Datasheet

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Chapter 1: Taking the Web to the Next Level
Fortunately, there’s been a big push toward standardization in recent years.
The various browser developers have been getting together and agreeing to
various standards set forth by a centralized team called the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). When a browser implements JavaScript, it now agrees
(theoretically, at least) to adhere to a set of standards for behavior. As long
as your code follows the same standards, you can expect everything to work
pretty well. (Most of the time, anyway.)
In this book, I adhere to accepted JavaScript standards as practiced by most
developers. All the code in this book is tested on IE7 for Windows, Firefox 3 for
Windows, and Firefox 3 for Linux. Any time the code is likely to cause particu-
lar browser problems, I try to point out the specific issues.
Picking a browser or two
Here are a few browsers you should be aware of:
✓ Legacy browsers: You’ll find a lot of older browsers still being used
on the Internet. Some people have continued to stick with whatever
browser was on their machine when they got it, and haven’t upgraded in
years. The browsers earlier than IE6 or Firefox are a particular problem,
because support for Web standards and for JavaScript was very uneven
in the early days of the Web. For the most part, this book assumes that
your users will be using at least a somewhat modern browser.
AJAX in particular won’t work on really old browsers.
✓ Microsoft Internet Explorer 6: This is a very common browser, still in
popular use. At one point it was the dominant browser on the Internet,
but it has fallen from favor in recent years, being replaced by newer
offerings from Microsoft as well as competitors like Firefox and Opera.
This browser is well-known for a number of “features” that don’t comply
with community standards. Its use is declining, but as of this writing,
you still have to consider supporting it; a lot of users still have it.
✓ Firefox: The Firefox Web browser from Mozilla reopened the so-
called “browser wars” by providing the first significant competition to
Microsoft in many years. Firefox really opened eyes with its impressive
features: tabbed browsing, improved security, and integrated searching.
For developers, Firefox was among the first browsers to truly support
Web standards in a serious way. Firefox is especially important to devel-
opers because of its extension architecture, which allows a programmer
to turn Firefox into a high-powered development tool. Look at the next
section of this chapter for suggestions on some great extensions to add
to Firefox.
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