Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Constant Inconstancy

I wonder what would happen if a few auto manufacturers decided to switch the gas and brake pedals in the cars they produced. While I’m at it, let’s rotate the side of the road on which we drive based on the stock market. I also say we forget the red-yellow-green configuration of signal lights and let homeowners in the area pick the top-to-bottom order of the colors.

After all, it’s not as if there needs to be any real consistency on the roadways, right?

This is the logic used to create the internet—okay, not so much the internet as the means to travel it.

I’ve spent the last several days updating a Web site only to find out the updates read differently in Mozilla Firefox than they do in Internet Explorer.

I know what you’re thinking: anyone paying any attention to the way of the Web knows there are differences in the way combinations of browsers and operating systems alter the way Web pages appear.

I do know this, and overall, I can accept that depending upon a viewer’s browser, operating system, and screen size, what I see and what that person sees may differ, but this—this was a difference akin to night and day, and it cannot be fixed. (Well, I fixed it, but I had to compromise some design to do it.)

I’m no expert, but I know more than the average bear about HTML, XHTML, and PHP, and I’ve spent a lot of time working with my own site designs and templates and themes to feel pretty comfortable with things.

In layperson’s terms, it basically comes down to a difference in code interpretation among browsers, and which browser is more forgiving than the others.

It also comes down to a simple truth: when I type <div>, some browsers get edgy. Then, if I dare type < /br>, it gets worse. Finally, if I try to combine a little bit of <div> with a little bit of < /br>, everything blows up—in Explorer. Nothing happens in Firefox, and because I use Firefox, it was only by chance I realized a very simple Wordpress theme was unreadable in Explorer. (I generally check both browsers, but I tell you, this was a simple change that I never dreamed would cause any harm, so checking didn't cross my mind.)

Here’s what I don’t get: it seems to me there’s a simple analogy that ought to dictate how the World Wide Web “works.”

The Earth is like the Web.
The highway is like the internet.
A car is like a browser.
An address is like a URL.

If I want to get someplace on the Earth, I climb into my car, grab a map, and head out on the highway to the address of my choosing. The Web is no different—well, unless you count the fact that often the highways can’t be navigated, the car stalls, and once if you get to the address, the place looks nothing like what you remember.

Isn't it time all browsers interpreted code the same way?

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