AOL paid $10,000,000,000 for NS
MS Will pay $750,000,000 to AOL

That means AOL has pissed away only $9,250,000,000 on NS.

Watch out world! AOL is on a roll!

The question ultimately seems to be whether Mozilla will thrive without paid programmers behind it. Frankly, I'm not sure it will without some significant changes. Last time I checked, the lion's share of the code still came from paid programmers.

Edited by author 06-02-2003 04:19 PM
This is how I understand it (I may be wrong)...
JavaScript as you know it in browsers is a couple different standards all in one. First the actual language is called ECMA Script. It was initially started by Netscape and was called LiveScript, but at the time Java was huge so they renamed it to JavaScript. Then they submitted it to the ECMA standards commitee.

The ECMA people released a script Standard and Microsoft was the first one to fully support it. Later on Mozilla came along and also supported it.

The problem with the language that the web developers run into is with the DOM (Document Object Model). There are three main DOM's out there. The Nav4 DOM, the IE 4/5 DOM, and the W3C DOM.

The w3c dom is what Mozilla and IE 6 (to a degree) follow. The w3c dom is made up of a number of different levels. There is DOM Level 0 which is the most basic level, and it goes up to the new DOM 3 which allows you to do really advanced stuff (But it isn't fully supported in any browser yet).

If you code your JavaScript following the w3c dom MOST of your code will work in Mozilla, Netscape, and IE (And Safari... eventually). The problem is, most people have never followed the w3c standard because they've never heard of it and they end up with some mish mash of code that is half IE 4/5 DOM and half W3C DOM. And the other problem is that IE hasn't upgraded in a year or so and is lacking in many areas (Such as mouse events). Because IE is lacking, it pretty much forces them to use the IE 4/5 DOM code mixed in with the W3C code.

If MS upgraded IE to support the newer DOM standards, then the problem would eventually go away over time.

Edited by author 06-02-2003 03:13 PM
If it's a MS specific extension, then bless them! It's a hell of a lot easier than the rube-goldberg way of doing things.

It seems to me that the way MS handles it isn't in the Javascript specs, and the roundabout method of handling it in NS is a band-aid. Either way, it sure saves a heck of a lot of time.

Also Netscape, who created teh Javascript standard, wasn't too forthcoming with MS on what the standards entailed (at least back in ie 3.0 days) so I think MS had to adapt on the fly because NS was trying to edge them out by withholding the specs until they were "finalized" but they didn't finalize them until right when NS 3.0 shipped, which they did to give them a nice head start. MS had their "JScript", but had to take some guesses at Javascript and I think some of the inconsistancies come from there.

I code applications, not web pages, so I've managed to avoid much exposure to Javascript. But just from reading the comments here the gut feeling is that IE pulled an 'embrace and extend' with Javascript/DOM. Anyone who ha read the specs know for sure?

Edited by author 06-02-2003 12:37 PM
By "With Flexibility" I mean that with Netscape you have case sensitivity which is a pain in the butt and silly, whereas IE you don't. Netscape requires you to use Java bindings since it doesn't allow true attributes for the DOM interfaces (therefore it cannot track property changes with the object), but with IE you can use bindings or not, both work. Also silly little things, like interpreting 0 as false, 1 as true, it's automatically handled by IE but not by NS. Stuff like that. I don't think any of these things are specifically covered by any of the Javascript specifications, so it's up to the browser to choose how to implement them. I dunno for sure, they may be a spec that says "You must be case sensitive", etc, I haven't read the full specs, but I doubt it.

Not to mention that NS is the biggest Javascript nazi out there, while IE supports the standard with some flexibility.

then why is there a standard at all, if the de facto browser supports it with _flexibility_? that's calling a bug a feature. as a programmer, i want a program to support a standard 100%. granted, i hate dealing with cross-browser issues, but maybe if MS stuck to the standard, instead of trying to be flexible, a web developer's job might be a bit easier.

NS7 wasn't as horrible as NS6. I could browse some pages with NS6, close it, then 3 hours later find a process "Netscape" still running sitting on 15+MB of RAM. This is from my work and my home computers, both vastly different configurations but both with the same problems.

Speaking of things that should die... When is AOL gonna get a clue and stop totally farking the networking componants in Windows? I used to manage the ADSL installations in my city, and one of the questions we had to ask is "Are you currently running, or have you EVER run, AOL" and if they said "YES" we had to send a level2 tech to do the install because of the nightmare AOL causes with their custom IP stacks and mutated networking componants. They may be better by now, that was a few years ago, but it's left me a major AOL hater for life. I still have nightmares about the hours and hours it sometimes took to undo all of AOL's lovliness. If people MUST use AOL, there should be an "AOL LITE" option where you use default dialup networking componants to connect. Grrr.

No, AOL adopted NS7 as its most-recent front-end.

So the two monsters that ate the web commons exchange bodily fluids while the public, which was the important victim of MS and AOL's monopolistic crimes, is the one that gets screwed as usual.

As far as I know, the story gets it a little wrong tho: AOL has been using IE as its default browser all along, right?

Mozilla seems to have been the one leading Netscape development, so it may be that the impact from this monster's ball will be minimal. Here's hoping.

First off, as a programmer, I'm infinately happy that MS won the browser war. I know I'm gonna get KILLED for saying this, but in some things, competition isn't good if it destroys standardization. The only "Standard" that IE and Netscape seem to agree on is HTML 1.0. their implementation of javascript differs, plus MS supports even more bells and whistles, so pages designed for IE look like crap on NS unless you program to the lowest common denominator. Not to mention that NS is the biggest Javascript nazi out there, while IE supports the standard with some flexibility.

I don't cry for the loss of Netscape. Actually, I'd have been just as happy if NS would have won the browser war, but when our server logs showed 40% NS and 60% IE I HAD to support both, which was a big pain in the butt.

Also, I find it sad (though understandable) that people got upset when IE was given away for free bundled with Windows. Yes, Netscape got upset, saying it killed them, but their poor code is what killed them (I have to kill hung NS processes all the time). But using that logic, can't Pioneer sue General Motors for including a radio in their cars (for "Free") which hurts their chance of selling one aftermarket? The answer is simple: If Pioneer makes a superior product, then people will ditch their "Free" stereo and buy one of theirs. Netscape is NOT superior, therefore noone would ditch IE for it. They blamed it on MS being anti-competitive, but in my book I'm chalking it up to NS being inferior (or at least not superior).