla's Gecko engine and go from there. That way you will at least start off with some decent standard support.
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Well, you're starting to contradict yourself. Originally you said that generation 1 was text, generation 2 was multimedia, generation 3 is information management, now you're saying that they are based on bandwidth.
Communication speed is the most important factor in development of standards. Demand for more, better and varied contents increased the demand for more speed of communication. It is the way how a person look at it and I looked at it from a point of view of ordinary person. An ordinary person is the one who use to have a 14.4K modem at a time and he struggled to buy a 56K US Robotics modem to enjoy world wide web. There is no doubt that you are technically 100% right in defining generation but according to the standards. The audiance of your definition are graduate students of computer science whereas I am addressing to the ordinary people.This comes down to the main difference of approach that I have adapted. I considered people (the users of www) to be incharge, important and valuable whereas the old style is closed door committes, hidden agendas of parties/companies etc. What I didn't do is that I did not write a research paper, got it published gone to a big company to supervise the implementation of the same thing in next 10 years. I decided to use intercommunication that exist between the people of the world and present my work direct to them to judge for themselves. It is an opportunity to see newest thing, accept it or reject it instead of wait for some big name to present you the same thing and you accept it. All of the functionalities in my browser are solution to wider problems, you can take those functionalities one by one and criticise them if they can be done in a better way. Denying the existance of a problem can not result in its solution. For what I am doing, I will face fierce criticism, that I know and am not scared of.
It is not the browser's responsibility to provide communication speed, that is the responsibility of the ISP. The browser can only be a detriment to communication speed, not a benefit. Best case, a browser doesn't slow down the ISP connection. But it will never speed it up.
You misunderstood what I said. I am talking about "communication speed benefits", i.e., taking advantage of communication speed. For example, showing two or more tv channels next to each other or showing different stock data/graphs in one place from different sources.
If the amount of available information doubles every 18 months according to Moore's law, then there are several orders of magnitude more of information available now then there would have been 10 years ago. This is part of the reason behind the technology of the second-generation web, because there is so much information to sift through.
But have you seen any change in user intaerfaces of any of currently famous browsers to handle this situation?
That's a good feature, but you're not the first one to do that. Netscape 8 alreay does that, for example.
A user can switch browser engine in Netscape 8 but you can not attach a browser with a stored link, I suppose.
There can be some argument on this point, but I actually think this is a bad thing. The reason for all of these standards that you hear so much about is to provide a way for web developers to use one set of tools (i.e., a standard) to create everything, and since it is standard, it will look the same in every rendering engine that follows the same standard. This is to try and remedy the things that were happening 10 years ago, where everyone was making web sites specifically for one browser and just telling people to use that browser. Information should be machine-independent, and that is why we have standards. It might be good for the user if their browser keeps switching rendering engines to make the internet display like it should, but that is not going to help developers who aren't following the standards learn how to develop standard web sites.
As a software designer of something that is changing faster, I kept the design of my browser open for all possibilities.All these standards can vanish and new things like .NET or Java may emerge. It is just a matter of will of someone with an idea to come and present some unique solution. It is a normal naturally occurring phenomenon that heavy atoms break easily. Overload www with standards and it will break with new solutions.
Exactly - which is why I think it is silly for someone to claim to be a third-generation piece of software when the third-generation standards do not exist yet.
As I described earlier, people don't know the standards, standard committees or generation of standards. If some has to figure out what first and second generation browsers were they will satisfy themselves with a similar definition then my definition.Telling people that this browser is based on any standard will confuse them more.
I'm sure there are people watching you. When I looked at some of the features, I thought that there were some innovative things there. I don't think anyone is laughing at you because of features, that is where you are doing well. I think people are laughing at you because you are developing a shell for Internet Explorer using the .NET framework, with all the same limitations of IE, distributing this piece of software on a web site that you already stated was the first web site you've ever built, and calling this piece of software part of a generation of software that is more advanced then anything Opera or Mozilla has now. That would make me laugh if I was working there. But not the features, the features show promise.
It is a one person effort and it was wise to address 95% of compueter users who use Windows. On several occasions I tried to use Java with Mozilla's Gecko engine but it was not providing what I wanted to do with it at the time. I have written the code for NotJustBrowsing using .NET in C++ in such a manner as if it is written in Java, so conversion will be straight forward. I also designed it to be suitable for mobile devices. I don't know what will make my attention divert towards these other versions.
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What you are saying is perfectly valid in the context of standards. But the fact is that 95% of the browsing community using internet explorer don't know anything beyond HTM/HTML. My definition is based on the available speed of communication at the time and the volume of information available to browse through. First generation used 2400 9600 14400 28.8 56kb/s, second generation used ISDN and third generation is using Broadband 1Mb/s onwards.
So you are saying my father-in-law who uses IE7 but is still on dial-up makes his IE7 a first gen broswer...come on if you can't defend your claim don't start making stuff up.
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So you are saying my father-in-law who uses IE7 but is still on dial-up makes his IE7 a first gen broswer...come on if you can't defend your claim don't start making stuff up.
Yes of course, on dial-up connection it will take half of an hour to view a poster size photo of "Cindy Crowford". Obviously his IE7's capabilities of generation 1 will be utilized if he is using dial-up. I am sure he will not be doing anymore than e-mailing using dial-up connection.Put it this way, A person with an IBM PC-AT (40MHz, 40MB HD, Windows 3.1) using earlier browser with 14.4K modem will be equal to (for comparison only) say your father-in-law with a Pentium 4 3GHz, 1GB memory, 80GB hard drive and a 14.4K modem using IE7. Both of the above would never like to open more than one browser window/tab and both will not be worried about any standards that their browsers are compliant of.
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Yes of course, on dial-up connection it will take half of an hour to view a poster size photo of "Cindy Crowford".
Nice example and view into your browsing habits... :)
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true he may not take advantage of some 2nd generation content but IE7 is still a 2nd generation browser no matter what connection speed you have.Connection speed is not related to the generation of the browser (which for the zillionth time is based on web standards) in any way!Here it is plain an clear. Your browser is not 3rd generation unless it supports XHTML2 and CSS3 among other things. period. You can make up your own definitions all you want but it doesn't make them true.

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I have used Dial Up and it is not as slow as you think it is...it is pretty fast(wellI have never experineced T1 first hand) see -95778794.png

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Nice example and view into your browsing habits... :)
That is from my memory of 1992/93 when I was studying in Swansea. One of our juniors downloaded a poster sized photo of "Cindy Crowford" on his Macintosh and was made available for the whole department at that time. He wasted his considerable time but he was learning. :)
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I have used Dial Up and it is not as slow as you think it is...it is pretty fast(wellI have never experineced T1 first hand) see -95778794.png
Slow and fast, two widely used words in browsing communities. If you want to find out how much time it took to load a particular page, what will you do?Does in any way, the browser you are using provides you this feedback?
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Well if you are hosting your own server in your kitchen (:)) then it might be extremely useful to see its speedsfirbug in FF allows you to do so!!

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Communication speed is the most important factor in development of standards. Demand for more, better and varied contents increased the demand for more speed of communication.
I disagree. Communications speed is going to increase no matter what people use it for and no matter what browsers do. The fact that we have more bandwidth available today is what makes people want to download movies and things like that. It's not that the reason we have so much bandwidth is because people wanted to download movies, so the communications companies did their research. That's not the case. Communications are increasing separately from internet technology, they are only peripherally related industries. Communications companies do not define which generation the current level of internet technology is at. By internet technology I mean the standards that are being used (XHTML, CSS, RSS, etc).
But have you seen any change in user intaerfaces of any of currently famous browsers to handle this situation?
Of course. RSS is probably the best example, which IE7 finally supports. Opera's integrated BitTorrent client is another.
A user can switch browser engine in Netscape 8 but you can not attach a browser with a stored link, I suppose.
If you are talking about adding your own tags to pages to tell the browser to switch the rendering engine, then you are requiring the support of internet developers to take advantage of that. I personally would not add information like that to my pages, instead I would just develop my pages using a specification that all current browsers understand. That is specifically the purpose of standards. The state of internet development in the mid to late 90s around IE/Netscape 4.x is direct proof that strict standards compliance is the best way to achieve website/browser compatibility. If you were developing websites during that time, you would know that firsthand. Browser vendors tried to add in their own tags, like Netscape's <marquee> tag, and you ended up with all these websites that looked totally different in different browsers. The solution is not to create your own tags and expect web developers to add them to their pages. The solution is to create a web browser that adheres to the specifications as strictly as possible.
All these standards can vanish and new things like .NET or Java may emerge.
.NET and Java in no way affect the standards set forth by the W3C. .NET is an application framework, Java is an interpreted programming language, and the W3C defines internet information standards, among other things. They are not in competition. The standards are going to be around for a long time. It is not a "closed door" or "hidden agenda" situation. What hidden agenda is served by telling browser vendors how to handle padding and margins around a block-level element? The public has opportunities to comment on the proposals set forth by the W3C. When a specification is being created, they release drafts of the specification labelled RFC. RFC stands for Request For Comments - the committee is specifically looking for feedback from technical people involved with using the standards on how they should be defined. The general public doesn't care how the document object model is defined, web developers and browser vendors do. Or at least they should. Ignore standards at your own peril, but several years ago developers were getting more and more upset with the fact that Microsoft all but refused to make IE obey the standards. So the developers decided to create their own web browser to compete directly with IE and obey the standards as much as possible. The browser they came up with was eventually called Firefox, you may have heard of it, it's gotten a little support from developers these days. Firefox is what happened when developers decided that standard compliance is important.
As I described earlier, people don't know the standards, standard committees or generation of standards.
The general public does not need to know those things. Developers and browser vendors do. I don't need to know what happens when I press the button on my toaster, I don't really care either. All I want is for my bread to get toasted! It's the same thing with the general public and the internet. They don't need to know what happens when they hit the "Go" button on their browser, they just want it to work. What they don't want is a message saying they need to use a different browser. That is where the standards come in.
Telling people that this browser is based on any standard will confuse them more.
Really? If you say "This product obeys all of the best industry standards and practices" you think that is going to confuse people? But someone is supposed to understand what Zero Point means, and what the Shelf is supposed to do?
So you are saying my father-in-law who uses IE7 but is still on dial-up makes his IE7 a first gen broswer...come on if you can't defend your claim don't start making stuff up.
That's a good point, let's think about this for a second. 15 years ago when I was sitting at my parent's house running a little bulletin board on my computer, I had a 2400 bps modem that people could dial into and interact with my computer. Eventually I upgraded to a brand new Zoom 24000 bps modem. What did we do with this apparent lack of speed? To us at the time 24000 bps was blazing fast. We would trade files, distribute programs, pictures, audio clips, chat online, leave messages at the message board, play online games with each other (Legend of the Red Dragon, Usurper, The Pit... anyone?). That was 15 years ago across phone lines. It sounds a lot like the same thing people want to do today. ######, I even met my first girlfriend in a game of Doom across phone lines. Eat that, eHarmony!
Both of the above would never like to open more than one browser window/tab and both will not be worried about any standards that their browsers are compliant of.
And both of them would be pissed off if they went to some website that gave them a message saying that site only works in a different browser.
If you want to find out how much time it took to load a particular page, what will you do?Does in any way, the browser you are using provides you this feedback?
Well, yeah, it does. In 2 places. This page only took 1 second to download. I also see that this page is encoded using ISO-8859-1, it was served as text/html, the main page is 27604 bytes, there are 58 inline elements on this page (as of now), and those elements are 192332 bytes. It also contains an iframe to a Google ad server. With 1 click I get a list of every link on this page. I can get a list of all the images used on this page. If I want, I can turn images off, or use my own style sheet. Or disable CSS and make it text-only. I can edit hidden form fields, change a dropdown into an ordered list, inspect the DOM, highlight internal or external links, check the cookies for this site, or even just start clicking on elements on the page to remove them. And with 2 clicks I can see if this page follows the standards that it claims it does. I can also tell my browser to identify itself as IE, or as Mozilla, or Opera. With 1 click I can open the current page in either IE or Firefox to see if it looks any different. I can see the linked stylesheets, linked scripts, and the HTML source after Javascript modification. I can install widgets that connect to web services and stream content, or look up information like the weather. I can write notes about a certain page, and the next time I visit that page I can call up the notes about it. I can even send emails directly from my browser, connect to FTP, or IRC, or download BitTorrent files. Most of these features are relatively new, and they take advantage of the new standards that make these things possible.
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I disagree. Communications speed is going to increase no matter what people use it for and no matter what browsers do. The fact that we have more bandwidth available today is what makes people want to download movies and things like that. It's not that the reason we have so much bandwidth is because people wanted to download movies, so the communications companies did their research. That's not the case. Communications are increasing separately from internet technology, they are only peripherally related industries. Communications companies do not define which generation the current level of internet technology is at. By internet technology I mean the standards that are being used (XHTML, CSS, RSS, etc).
I think we should consult some economist about this because what you are saying is that "communication industry grew for fun" and not driven by the demand. Of course communication industry is driven by demand, people wanted to and were willing to pay for high speeds for whatever purpose of theirs. World has not moved to digital communication for fun, it was demand for new services and to streamline new services there are standards.It is not that standards are drawn first and then browser follow those standards. Browser create new functionalities and later those functionalities (when accepted by public at large) are properly defined and standards are set.For example, I defined and implemented VSS (Very Simple Syndication). Will it be a standard? I don't know if it was accepted by all browsers and appreciated by users then in one way or another it will be a standard. Inventors always have vision of future, asking them if there was a public demand for their invention will be wrong. What punishment I should expect for defining VSS?In some other corner of this forum, I would like to ask someone with RSS knowledge to compare RSS with VSS.
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If the amount of available information doubles every 18 months according to Moore's law, then there are several orders of magnitude more of information available now then there would have been 10 years ago. This is part of the reason behind the technology of the second-generation web, because there is so much information to sift through.
But have you seen any change in user intaerfaces of any of currently famous browsers to handle this situation?
Of course. RSS is probably the best example, which IE7 finally supports. Opera's integrated BitTorrent client is another.
I am saying in response to the "doubling of information" every 18 months part of your post. Is the handling of information changed in any of the browsers in their life time? NO. They are preserving ( bookmarking) the information in the same way since the day one. No change in their user interfaces to cope with the amount of information that a person browse through in one day.
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And both of them would be pissed off if they went to some website that gave them a message saying that site only works in a different browser.
User should be thankful that he/she is told which browser to use to access this page. I end-up in not seeing anything using one browser then I try another until I succeed in viewing the contents.It is a matter for website designer, they should not go for standards like I did. Standard is just a standard not a law so no compulsion. I checked my website on three different browsers to see if it looks ok on each of them.Web designers authority is not to interfere in browser's matter but to co-ordinate with browsers as much as possible. Every plant can't be grass or roses.
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Really? If you say "This product obeys all of the best industry standards and practices" you think that is going to confuse people? But someone is supposed to understand what Zero Point means, and what the Shelf is supposed to do?
If I will give a list of standards that my browser is following, it will make no difference to a user. Because no website can tell an accessor before it is accessed that it is based on X, Y, Z standards.Whereas "Zero Point" is a functionality (solution of a common problem) and "Shelf" is part of the browser's user interface. "Shelf" in my user interface acts like a shelf and not like vague words "favourite" or "bookmark" in other browsers.
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I think we should consult some economist about this because what you are saying is that "communication industry grew for fun" and not driven by the demand.
No man, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the communications industry and the internet industry grew independently of each other. The communications industry would have continued to grow without the internet, and the internet industry would have continued to grow and mature even if the communication infrastructure remained the same.
It is not that standards are drawn first and then browser follow those standards. Browser create new functionalities and later those functionalities (when accepted by public at large) are properly defined and standards are set.
Actually, it's both.
For example, I defined and implemented VSS (Very Simple Syndication). Will it be a standard? I don't know if it was accepted by all browsers and appreciated by users then in one way or another it will be a standard. Inventors always have vision of future, asking them if there was a public demand for their invention will be wrong. What punishment I should expect for defining VSS?
I don't know why you're asking that or why it is relevant to the discussion. If you create a new standard for syndication that offers substantial benefits over RSS, enough to the point that people are willing to devote time and resources into implementing it, then it will catch on. If people don't see the benefit, then it won't. I don't understand how punishment fits into the picture.
asking them if there was a public demand for their invention will be wrong
Really? So I can go invent the next moss-covered three-handled gredunza and expect everyone to just go out and buy one? People don't really invent products to solve a problem that doesn't exist, they invent products to solve a problem that many people experience. I can go invent some device that quickly and painlessly removes hair from people's eyeballs, and it might be the greatest-working product in the history of mankind, but is anyone going to buy one? I can also go invent a communication protocol that efficiently transfers text across data channels, and the text could include formatting and references to other documents, like some sort of hyper-text markup language, and I will call this protocol the hyper-text transfer protocol. If I come out tomorrow and tell everyone I've invented this, am I going to get a lot of support for it? Does it solve a current problem? A new syndication method is great, but if it doesn't address a problem then no one will have any motivation to implement it.
In some other corner of this forum, I would like to ask someone with RSS knowledge to compare RSS with VSS.
Did you design VSS without any knowledge of RSS? Out of anyone, you should be the one to compare RSS with VSS and explain why VSS is better then RSS, what problems it addresses that RSS does not, and why people should spend their time and money implementing and supporting it. It sounds like you're creating a solution first, and then looking for the problem.
I am saying in response to the "doubling of information" every 18 months part of your post. Is the handling of information changed in any of the browsers in their life time? NO.
ABSOLUTELY, YES. Let's go over this one more time. Why does RSS exist? RSS exists because there is a tremendous amount of information available online. What is the problem? People don't have time to visit 20 sites looking for the news of the day. What is the solution? The solution is to enable each of these news sites to syndicate their content. My browser can download the syndicated feeds from all 20 sites, and display for me in one place the headlines and a summary of the articles appearing in 20 places at once. I can click any article to go to the original article on the original site.Another example. Opera has had support for years now for a tabbed browser interface. I can open up 20 tabs to websites all related to a specific topic. I can easily move between the tabs, I can write notes directly in the browser. But I've got to go, so I save the session, close the browser, and shut off the computer. When I'm ready to get started again, I start up Opera, load the session, and again I have all 20 tabs that I saved open up, with notes and everything, and I can start exactly where I left off. I no longer need to navigate a favorites or bookmarks menu, I don't have to remember URLs or search, I just start my browser and start working.Both of those are specific examples of the way browsers have been adapting for years to address the increasing amount of information available online. ######, I can even install an extension for Firefox that tells me whether or not Abe Vigoda is currently alive or dead. These are wonderful times indeed!!
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User should be thankful that he/she is told which browser to use to access this page. I end-up in not seeing anything using one browser then I try another until I succeed in viewing the contents.
What is this, 1998? No man, sorry, users should be thankful that web developers and browser vendors are working together enough to develop a common set of standards that both of them can follow to ensure that the web content looks the way it was intended. THAT is what users should be thankful for, not that the 14 year old kid (no offense, anyone) who designed his first web site in a single browser took the time to tell people using other browsers that he can't be bothered to make the site standard.
I checked my website on three different browsers to see if it looks ok on each of them.
Wait, wait, wait. Why did you do that? Why didn't you just develop your site so that it looks good in your browser, and then just tell everyone who visits the site to use your browser? Wouldn't the users be thankful that you took the time to tell them that?
Web designers authority is not to interfere in browser's matter but to co-ordinate with browsers as much as possible.
I think you are starting to understand. What is the result when developers and vendors cooperate? Say it with me now: standards
If I will give a list of standards that my browser is following, it will make no difference to a user.
No kidding, I already said that. Users don't care what the details of the standards are, as long as everything works. What they do care about is that it does work. Saying that your product follows all of the relevant standards is all the user needs to know. You don't need to list each standard.
"Shelf" in my user interface acts like a shelf and not like vague words "favourite" or "bookmark" in other browsers.
So you're saying that "bookmark" is vague. I think the vast majority of the population would understand that a bookmark is something to help them get back to a certain place sometime in the future. A shelf, on the other hand, is a flat surface where you put things. What are you putting on the shelf? Is it links to documents or pages? Is it shortcuts to programs? Is it pictures? At my house I put pictures on shelves. I also put food on them. Is it dry food and canned goods? It reminds me of the Mac interface. In Windows, if you want to search for a specific thing on your computer, you go to a program called Search. Sounds easy enough. But how do you do it in a Mac? If you're looking through the list of programs in the chooser, would you ever think to click on something called Sherlock if you're trying to find that document you lost? Where the heck is "find", or "search"?I don't know about anyone else, but I'm having a blast.
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