Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:[color=blue]
>Brian wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html[/color]
>
>Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it[/color]

Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.
Mac IE5 was the first browser to feature doctype switching, so I think
you're both speaking about the exact same thing.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Gus Richter]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Steve Pugh wrote:[color=blue]
> Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>Brian wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html[/color]
>>
>>Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it[/color]
>
>
> Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.[/color]

WTF? What made you think I was referring to the OS? Didn't IE and Moz
give you a clue? Perhaps I referred to the company/organization, or the
browser? If I had said MS and Moz, you also would have been confused?
[color=blue]
> Mac IE5 was the first browser to feature doctype switching,[/color]

Isn't that what I said? Thanks for being specific. You did understand
after all.
I was aware that it was an IE for Mac, but just did not have the version
on hand.
Oh, I see. You attribute it to IE rather than to Mac. Tsk, tsk.
[color=blue]
> so I think
> you're both speaking about the exact same thing.[/color]

Again, WTF? Me and who else? What same thing?
I was commenting on the link/document/article, wherein it said:
"... both Microsoft and Mozilla decided to do something about it."
Hence my reference to Matthias' (doc author) erroneous suggestion. More
specific for you; he does not mention Mac and I give Mac credit for
being the first one.

--
Gus

[Brian]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter wrote:
[color=blue]
> Steve Pugh wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> Brian wrote:
>>>
>>>> http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>
>>> Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching[/color][/color][/color]

That's correct.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> when AFAIK Mac was the first to use it[/color]
>>
>> Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.[/color]
>
> WTF?[/color]

What you wrote was not clear. So perhaps you could refrain from
throwing around the "F".
[color=blue]
> What made you think I was referring to the OS?[/color]

Because Matthias Gutfeldt only said MS and Mozilla created doctype
switching. You appear to have assumed that he was talking about the
Windows version, but I see nothing in the document to indicate that.
Thus, when you say "Mac", it looks a little odd.
[color=blue]
> Didn't IE and Moz give you a clue? Perhaps I referred to the
> company/organization, or the browser? If I had said MS and Moz, you
> also would have been confused?[/color]

No. Next time say that. (That's what Matthias Gutfeldt said, so the
rephrase would have been accurate.)
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Mac IE5 was the first browser to feature doctype switching,[/color]
>
> I was aware that it was an IE for Mac, but just did not have the
> version on hand. Oh, I see. You attribute it to IE rather than to
> Mac. Tsk, tsk.[/color]

Since there are several other browsers for the Mac, including Mac-only
iCab (sp?) and OmniWeb, it seems normal that one specify MSIE.
[color=blue]
> Hence my reference to Matthias' (doc author) erroneous suggestion.
> More specific for you; he does not mention Mac and I give Mac
> credit for being the first one.[/color]

No, he mentions MS. And stating "MS" without mentioning the platform
is more precise and accurate than stating the platform and not the
browser.

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)

http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004, Christoph Paeper wrote:
[color=blue]
> If, I would have used the approach of using standard compliant mode by
> default and as soon as an parse error occured, the rendition would restart
> in quirks mode.[/color]

The idea certainly has its attractions; and the browser could put up a
broken-page indicator, which might represent some kind of motivator
for web page authors.

However, I'm not at all sure that there's a real 1:1 equivalence
between authors relying on quirks rendering mode, and the presence of
syntax errors.

Sigh.

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:[color=blue]
>Steve Pugh wrote:[color=green]
>> Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:[color=darkred]
>>>Brian wrote:
>>>
>>>>http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>
>>>Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>>>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it[/color]
>>
>>
>> Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.[/color]
>
>WTF? What made you think I was referring to the OS?[/color]

Perhaps because you used the name of the OS?
[color=blue]
> Didn't IE and Moz give you a clue?[/color]

No, because they are names of browsers that exist on multiple OS
(rather more in the case of Moz than IE).
[color=blue]
>Perhaps I referred to the company/organization, or the
>browser?[/color]

In that case I would have guessed that you meant Safari which is the
browser produces by the same company as the Mac OS.

BTW Mac is no more a company/organisation than it is a browser.
[color=blue]
>If I had said MS and Moz, you also would have been confused?[/color]

I would have assumed, just like I did before, that you were confused
or mistaken or just sloppy.

Indeed, if the discussion had been about just one browser then Mac
could be taken as a sloppy shorthard reference to the Mac version of
that browser. But, as you point out, at least two browsers were being
discussed.

How was I to know that you didn't mean Mac Mozilla rather than Mac IE?
I assumed that you meant Mac IE because I knew that Mac IE was the
first browser to support doctype sniffing, but anyone looking at your
post for information would a priori not already know that.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Mac IE5 was the first browser to feature doctype switching,[/color]
>
>Isn't that what I said?[/color]

No, you said 'Mac' which is not a browser. Which Mac browser did you
mean? Mac Netscape? Safari? Mac Opera? iCab? OmniWeb?

Would you refer to a single Windows browser as simply Windows?
[color=blue]
> Thanks for being specific. You did understand after all.[/color]

I guessed what you meant to say, but I already knew the full facts.
Other readers might not and thus might have been confused by your
illogical attribution of the technology to the OS rather than to the
browser.
[color=blue]
>I was aware that it was an IE for Mac, but just did not have the version
>on hand.[/color]

So you didn't bother to check your facts before posting.
[color=blue]
>Oh, I see. You attribute it to IE rather than to Mac. Tsk, tsk.[/color]

Well yes. Doctype sniffing was first implemented by the Mac IE browser
developers, not by the developers of the Mac OS.

There are dozens of browsers available for the Mac, how would anyone
know what you were referring to? Would you say Windows to refer to one
specific Windows browser?
[color=blue][color=green]
>> so I think you're both speaking about the exact same thing.[/color]
>
>Again, WTF? Me and who else? What same thing?[/color]

You and Matthias.
[color=blue]
>I was commenting on the link/document/article, wherein it said:
>"... both Microsoft and Mozilla decided to do something about it."[/color]

Both MS and Moz did decide to do something about it. And Mac IE5 was
the first browser to actually implement it. Hence (once your obscrure
reference to just Mac is corrected) you are both correct.
[color=blue]
>Hence my reference to Matthias' (doc author) erroneous suggestion. More
>specific for you; he does not mention Mac and I give Mac credit for
>being the first one.[/color]

Who or what is Mac?
Mac is an OS produced by Apple.
IE 5 for Mac is a web browser produced by a (then semi-indepedent)
team of MS developers.

Your wording seems to be implying that either there is only one
browser on the Mac or that a browser developed by Apple was the first
to support doctype sniffing, or even that the Mac OS itself somehow
decided to support doctype sniffing independent of browsers and
humans. None of these are correct, hence I sought to clarify your
statements for the benefit of others.

In the scope of Matthias's article it doesn't matter who was the first
to implement doctype sniffing. This is 2004 not 2000/1 and so the fact
that Mac IE supported it some eighteen months before Win IE is
irrelevant.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Gus Richter]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Steve Pugh wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>>http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>>
>>>>Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>>>>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it
>>>
>>>Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.[/color]
>>[/color][/color]

[snipped stuff]

You understood what I said and hold yourself up as wanting to make sure
that others clearly understand by convoluting the issue. A simple "Mac
IE 5 was the first" would have sufficed in the first instance, to which
I would have thanked you (as I already have) for being specific. Instead
you drag on about semantics regarding my use of Mac. For me, and I dare
say for most people, it is a specific Computer, period. Get OS out of
your mind here. That it has its own OS is beside the point, as is the
fact that the corporate umbrella is Apple. How can you possibly relate
doctype sniffing to an OS? The point is that Mac had the first browser
using doctype sniffing. Whether it was someone at MS/IE at Mac's
direction, or someone at Mac that actually coded it into IE5 for Mac
(the IE browser for the Mac), it was still Mac (as the computer, as in
the organization as in part of Apple, or Mac as the browser as in
MacIE5) that was the first one to introduce doctype switching and not
MS/IE, nor NS/Moz.

Thanks for the dance.

--
Gus

[Gus Richter]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Brian wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>> http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>>
>>>> Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching
>>>> when AFAIK Mac was the first to use it
>>>[/color][/color][/color]

Repeating what I said in response to Steve; Whether it was someone at
MS/IE at Mac's direction, or someone at Mac that actually coded it into
IE5 for Mac (the IE browser for Mac OS), it was still Mac (as the
organization as in part of Apple, or Mac as the browser as in MacIE5,
for the Mac as in the computer box) that was the first one to introduce
doctype switching and not MS/IE, nor Moz.

As a general statement, it is correct therefore to say that Mac was the
first to introduce doctype switching, followed by Netscape/Mozilla, then
MS and finally Opera.

The way that Matthias states it, MS and Moz introduced it first and at
the same time, when in fact MS lagged way behind NS/Moz with IE 6 and
all of them behind Mac.
Matthias said (paraphrased in two points):
1. The Problem: old pages, old browsers, non-compliant vs. new pages,
new browsers, compliant.
2. The solution: Therefore, both _Microsoft and Mozilla decided to do
something about it_ .
Did you read that? Does this not suggest that MS and Moz came up with
doctype sniffing and hence were the first to implement it?

Quibbling about semantics regarding Mac as OS, organization, browser or
computer, when the subject at hand is doctype switching, is enough to
ask WTF. Now you introduce other points such as Windows versions (how
could I assume Windows only and mention Mac?), other Mac browsers
(again, I used "Mac" as the computer/organization) and '"MS" and
platform' (how can something be more accurate and precise by being
general? See the first paragraph.) which all misdirect. I will not
offend your sensibilities by repeating my exclamation.

I stand by my general statement in the second paragraph and my point of
contention to Matthias' doc in the third paragraph.

I thank you also for the second dance.

--
Gus

[Claire Tucker]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 18:25:01 +0100, "Alan J. Flavell"
<flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[snip!][color=blue]
> On
>the other hand it would be rude to demand that standards-conforming
>authors should put some additional "real-W3C" declaration onto their
>pages in order to get standards-conforming mode.
>[/color]

I found it slightly amusing that you picked this particular phrasing
here, since a <!DOCTYPE > declaration referencing the W3C DTD *is* a
declaration that the document is intended to be W3C-valid.

I know what you were getting at, though, and I agree. With the benefit
of hindsight I always cringe when I look back at the minefield of bad
design decisions that were made by the developers of Mosaic, Netscape
and Internet Explorer in the past to add "cool new features". A bit of
peer-review (and response to that peer-review) could have produced
much more compatible and extensible alternatives to IMG, frames,
applet and embed.

Browser bugs are a different matter, of course, as by definition they
weren't intended. The browser makers are in a difficult situation
because once they release a browser they have to remain compatible
with it because the public at large doesn't understand the difference
between a page rendering badly because it's a bad page and a page
rendering badly because of a browser bug.

When I'm in a pessimistic mood I start thinking that maybe we're
incapable of actually designing and implementing any interworking
specification as someone will always screw it up, but other times I'm
more optimistic that one day all this stuff will be out of the hands
of corporations and in the hands of people who care about the reasons
the specifications exist.

For now we're at the mercy of Microsoft, but at least they seem
willing to compromise between back-compat and standards these days.
I think the DOCTYPE hack was a necessary evil on the path to the goal
of seemless interworking, which will hopefully be realised sometime
soon now that people are starting to see the benefits.

Best regards,
-Claire

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:[color=blue]
>Steve Pugh wrote:[color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>>>http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>>>
>>>>>Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>>>>>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it
>>>>
>>>>Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.
>>>[/color][/color]
>
>[snipped stuff]
>
>You understood what I said and hold yourself up as wanting to make sure
>that others clearly understand by convoluting the issue. A simple "Mac
>IE 5 was the first" would have sufficed in the first instance, to which
>I would have thanked you (as I already have) for being specific. Instead
>you drag on about semantics regarding my use of Mac. For me, and I dare
>say for most people, it is a specific Computer, period.[/color]

Yes, that's my whole point. It's a computer (operating system), not a
browser.
[color=blue]
> Get OS out of
>your mind here. That it has its own OS is beside the point, as is the
>fact that the corporate umbrella is Apple.[/color]

It's rather the whole point. Mac is not a browser.
[color=blue]
>How can you possibly relate doctype sniffing to an OS?[/color]

Exactly my point. That's why I was surprised when you did just that.
[color=blue]
>The point is that Mac had the first browser using doctype sniffing.[/color]

Corect. But that browser is not called 'Mac'. Nor is the company that
created that browser called 'Mac'. Nor is the company that created the
Macintosh operating system the same as the company that created that
browser. Nor is that browser the only one that exists for the
Macintosh operating system. But still you said:
"Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
AFAIK Mac was the first to use it"

That implies that Mac is a browser. Which is rubbish.
[color=blue]
> Whether it was someone at MS/IE at Mac's
>direction, or someone at Mac that actually coded it into IE5 for Mac
>(the IE browser for the Mac),[/color]

Or neither? No one from Apple (or 'Mac' in your terms) directed anyone
at Microsoft (or 'MS/IE' in your terms) to include it and certainly no
one at Apple coded IE5.
[color=blue]
> it was still Mac (as the computer, as in
>the organization as in part of Apple, or Mac as the browser as in
>MacIE5) that was the first one to introduce doctype switching and not
>MS/IE, nor NS/Moz.[/color]

But it was MSIE.
Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh is one version of MSIE.

The first browser to support doctype sniffing was MSIE5 for the Mac.
This is a product of Microsoft.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:
[color=blue]
>As a general statement, it is correct therefore to say that Mac was the
>first to introduce doctype switching, followed by Netscape/Mozilla, then
>MS and finally Opera.[/color]

This is correct if you are referring to browsers and by 'Mac' you mean
IE for Mac and by 'MS' you mean IE for Win (which is an odd way to
refer to those browsers). But if you are referring to organisations
then the order was MS (with Mac IE5) then Mozilla, (then MS again in
Win IE6), then Opera, then Safari. (There might be others as well.)
[color=blue]
>The way that Matthias states it, MS and Moz introduced it first and at
>the same time, when in fact MS lagged way behind NS/Moz with IE 6 and
>all of them behind Mac.[/color]

The first implementation was from Microsoft in the form of Mac IE5.
[color=blue]
>Matthias said (paraphrased in two points):
>1. The Problem: old pages, old browsers, non-compliant vs. new pages,
>new browsers, compliant.
>2. The solution: Therefore, both _Microsoft and Mozilla decided to do
>something about it_ .
>Did you read that? Does this not suggest that MS and Moz came up with
>doctype sniffing and hence were the first to implement it?[/color]

MS did come up with doctype sniffing when they programmed it in IE5
for the Mac. Are you under then impression that IE5 for the Mac is not
an MS product?

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004, Claire Tucker wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 18:25:01 +0100, "Alan J. Flavell"[/color]
[..][color=blue][color=green]
> >the other hand it would be rude to demand that standards-conforming
> >authors should put some additional "real-W3C" declaration onto their
> >pages in order to get standards-conforming mode.[/color]
>
> I found it slightly amusing that you picked this particular phrasing
> here, since a <!DOCTYPE > declaration referencing the W3C DTD *is* a
> declaration that the document is intended to be W3C-valid.[/color]

Only if it's pointing at a W3C doctype, though ;-)

What about ISO-HTML? What about your own customised DTD (or mine, or
anyone else's)?
[color=blue]
> I know what you were getting at, though, and I agree. With the benefit
> of hindsight I always cringe when I look back at the minefield of bad
> design decisions that were made by the developers of Mosaic, Netscape
> and Internet Explorer in the past to add "cool new features".[/color]

I'm only glad that I stayed on the sidelines; but to my way of
thinking, the Mosaic/Netscape approach was several years' tangential
effort wasted on the way to where it's obvious that we wanted to be,
and we're still picking up the pieces from that failed agenda.

And MS's approach (when was it other?) was to buy into the crap,
instead of competing by offering the technically-better answer.
[color=blue]
> A bit of peer-review (and response to that peer-review) could have
> produced much more compatible and extensible alternatives to IMG,
> frames, applet and embed.[/color]

You'll have noticed the failed HTML/3.0 draft, of course. Sure: bits
of it would now be discounted as being too presentation-specific. But
it was heading in the right general direction, in a way that Netscape
was not; and IE gained no brownie points for copying its mistakes.
[color=blue]
> Browser bugs are a different matter, of course, as by definition they
> weren't intended. The browser makers are in a difficult situation
> because once they release a browser they have to remain compatible
> with it because the public at large doesn't understand the difference
> between a page rendering badly because it's a bad page and a page
> rendering badly because of a browser bug.[/color]

But to some extent you can blame the browser makers for that, because
they were far too keen to promote the idea that if the author got the
desired visual rendering on that maker's latest browser version, then
the web page was doing just fine. Indeed, to be frank, the browser
makers were press-ganging web authors into promoting their specific
browsers, in preference to making WWW-compatible pages. No big
surprises there, if you understand how business works; but the authors
*fell for it*, hook line and sinker.
[color=blue]
> When I'm in a pessimistic mood I start thinking that maybe we're
> incapable of actually designing and implementing any interworking
> specification as someone will always screw it up, but other times I'm
> more optimistic that one day all this stuff will be out of the hands
> of corporations and in the hands of people who care about the reasons
> the specifications exist.[/color]

Let me be honest: I don't know.

But the key to effective living, in this information-rich world, is
selectivity. Just as our mailer already refuses to accept mail from
senders who appear incapable of conforming with mail interworking
protocols (and our users are genuinely grateful to the mail server
admins for that), there's going to be a time when users have the sense
to refuse web pages that prove themselves incapable of meeting the
applicable web page standards.

And the rest will no doubt be merrily signing-up for their
international lottery winnings, Nigerian bank windfalls, discount
medication, and so on and so on...

all the best

[Brian]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Gus Richter wrote:
[color=blue]
> Whether it was someone at MS/IE at Mac's direction, or someone at
> Mac that actually coded it into IE5 for Mac (the IE browser for Mac
> OS), it was still Mac (as the organization as in part of Apple, or
> Mac as the browser as in MacIE5, for the Mac as in the computer
> box) that was the first one to introduce doctype switching and not
> MS/IE, nor Moz.[/color]

This is simply and uncontestably wrong. Of course it was MS/IE, since
it was IE, written by MS, that first introduced doctype switching. Why
do you insist on claiming that MS was not responsible for MSIE? In
short, what *are* you prattling on about?
[color=blue]
> As a general statement, it is correct therefore to say that Mac was
> the first to introduce doctype switching, followed by
> Netscape/Mozilla, then MS and finally Opera.[/color]

That is *not* correct. It was certainly not Mac. They had nothing to
do with it. If you insist on carrying on like this, you'll just make
a fool of yourself.

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)

http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > wrote:[color=blue]
>Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>As a general statement, it is correct therefore to say that Mac was the
>>first to introduce doctype switching, followed by Netscape/Mozilla, then
>>MS and finally Opera.[/color]
>
>This is correct if you are referring to browsers and by 'Mac' you mean
>IE for Mac and by 'MS' you mean IE for Win (which is an odd way to
>refer to those browsers). But if you are referring to organisations
>then the order was MS (with Mac IE5) then Mozilla, (then MS again in
>Win IE6), then Opera, then Safari. (There might be others as well.)[/color]

Arse. It's catching. That last line should have said 'Apple' not
'Safari'.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Henri Sivonen]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

In article <Pine.LNX.4.53. 0407190051320.1 8921@ppepc56.ph .gla.ac.uk>,
"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
> What about your own customised DTD (or mine, or anyone else's)?[/color]

Like the kewl IBM and Metrius doctypes that had to be specially taken
into account in Mozilla?

Depending on the visibility, the browser makers might have to add the
homegrown public id to the quirky list. (Perhaps not yours, but anyone
else's. :-)

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi

http://iki.fi/hsivonen/

Mozilla Web Author FAQ: http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html

[Gus Richter]

Re: Mozilla full of CSS rendering bugs?

Steve Pugh wrote:[color=blue]
> Gus Richter <gusrichter@net scape.net> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>Steve Pugh wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>>>>>http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Matthia s suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
>>>>>>AFAIK Mac was the first to use it
>>>>>
>>>>>Mac? That's an operating system not a browser.
>>>>[/color]
>>[snipped stuff]
>>
>>You understood what I said and hold yourself up as wanting to make sure
>>that others clearly understand by convoluting the issue. A simple "Mac
>>IE 5 was the first" would have sufficed in the first instance, to which
>>I would have thanked you (as I already have) for being specific. Instead
>>you drag on about semantics regarding my use of Mac. For me, and I dare
>>say for most people, it is a specific Computer, period.[/color]
>
>
> Yes, that's my whole point. It's a computer (operating system), not a
> browser.
>
>[color=green]
>>Get OS out of
>>your mind here. That it has its own OS is beside the point, as is the
>>fact that the corporate umbrella is Apple.[/color]
>
>
> It's rather the whole point. Mac is not a browser.
>
>[color=green]
>>How can you possibly relate doctype sniffing to an OS?[/color]
>
>
> Exactly my point. That's why I was surprised when you did just that.
>
>[color=green]
>>The point is that Mac had the first browser using doctype sniffing.[/color]
>
>
> Corect. But that browser is not called 'Mac'. Nor is the company that
> created that browser called 'Mac'. Nor is the company that created the
> Macintosh operating system the same as the company that created that
> browser. Nor is that browser the only one that exists for the
> Macintosh operating system. But still you said:
> "Matthias suggests that IE and Moz introduced Doctype Switching when
> AFAIK Mac was the first to use it"
>
> That implies that Mac is a browser. Which is rubbish.
>
>[color=green]
>>Whether it was someone at MS/IE at Mac's
>>direction, or someone at Mac that actually coded it into IE5 for Mac
>>(the IE browser for the Mac),[/color]
>
>
> Or neither? No one from Apple (or 'Mac' in your terms) directed anyone
> at Microsoft (or 'MS/IE' in your terms) to include it and certainly no
> one at Apple coded IE5.
>
>[color=green]
>>it was still Mac (as the computer, as in
>>the organization as in part of Apple, or Mac as the browser as in
>>MacIE5) that was the first one to introduce doctype switching and not
>>MS/IE, nor NS/Moz.[/color]
>
>
> But it was MSIE.
> Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh is one version of MSIE.
>
> The first browser to support doctype sniffing was MSIE5 for the Mac.
> This is a product of Microsoft.
>
> Steve
>[/color]

One last dance:

In August 1997, MS and Apple announced an agreement which called for MS
to develop future versions of Office, IE and other tools for the Mac
platform. In return, Apple was to bundle IE with the Mac OS. As part of
the agreement, MS assigned developers to exclusively focus on Mac
together with Mac developers as a Mac Unit working on creating Macintosh
products.

So here I have said that I attribute Mac for the innovative Doctype
Sniffing, whereas you two attribute it to MS/IE. I really don't much
care how your thought processor arrived at your conclusions, but I
happen to believe, since I don't have inside information but do have
some common sense, that Mac would be the driving force; the one to
decide what features, etc. would be implemented in MacIE5. You two, on
the other hand, attribute it to MS, as if Mac took what was available
off-the-shelf, that MS would dictate to Mac what features they would
have in their IE version, or that MS in their benevolent nature provide
doctype sniffing which they rejected for IE5.5 some four months later
and only after one and half years finally adopted for IE6.

To recap my position: Yes MacIE5 is an MS product, but has Mac's stamp
of approval on it. Mac influenced, if not directed, the Mac Unit to be,
among other things, more compliant than the Windows counterpart and more
specifically to the subject at hand, that of providing Doctype
Sniffing/Switching. MacIE5 is an IE version modified by IE and Mac
developers specifically for the Mac.

All that being said, I am content to leave it at as you said:
"Mac IE5 was the first browser to feature doctype switching."
Instead of my original:
"Mac was the first to use it"

Lots of verbal diarrhea about nothing and a beautiful example of
misdirection. This was definitely the last dance.

--
Gus