RE: [xml-dev] Microsoft's deeply cynicalappealto"standards compl iance"

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

You have a good point, Joshua, in that the cost of trying to make 
content work with multiple incompatible systems is quite 
high.  For that reason, in intranet applications or 
reasonably constrained applications, we do not recommend other than 
IE nor will we contract for cross-browser compatible 
delivery.  On an open public site, different rules apply 
yet solutions that say "best viewed with X" have been 
applied widely for some time. 

I'm glad to see the article that explains the 
reversal of the policy.

It will be interesting to see how well other XML application 
languages (eg, SVG) fare with this problem.  The 
VRML experience was illuminating with respect to the 
difficulty of keeping declarative language standards 
interoperable at rendering and behavioral fidelity:  close 
wasn't good enough for rendering and even worse for 
behavior.  The Highlander saga continues.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Allen [mailto:joshuaa@microsoft.com]

A. If a site uses even moderate JavaScript and CSS, the site has to
maintain different code for different browsers.  Typical would be one
set of routines for IE5, one for Netscape 4.x, and another for Netscape
6 and IE6 (since IE6 and Netscape 6 *finally* can share most of the same
code).