> Quirks mode also prevents developers from utilizing the standards > advances and CSS support in IE 6.
It might be a little limiting, but backwards compatibility always is. > In addition, it only allows backwards > compatibility in IE, which says nothing of more modern browsers like > Mozilla and Firefox, which don't suffer from many of these problems. Actually, they do suffer from the same problems. In fact, Mozilla's got it even worse since it has to support Netscape Navigator 4 behaviors in quirks mode. That's why Mozilla (and Firefox by extension) *do* support doctype switching. http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch/table.html As you can see, even Opera 7+ supports doctype switching. > As > I said before, regardless of which method you choose, you will still > have to work around IE's broken box model--you can do it for just IE 5.x > or you can do it for IE 5+, but quirks mode doesn't fix the problem; it > compounds it. By invoking quirks mode, you have to do very little to work around box model issues. By "very little" I mean that, on the typical site, I have to override between 3 and 4 classes defined in the standard style sheet. I use conditional comments to do this. I certainly don't need to implement any of the hacks that you described. You can see an example of this here: http://www.nelivery.org/ > I don't like hacking and I avoid it whenever possible; however, there > are times when you have to weigh the distaste of the hack against the > desire for accessibility and standards--either way I don't care, I was > just clarifying. I agree. However, my point is that I've never had to use any of those hacks. Using a combination of quirks modes and the conditional comment behavior, you can avoid the necessity for those hacks. This results in less code. The code that you end up with is also easier to read code because it's not obfuscated with the hacks. > You can rely on the hacks to a great extent. The only caveats being that > someone decides to create a browser that doesn't fully understand > escapes (w\idth) and supporting NN 4.x, which is easily worked around > using the @import method. You're exploiting bugs and undocumented behaviors. In my book, this means that you can't rely on them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ever use them. However, it does mean they should be used as a last resort. Fortunately, I have never had to use them. > Using standards mode may very well highlight the bugs in older > browsers... but that's because standards mode is obviously a better > implementation of the specs and we are bound to see the flaws of older > browsers more easily. The need to use an *ugly hack* to correct an older > browser's shortcomings should not be the basis for breaking a newer > browser so we don't notice those bugs. Quirks mode in Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Oprah is a feature. You are not "breaking" the browser by using this feature. It exists for this very reason. > You call it backwards > compatibility and I'll call it backwards thinking. Please avoid personal attacks. There's really no call for that. > Either way I have no > problems at all developing for IE 6 in standards mode, while maintaining > support for IE 5.x. You are forced to use hacks that exploit undocumented behaviors and outright bugs. This produces fragile code. I would call this a pretty serious problem. Nevertheless, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. Ben Rogers http://www.c4.net v.508.240.0051 f.508.240.0057 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Gold Sponsor - CFHosting.net http://www.cfhosting.net Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:187401 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
