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Re: Mess = (Javascript && (AOL || Netcom))



      From:          sfeather@dscga.com (Stephen Feather)
To:            javascript@obscure.org
Subject:       Re: Mess = (Javascript && (AOL || Netcom))
Date:          Thu, 22 Feb 1996 00:40:59 GMT
Organization:  LoboSoft Software
Reply-to:      javascript@obscure.org

On Wed, 21 Feb 1996 15:57:37 -0500, you wrote:

No, I think I read it in the manner in which you intended.  Agreed.
What I fear happening is for Uncle Bill to puch his own "standards",
as absurd as they ussually are, and have companies, like Netscape,
current leader in the market, take a back seat.  What I "predict"
happening is this. MS jumps on the "Netscape is moving too fast"
bandwagon, and decides that a big company like MS should lead, and
convince the large "internet?" providers (AOL, prodigy, compuserve) to
support the MS extensions.  In doing so, we move once again from open
development (although currently it doesn't appear that way, but the
development is open, and all extensions are considered for inclusion
in the HTML specs) to closed, one sided development.  The MS way...:(

If you read Steve Jobs interview in Wired Magazine last month, 'the internet is (imagine a small space) this close to dominating the web, which would be its downfall.'  (Although this aws before they dropped BlackBird!)  But anyway I think you're on track.

So, how are you currently circumventing the Javascript pages?  Two
sets of links?

Check out this message I got from Brendan ('The Man') Eich:
----
The SGML purists think we should have used (and therefore encouraged)
some SGML method (Marked Sections, Processing Instructions) rather than
or in conjunction with SCRIPT tags, but that would not help AOL or other
existing, non-SGML browsers one whit.

If users can't transpose the operands of > or >= and use < or <=, then
there are further alternatives with the current low-tech state of the
art: you could duplicate pages (using makefiles to avoid duplicating
source files) with JavaScript versions named with .mdl (don't ask where
this suffix came from), and the non-JavaScript versions named .html.
Then teach your server to map the funny suffix to text/mdl.

Since Netscape says that it Accepts */* (at low q), it should accept
such documents and feed them to HTML layout, as if they were text/html.
I haven't tried this, and it seems like a lot of hassle just to hide
some script from certain browsers.  Until <SCRIPT SRC="URL"> is done
(2.1 or bust), hiding script contents will be a ~90% thing.

/be
-----

Andy Augustine
<aug@ix.netcom.com>
JavaScript 411 -- http://www.his.com/~smithers/freq/beta/index.html
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