Mozilla Shines in Latest Standards EvaluationTuesday November 16th, 1999In David Baron's latest evaluation of browser CSS conformance, Mozilla is in the lead, by a wide margin. When you see the scores at the bottom of the CSS results table, in which Mozilla gets a 38 out of 104, realize that this is because CSS2 conformance is evaluated as well (CSS2 is not promised for the first release of Mozilla). In comparison, Opera 3.60 gets a 2.5, and IE5 garners a -8.5. UPDATE: The XML information that I was given does not in fact apply to the parser used in Mozilla. Mozilla uses expat by James Clark, and the XML parser reviewed at XML.com was XP, a Java-based XML parser also by James Clark. Sorry for any confusion. My feeling is that expat is probably a better XML parser than XP, since it's been around longer, but we won't know until we see concrete results. I'm glad to see that the Mozilla team made such a good choice for an XML parser, and is doing a great job at trying to conform to the standards. Numerically, XP is rated second; it fails a very few tests. In terms of the "out of 5" ratings, it did come joint first, but looking at that table, it was clear that XP came second by a very small margin. Supposing IE6 and Mozilla were both rated five stars in a magazine article, but the article was based on some numerical test results in which Mozilla achieved 1065 points and IE6 achieved 1050 points, would you like to see IE6 described as "coming out on top"? :) Of course, this is just a niggle and the test indicated there are no problems of any consequence with the XP parser. [Also, from my brief scan through the text, it seemed the article was written by one of the developers of the Sun Project X parser which came on top, which might indicate some bias :) Although I've used it and it does seem a good parser so...] --sam Just wanted to say to those who didn't read thePage … Netscape 4.x got a -41.5. If i'm not mistaken, expat (James Clark's C parser) is the XML parser used in Mozilla, not XP (his Java parser)... mozAdmin: try again. It's expat, not "XPat" (which has even less bearing on the discussion by virtue of its utter nonexistence). Kinda funny that Christopher didn't bother to mention the -41.5 score for Netscape Communicator 4.61. I was surprised by this because he's usually such an objective level-headed young laddy. Everyone knows Moz Classic code sucks. It's the whole reason they scrapped it to start new code. IE5 is compared to Moz because Moz is NS5, and thus the two are on the same tier. By your argument they should include IE4, too. Well, Kovu, I hate to burst your bubble but you're going to have to compare Mozilla 5 with IE6 when all is said and done. The same 'tier' is irrelevant when applied across different companies. I know that some here may think that IE5 is the last version of IE... but let's be realistic shall we?
ok enough Bruce... Hi Ari! :) Is Bruce the only poster out there? Does he misspell certain words? What is it? No, Kovu, I'm not the only poster out here. :)
#23 For what it's worth, had I read this an hour ago..by FrodoB Tuesday November 16th, 1999 6:49 PM I knew it was Bruce, too. He has a quite recognizable dualism to him. He can support any browser (except Opera; I've never seen him defend Opera) on any given day. Even now, he's working on Revenge of Mozilla II. ;) You know IE5 is just IE4 with some extra stuff to it. It's not any great leap. M$ does not have incentive to spend $100 million a year anymore on IE since it has served its purpose. Anyway, the version of IE4 that they call IE6 will, I'm sure, add some more proprietary tweaks and still not support standards because in the end, M$ is concentrating on other things, rather than a product they will A) never receive a profit from and B) has already accomplished its intended goal. We're just not going to see innovation from that front, particularly not for a Web browser. They just don't care, as long as it's integrated into Windows. IE5 is a very refined and polished IE4... on the surface they look similar... but that's where the similarity ends. There's not a whole lot more that M$ could do with IE as a client browser beyond incorporating betters standards support... and they certainly don't need to spend $100 million to do that. And in reality, there never will be a 100% standards compliant browser... that's just an ideaology to strive for. Oh it's not the end yet my friend. Do you think MS will just sit still while dominating the user's window to the WWW? IE has surved it's purpose for Phase 1 of MS's plans for net domination. Phase 2 involves tying the desktop, using IE, to IIS and hence NT. MS wants to lock people in, shut competitors out and kill Apache. Expect MS to play dirty with proprietary extensions by using it's browser market share to kill Apache. MS has never hesitated to use it's advantages to hit others over the head (and quite often crack an skull open). Think like MS for a second and you will realise. Not to mention get depressed afterwards. the fat lady has not sung yet my friend. sincerely narbey |