Message-ID: <3B616ECE.89A4E547@csi.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 09:38:22 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: Z-Machine terp
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Kevin Bracey wrote:

> In message <tlrk2gtju46e71@corp.supernews.com>
>           lraszewski@loyola.edu (L. Ross Raszewski) wrote:

[...]

> > Even better, if I could identify Zip, I could keep it from
> > crashing on @set_colour 0 )
> For god's sake, no. Do you know the main reason web pages don't work on my
> platform? Because of broken JavaScript or server-based checks for whether the
> web browser is Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Oddly enough, it's
> neither, and all too often the script breaks or server refuses to serve. If
> the author of the page had just written well-formed HTML in the first place,
> the page would have worked.

What people often fail to realize, however, is that this is not a fault in
JavaScript (though JavaScript has many faults), but rather the fault of the
programmers, who make basic assumptions about the way the world works, which are
patently incorrect and dangerous.  Since a good programmer can make good use of
these features (for example, exploiting special features that Opera might have,
only on Opera clients, and supplying an alternative interface for anyone else),
it would be absurd to remove this possibility from the programmer's hands.  It
would be much better to track down the programmers who do things like this and
smack them silly.  Or maybe educate them.  I'm not sure which would make me feel
better and which would be more productive...


