vsbabu.org

Mozilla intentionally breaks ASP.Net pages?

Yesterday, during C# training, a very interesting discussion happened. The topic was a demo of amazing (not my adjective) capabilities of .Net.

The instructor gushed about how web programming is as easy as Windows GUI programming - personally, I would've preferred if GUI programming is as easy as web programming. Just drag and drop controls from Visual Studio.Net and deploy it to IIS.

Naturally, someone told that the HTML generated doesn't seem to work in Mozilla or Opera at times.

The response? Microsoft designed ASP.Net to work in “decent browsers” like IE3+ and Netscape 4+. “It wouldn't be surprising if Netscape 7 or Mozilla intentionally breaks Microsoft's HTML”.

Why the hell is there a Microsoft HTML? Just use W3's HTML, for God's sake Or admit that the super-hyped .Net produces non-standard HTML.

To be fair, after I got back home, I tried coding some ASP.Net pages. Surprisingly, .Net does not try to Microsoft'ize my HTML tags. This is in stark contrast with they way IE works - try saving a file as HTML in IE and see how it changes the HTML code. So, I've to admit that .Net is a bit better - if I know how to code proper HTML, it is not going to screw it around.

Perhaps VS.Net outputs ugly code like FrontPage 2000. I don't know since I don't have VS.Net.

Example of Microsoft HTML: See the RSS for this good dotNet blog.

I didn't raise my opinions because I thought it was waaaaay too silly and uninformed.

It was quite surprising to find that there is a bunch of smart people who think that people who don't use IDE's; and prefer make/Ant; VIM or Emacs are just a bunch of nuts. A common definition, “these folks are technically sound, but emotionally, they are not”! Why? Because they seem to even consider free stuff - if it is free, it got to be bad, right?

I'm not an Open Source zealot. I just prefer it, because it gives me a chance, if I need to, to audit the code. End of the day, it is a pure business decision on whether costs outweigh real benefits; not analyzed, perceived and forecasted benefits.

Note: C# day 3 will return in the evening.

1. AARG!

   Wonder what he'd say to Don Box using Emacs?
   http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/dbox/default.aspx?key=2002-11-24T22:17-08:00

   (Note: permalink didn't work for me...in Firebird or IE. It's still front page, under "Windows Media 9 Series rocks")

   Posted by: DeanG on August 28, 2003 09:55 AM

2. >>Microsoft designed ASP.Net to work in “decent browsers”
   I have been working on a site in ASP.NET which runs solidly in Mozilla 1.7 but consistently generates javascript errors in IE6. In fact, I spend more time writing my way around IE incompatibilities than debugging my own code.

   Microsoft.NET's ASP.NET is , in my opinion, a solid solution; one I've been very happy to utilise; it is just unfortunate that it must run in a "decent browser" - give me a crappy w3c compatible browser any day!

   Posted by: HY on June 23, 2004 01:26 AM

3. "Perhaps VS.Net outputs ugly code like FrontPage 2000. I don’t know since I don’t have VS.Net"

   I use VS.Net and I'm happy to report it does not output ugly HTML like frontpage.

   Posted by: scott on June 23, 2004 04:35 AM