Interview with Eric Meyer: Death of Netscape, CSS, Standards and Star Wars

CSS guru and Netscape Standards Evangelist Eric Meyer talks about AOL, Netscape, CSS, Web Standards and Star Wars and answers DMXzone members' questions in this interview conducted immediately before the news that Netscape has been discontinued (and one question asked immediately after the Netscape deathblow).

I would like to know if there is anything EFFECTIVE that can be done to convince Microsoft to add FULL PNG support to IE? I know that there are petitions out there, but that does not seem to be getting any play in Redmond. Is there a way to force Microsoft to say one way or another whether or not they will get in-line with web-standards, or are we to just shut up and wait to see what they produce in the future?

(Jonathan K. Green)

I would like to know, too.  There are only two things I can think up.  The first is major customers (as in large corporations) can tell MS that full PNG support is necessary in Explorer.  The second is designers can just start using PNGs en masse and let the design look somewhat degraded in Explorer in the hopes of shaming MS into adding alpha-channel support.  I'm not saying this is a great idea, mind you, nor that I think shame will have much effect in this case.

"Designers can just start using PNGs en masse and let the design look somewhat degraded in Explorer in the hopes of shaming MS into adding PNG support."

I'd also like to point out the Explorer for Macintosh has had complete native PNG support since it was released in mid-2000.  A lot of people think you have to have QuickTime installed to get the PNG support, but that's untrue; I once uninstalled QuickTime from my Mac and PNGs were still rendered correctly in IE.  It may have been the first commercial browser released with full PNG support, but I don't remember now if someone else beat them to it or not.

I don't really think there's any hope of "forcing" Microsoft to do anything, though.  So long as 90%+ of the desktop market uses Windows, and 90%+ use Explorer to browser the Web, Microsoft will take the somewhat understandable view that they can do whatever they like, and we should be thankful for it.  Now that development of Internet Explorer has come to an end, there aren't too many alternatives to simply waiting to see what Microsoft will release in the future and reacting to it then.  Hopefully whatever they do after IE will continue down the standards path.

"Microsoft will take the understandable view that they can do whatever they like, and we should be thankful for it."

What is it about the Web as a medium that fascinates/drives you?

(Bruce)

That anyone can participate as a producer, not just a consumer.  Anyone can publish something on the Web for very little cost.  That means that an expert in something, no matter how obscure, can provide great information on that area of expertise for the other people in the world who want that information.  Those people can then add their knowledge to what they learned, and provide improved information. I know some people will say it's still mostly junk, but that's true of anything.  The Web is a medium that can be self-correcting at a very rapid pace, a medium that continually evolves.  I'm fascinated just by the idea of being able to watch how it will evolve, and being able to explore the linking structures that form within the medium.

What do you mean, self-correcting? Do you mean things like Google that rank the dross low and perpetuate the much-viewed status of popular sites? Do you have any hope that the semantic web will come along soon?

(Bruce)

I mean the way that bad or unwanted information sinks to the bottom, and good or wanted information rises to prominence.  That happens through the simple mechanics of linking: the more a site is linked, the better (in the eyes of the population) that site is ranked. Google gives us a central place to get that information, but before Google or any other search engine, the same process was underway.  We all knew about the Internet Coffee Machine and the Amazing Netscape Fish Cam because everyone linked to them.

Thus the Web can be self-correcting.  True, everyone will link to the latest silly Flash movie, but they'll keep links hanging around for useful information.  So the best movie-review site, where "best" means "most in tune with what most people want in a movie review site," will get the links and therefore rise to the top.  Call it "mobmod," if you like; it's like Slashdot modding, except done in a fashion far more anarchic than Slashdot's (if you can picture that).

Personally, I have very little hope for the Semantic Web as it's been described.  The only way such a system will work is if every resource describes itself honestly, and as Cory Doctrow pointed out, there's too much incentive for people to lie about what they provide.  What may happen instead is that semantic networks will arise from within the structure we already have.  Blogrolls are actually an interesting example of this: they're a "People who read this site might also like..." recommendation.  I'd like to see even more structure to those links, and some peers and I have worked on a way to provide that structure.

I suspect that if we ever do get a semantic Web, it will be evolved: sites will all try different approaches, and as they come together, ideas and techniques will combine and mutate, with the worst ideas being discarded and the best flourishing and spread throughout semantic sites.  That makes sense to me.  It's far more efficient in the long run than trying to impose some kind of order from on high.

Eric, from "CSS For Anarchists" to Dave Shea's "CSS Zen Garden" it appears that CSS has gone from a hardly-adopted 'rebel' technology to the technology that has defined a path to enlightenment. Is CSS becoming more of a religion or a political following rather than a technology?  Will we see little CSS Buddha statues in computer stores?

(Nick Finck)

I sincerely hope it isn't becoming a religion, but with people tossing titles like "High Priest of CSS" and "CSS Pope" in my general direction, I fret that maybe it is, a little bit.  Of course, I picked the title of "Standards Evangelist" for my current job, so I should talk.  It's probably true that many CSS advocates, myself among them, got a little messianic at times about using CSS and dumping tables.  The whole "tables are evil/CSS is crap" argument is silly, and yet understandable: the drive to promote something new often leads to hyperbole.

"The whole 'tables are evil/CSS is crap' argument is silly"

I sincerely hope that whatever pseudo-religious undercurrents have formed will calmly dissipate.  The thing about CSS is that it's a tool.  It's a very powerful tool, one that has the potential to become even more powerful and therefore useful, but it's still a tool.  People should of course always use the best tool for a job, whatever it might be, and the expert ought to help others use the tool better.  But no matter how skilled you are with a tool, you shouldn't use it to hit other people.