Datasheet

Part I: Programming with JavaScript

✓ Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and 8: IE7 could be considered a tribute

to Firefox, as it incorporates many of the same features. While this book

was being written, IE8 came out, and added a few more improvements.

Although the support for standards is not as complete in IE7 and IE8 as

it is in some of the other current fleet of browsers, they are much better

than in any earlier versions of IE.

✓ Opera: Opera is an important browser because it was one of the earliest

browsers to actively support Web standards. It’s very popular in certain

circles, but has never gained widespread popularity. Since it supports

Web standards, it will typically run any code written for a standards-

compliant browser.

✓ Safari: Safari is the Web browser packaged with Mac OS. It is a very

capable standards-compliant browser. There is now a Windows version

available. The Web browser built into iPhones uses the same engine as

Safari, so this is an important consideration if you’re building applica-

tions for mobile devices.

✓ Chrome: This newer browser was created by Google. It is highly

standards-compliant, and it’s especially powerful at handling Java

Script and AJAX. This is not surprising, considering Google is one of

the companies that pioneered the use of AJAX and is actively promot-

ing its use. Chrome has one of the fastest JavaScript interpreters in

common use.

✓ Other browsers: There are many other browsers in use today, including

specialty browsers on various forms of Linux, cell phones, and PDAs.

It is nearly impossible to support them all, but many browsers now at

least try to support Web standards.

I prefer to do most of my testing with Firefox 3, because it has very good

standards support and an excellent set of tools for improving and debugging

your code. I then check my pages on other browsers including IE6, IE7, and

Chrome.

Turning Firefox into a Development

Machine

Firefox is an especially important browser for Web developers. It has a

number of attractive features including its excellent standards support in

HTML and JavaScript. However, the most important advantage of Firefox

as a developer’s tool might be its support for extensions. Many commercial

browsers keep their code a closely guarded secret, and are very difficult

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