Subject:
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Re: Typefaces: Verdana vs. Times
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.publish
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Date:
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Mon, 19 Apr 1999 02:28:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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1063 times
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In article <MPG.1181e278a3540c8298986f@lugnet.com>, lehman@javanet.com
(Todd Lehman) wrote:
> In lugnet.publish, rueger@io.com (Tim Rueger) writes:
> > All true. It's the "careful attention to backward compatibility"
> > that bugs me. HTML is supposed to be device independent, so you
> > don't *need* to worry about these details.
>
> It still is, and you still don't need to unless you really want to.
> That's the winning beauty of it.
>
> Unfortunately, when people ignore compatibility, it's usually that
> they're using new features and forgetting about backward compatibility
> rather than using only old features and forgetting about forward
> compatibility. :) But new features are seductive to almost everyone.
> And people are paid to use new features. What can you do?
Websites that intentionally exclude the largest possible audience will
lose in the marketplace. eBay, Amazon, and Yahoo seem to do just fine
with plain old HTML, why shouldn't anyone else?
> > Sure, tags enable new features without breaking older browsers, but
> > you know most designers don't give a whit about older browsers.
>
> Unfortunately, they're not often paid to. They're typically designing
> under tight deadlines and limited budgets for particular target market
> segments.
The designer had better be serious about those "target market segments",
because he won't be reaching anyone else.
Besides, if time to market is so critical, why alienate part of your
potential audience by incorporating new features? Designers risk
shooting themselves in the foot by excluding those who don't choose to
buy into some *other* marketer's latest whiz-bang feature set.
> > And the latest IE (IIRC) lets websites customize the entire browser
> > user interface on a *per site* basis. Ick!
>
> Well, one way of looking at it is that this is really gross and
> terrible, because it's a complete bastardization of what HTML and web
> was originally meant to be.
>
> Another way of looking at it is that it's a first step toward moving
> actual applications off the desktop and onto the web. 10 years from
> now, how much HTML will sites will be made of? For better or for
> worse, there's going to be less and less HTML (as a percentage of
> overall content) and more and more downloadable applications code
> fragments (Java and other languages).
I much prefer something like XML-RPC (an emerging, open standard) to
anything hard-wired into a particular browser or plugin (like Shockwave
or the above mentioned site user-interface customization features).
However, I don't think any such "technologies" will have the same impact
plain old HTML has had and will continue to have. In the long term,
users will end up deciding what is really widely adopted. Is anyone
using PointCast anymore? Is Shockwave ubiquitous?
I just don't see HTML going away as the lingua franca for web content.
Web usage is exploding with present interfaces (i.e., HTML 3.2 browsers
and 28.8 modems), so they will remain the standard to which websites
should be designed if they are to reach the widest possible audience.
If a someone wants to destabilize his website with the latest gizmos,
fine, but his audience would much more appreciate his spending the same
time developing better actual content. This benefits the designer more
in the long run, anyway.
> > Guess I'm an old fogie already, and I'm only 31. "Yessiree, I can
> > remember back in '89, when you had to send email explicitly thru
> > RELAY.CS.NET to get it from coast to coast...".
>
> Can you still do that?
I don't think so, but I haven't had to try for many years - my wife and
I are no longer living in Boston and Portland, respectively. :^)
--
Tim and/or Shelley Rueger - rueger "at" io.com
WWW page: http://www.io.com/~rueger/
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Typefaces: Verdana vs. Times
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| (...) I disagree. First, whether or not a website loses in the marketplace has little to do with whether the exclusion of the largest possible audience was intentional or unintentional, right? :) Second, for the largest possible audience, you would (...) (25 years ago, 19-Apr-99, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: Typefaces: Verdana vs. Times
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| (...) Say, what do you think about HTML/XML extensions for doing line-art? (I mean official extensions, of course -- if they can be standardized upon. There are so many people competing for this right now, it frightens me.) Anyway, it's not that (...) (25 years ago, 19-Apr-99, to lugnet.publish)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Typefaces: Verdana vs. Times
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| (...) It still is, and you still don't need to unless you really want to. That's the winning beauty of it. Unfortunately, when people ignore compatibility, it's usually that they're using new features and forgetting about backward compatibility (...) (25 years ago, 17-Apr-99, to lugnet.publish)
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