Sent by Ben Nunn on 12 August 2002 21:09
Tuttle Grey wrote:
> When NN4 was created CSS was just a proposal, one of many, for
> dealing with formatting. NN4 was coded to support the Netscape
> proposal of javscript style sheets. When NN4 was virtually complete,
> the developers took a progressive gamble and wrote a
> CSS-to-javascript-styles translator. That enabled NN4 to support a
> chunk of CSS long before any other browser did so.
Except that IE3 had a limited amount of CSS support, and was released
*before* NN4 was.
> We find NN4 difficult to deal with now but at the time, 1997, the
> early implementation of stylesheets was a progressive and bold move.
>
> <comment> I get tired of hearing people say what a terrible browser
> NN4 was/is, when the truth is that *at the time* it was IMHO the best
> browser and it had many features long before its competitors.
> </comment>
That may be your 'truth', it's certainly not mine. 1997 also saw the release
of IE 4 which was the first browser to seriously make an attempt at
supporting CSS 1. Sure it wasn't perfect, but in terms of standards support,
IE 4 was way ahead of NN 4.
People blame Microsoft's anti-competitive bundling tactics, but IEs
dominance in the market really began when IE 4 was released, because that
was the first browser of the 'new' era, and in many people's views,
including mine, by far the best browser that had ever been released at the
time.
And until the new Mozilla/Netscape 6 project went public, Netscape browsers
stood still, stuck in the old days, while IE continued to improve, not least
in it's standards and CSS support.
BTN
