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Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

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Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#51

Post by wooby »

arohner wrote: post #45
ruddzw wrote: post #6

"Basically, if some HTML/CSS works on Safari, the chances are very high it will work on Firefox 2 and higher, and on IE 6 and higher (with minor tweaks)." I don't get it. A lot of the hardship that comes with web development is that stuff that works great in modern standards-based browsers like Safari doesn't work when you try to view it in IE. I can't count the number of times I've taken a webpage that I developed t…

I'm new to web development, and I keep asking this question but I've never heard and answer to it: What's stopping us from making a tool that parses HTML/CSS and points out constructs that are known to be bad in certain browsers? Sort of like lint: "It looks like you're sending element foo inside element bar to IE6. This probably won't work right" I personally don't have a windows box to test IE, and I'm not looking…

It would be cool to have HTTP proxy software that did this. So you set it as 'ie6' and it looks at your CSS and HTML and translates it into the "ie6 view" with problems annotated.

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#52

Post by jonursenbach »

In addition to using Safari for rich web development, I assume we should all be using Textmate and working on our Macbooks in dimly lit coffee shops.

Give me a break. Use whatever you want to use for web development. As long as whatever you're doing works across _all_ A Grade browsers, I could care less what you use.

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#53

Post by chewbranca »

I recently switched from firefox 3.0 to safari 4 beta when it first came out, and then back to firefox 3.5.

Originally I switched to safari 4 beta because I'm on a machine that has limited ram and firefox 3.0 would buckle my system. Safari 4 is slick and runs much lighter and faster than firefox 3, however firefox 3.5 really levels the playing field and makes the comparison about features rather than resource consumption.

When you compare the two on features, safari is lacking. While safari has clean tools built in for web development, they are more for looking at a page rather than messing around with it. I find it a pain to go and change styles or elements in safari and also you can't delete elements out of the dom in safari which I find very annoying. Firebug is not as polished looking, but it definitely has the best set of features. Also firefox's extensive set of plugins is tough to live without.

I enjoyed my time with Safari, it was a very elegant polished experience, but web hacking is rarely both, which is where firefox and its plugins feature set really shines.

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#54

Post by chaosmachine »

arohner wrote: post #45
ruddzw wrote: post #6

"Basically, if some HTML/CSS works on Safari, the chances are very high it will work on Firefox 2 and higher, and on IE 6 and higher (with minor tweaks)." I don't get it. A lot of the hardship that comes with web development is that stuff that works great in modern standards-based browsers like Safari doesn't work when you try to view it in IE. I can't count the number of times I've taken a webpage that I developed t…

I'm new to web development, and I keep asking this question but I've never heard and answer to it: What's stopping us from making a tool that parses HTML/CSS and points out constructs that are known to be bad in certain browsers? Sort of like lint: "It looks like you're sending element foo inside element bar to IE6. This probably won't work right" I personally don't have a windows box to test IE, and I'm not looking…

I suspect this kind of thing is a lot harder than it sounds.

There are a few things you could catch, like CSS features that just don't exist in IE6, but trying to predict if your particular mix of content+HTML+CSS is going to "look wrong" when viewed in IE is not a trivial problem.

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#55

Post by rue »

costan wrote: post #48
jonbwhite wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, the only reason why OSX could be considered the only system that test via virtualization is that Apple makes it illegal to virtualize OSX in the first place.

I believe the license says you have to run OSX on Apple-labeled hardware. So as long as you use a Mac Pro / Macbook... :)

Or have an Apple label...

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#56

Post by lhorie »

arohner wrote: post #45
ruddzw wrote: post #6

"Basically, if some HTML/CSS works on Safari, the chances are very high it will work on Firefox 2 and higher, and on IE 6 and higher (with minor tweaks)." I don't get it. A lot of the hardship that comes with web development is that stuff that works great in modern standards-based browsers like Safari doesn't work when you try to view it in IE. I can't count the number of times I've taken a webpage that I developed t…

I'm new to web development, and I keep asking this question but I've never heard and answer to it: What's stopping us from making a tool that parses HTML/CSS and points out constructs that are known to be bad in certain browsers? Sort of like lint: "It looks like you're sending element foo inside element bar to IE6. This probably won't work right" I personally don't have a windows box to test IE, and I'm not looking…

You could probably match some patterns, but things can get really complicated when you introduce javascript into the mix. All of a sudden your tool needs to test every button on a page to make sure your ajaxed data tables won't blow up your layout.

Also, web development tends to push the envelope often. I've built literally hundreds of web sites / apps and I still come across nasty unexplicable post-ajax redraw bugs in IE6 that I've never seen before (using markup that I used to consider "safe", but which turns out to break under a new novel condition).

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#57

Post by olliej »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #50
boucher wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to specify a color in hex.

Because that's the way CSS/HTML works?

CSS and html both support rgb(), rgba(), hsl(), and hsla() colors in addition to hex...

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#59

Post by zmimon »

boucher wrote: post #43
willwagner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RGB thing also drives me completely crazy to the point that I have started muttering obscenities under my breath like a mad man every time I see one.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to specify a color in hex.

Because having to type up about 13 characters including brackets, commas etc. when you can get by with 4 chars for most needs is a pain in the ass.

Re: Why everyone should use Safari for rich web development

#60

Post by zmimon »

I know I risk getting downmodded to oblivion, but the developer tools in IE8 have actually brought me back to using IE for development some of the time. There are some specific features that are very handy - the debugger is awesome - better than the one in firebug. The CSS tracing features are even better than FireFox's for some specific situations. I now probably spend about 20% of my time in IE when developing pages (as opposed to almost never except for one off checking prior to IE8).
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