39 People Dead on the Internet

This is the headline everyone is seeing now.

I find that the “Legitimate” news industry paints a fairly grim view of the Internet. Scare tactics, fear mongering, and downright lies have blemished the infancy of a new medium. Next time you see a news article on a non-internet forum. (TV News, Television, et cetra) take note of the negative spin. The Internet threatens these people the way Guttenberg’s (Not Steve) Printing Press threatened the clergy’s powerful position in the minds of the populace.

OK I wont get crazy into conspiracies of th Media, just take note next time.

Anyway, the latest and greatest argument on the Web is over Dynamic HTML. This is a new spec for a new and improved more powerful HTML spec. And what is the problem with that you might ask? What is always the problem??

We can’t agree on one system. Its got to be non-compatible systems. It’s got to be proprietary. It’s got to be a pain in the ass.

Microsoft wants their version of D-HTML to be the standard because they think it’s better and it works well with their existing backend solutions. Netscape wants their version for…(Am I being redundant?) they think it’s better and it works well with their existing backend solutions.

Here is the bottom line: D-HTML will die if they can’t agree.

I am a Web designer. I can not design for any technology that ins’t supported by about 85% or better of the audience. It is just too problematic to castrate your audience by using proprietary tags that will wreak havoc on a strong portion of your viewership.

It is a great idea; Make HTML better. But unless there is one supported spec. It won’t gain acceptance. I’m sorry.

The good news is that Active Server Pages on the NT server, can detect many features on the browser automatically (no matter what kind of browser) and builds the html page on the fly. This lets me make a bunch of pages for each type of browser. Hmmm, sounds like I am making alot of work for myself. Ugghhh. Stay tuned for the standards wars.