Re: tlug: Gnome virtual desktops

[Adrian Havill <havill@example.com>]

On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Manuel M. T. Chakravarty wrote:
> Using Netscape with Java and Javascript turned on (which is
> the default of course :-/  just calls for trouble.  So
> switch it off.

Unfortunately, too many sites use JavaScript/JCode/ECMA-262 for critical
functions like site navigation (they shouldn't) that this is often a
non-option for those that surf the internet. JavaScript nowadays is not so
bad in that it crashes the browser too often, and ECMA-262 has helped
standardize the script between browsers, imo.

Do turn off Java. Netscape still can't get that right. Even if it doesn't
crash your browser, anything slightly above the "trivial applet" level
will cause it to spew. Netscape's loss of the the right to use the "Java
Compatible" mark (and failure to regain it) on the "about:" screen is
quite telling of it's quality. And because Netscape is popular, and it's
Java stinks, web designers don't use Java anymore, and if they have to,
it's trivial applets only (so as to not spook Netscape's jvm), so you may
as well turn it off, cause trivial eye-candy applets don't add anything
useful to the content (meat) factor of a web page anyway.

The 4.x Navigator hard-coded internal crufty Java engine will _probably_ 
be mothballed for 5.0, which will use a plug-in API interface so that
other people can choose a Java that works and bolt it onto their browser
seamlessly. The Java plug-in does work quite-well, but because
(currently) it has to go through the plug-in API, which isn't very
efficient and doesn't work well with DOM, it's kinda heavy at the present
time.

While you're at it, turn off Style Sheets too. Functionality wise, it's
hosed so bad as to be unusable. And b/c it's hosed, and web designers know
it and know that people still use Netscape, you never see style
sheets in the wild (the internet), save some real trivial stuff that
doesn't really do exercise the real power of W3C standard cascading style 
sheets.

Because no site uses it (because Netscape hosed them), you'll never miss
it.

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