have you considered a switch to mac...which way did you go and why?

Heck, KDE4 will be making its way to Windows, he could just wait for that.

 

Since you do appear to have limited experience in the development world and the fact of life in the business world let me try and explain a bit better. There is significantly more to the issue then the number of users. It has to do with revenue and the cost effective nature of the issue. It is simply not cost effective to cater to a very limited micro-minority. It also ahs to do with the server analytics. As in how many visitors were using what browser...one examines that and compares to other resources that show the typical money spent by users of various packages on various platforms. This is where the facts come from...they are not guesses or emotional reactions. These are facts based on real data.

By the logic you imply one needs to test against EVERY BROWSER for quirks mode fixes. Sorry that is not in any fashion realistic. How about testing your sites for how well they degrade to text only browser/terminal users? My guess is few sites even take the time to even consider the idea...why? Because zero revenue will e generated from the effort.

If a client has specific needs then by all means why not, the client is paying the bill. Or iof a product is targeted to that small user subset then YES cater to them. But if it is shown to clients via server analytics that it will cost an extra $10k per year to service maybe $2000 - $10k max. in revenue then they will say no 99.9% of the time. There is NO PROFIT in the effort and overhead.

Design sites to be standards compliant then make needed tweaks for the major browsers and forget the rest. If those fringe users want to access a site and their browser has issues then they can find another option that is more main stream. These users knew full well what the potential issues would be when the bought into whatever systems/technology they are using...let them complain to the vendor of those items. It is not my problem as a developer.

Business is business...it really is that simple.

 

First of all, you need to get off your high horse. I know what the facts of business are and I have to deal with them daily. I may not know as much about web development, but you immediately assuming I'm stupid because I share a different ideology about business ethics than yourself is ridiculous.

Secondly, I completely agree that sites need to be standards compliant. But developing for IE (of which the most common variation is still IE6, not IE7) and then complaining about other browsers is ludicrous. IE6 is one of the least standards compliant browsers out there ( http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5088642.html). In addition, Safari is based on Konquerer, which is also quite standards compliant ( http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/browserupgrades.html), though it's still shy on XML and CSS-2. I'm not sure if Safari has worked this out or not, but the KDE group is hard at work on KDE4 and porting the code over for Qt4, so they've got enough on their hands right now. And most will agree that Firefox is the most standards compliant browser out there, and there are still sites (including those that I use within my corporation) that require Internet Explorer and can't be accessed through Firefox.

What I'm saying is that you're speaking out both sides of your ass. You say on one hand that you should just make sure your site is standards compliant and then it's everyone else's fault; you don't need to do any testing. But how much time and money do you spend making sure your site works on IE6, just because it's the most popular? You have to choose one or the other; either make your site completely work with IE6 (ignoring the other less popular) and be part of the problem, or make your site completely standards compliant and make Microsoft part of the problem. But don't be putting the blame on everyone else.

 

with vista, i feel like I have a mac. I've spent hours trying to go back to windows...heheh

I do graphic design for my own business, not professionally. I also edit music/ videos, my own, using sony vegas. My 3yr old xp desktop was faster then my new dual core laptop w/ vista untill I tweaked it. I never get BSODs and from time to time when I have crashed a program, it was because I was pushing with video/audio/graphic/web design/ftp/browser with multiple tabs/ programs open.

After looking at mac before I purchased my current laptop, speed was my concern. My friend runs a small recording studio with a mac setup. I like it, but having gotten used to the speed I was accustomed to, it felt clunky for me and I wasn't prepared to hunt for tweaks, I do play games, and then there was price.

I was also turned off by the reps at the local MAC store. They were kinda snobby when I asked questions and made references to windows functions, strictly for comparison, not a "debate". It was like they wanted to say, "well go buy windows then". So I did.

Funny thing is, I picked up a white laptop from HP, so I have the cosmetic mac factor without sacrificing what I know about windows.

Some of my friends are professionals and they use both, so it really comes down to what you feel comfortable with.

YMMV

 

It really is, in large part, personal preference. Programs such as Photoshop, anything from Studio 8 and really most any port from Windows to OSX (or the other way around) work the same in either OS. So it is more whether or not you like the OS X interface. I personally think that it MAY be slightly easier to use, but XP and especially Vista are mcuh more PRODUCTIVE which in my opinion is better than ease of use. I think you would be happy with either one, but there are some things that definitely bug me about OS X

- I could be really out of the loop, but when I click the button with the "+" I expect it to maximize not to just restore between two sizes

-When I click the "x" I expect it to actually quit not still run. (yes I know how to quit, but this still seems kind of slow)

-The dock is slower to use than the taskbar in my OPINION

- I swear Flash Pro 8 "unexpectedly quits" about every 30 minutes

Really though this is all preference. I do a great deal of work in both CS2, Studio 8 and the Production Studio, and I use OSX and Vista for both of these and they both work. It's really all preference, but whatever you do DO NOT believe the hype that they never crash ro have problems. I feel that they have just as many as Windows, maybe not in terms of viruses or spyware, but just random apps quitting, and various functions of the OS such as Expose suddenly not working. I hope this helped and didn't just bring up more questions


EDIT: I personally prefer Vista OR XP over OS X, but I could work with either. Oh and grumpy is right, I am also a web developer, and testing on Safari is for the most part pointless. Especially if the site works in Opera or Firefox, which most developers test in one or the other (and of course IE), it is almost guaranteed to work in Safari. If it doesnt it will just be some minor rendering issue nothing that will really affect the true usability of the website. It is more effective to make the site degradable for users with javascript disabled or with older versions of popular browsers than to test in Safari.

 

Just to get to the root of the whole reason for the big bun fight over testing Safari...

Perhaps the guy that switched to a Mac had to test on Safari because the university he works for doing development has a significant Mac userbase in their labs.

IN THAT CASE, it obviously makes sense to check that that internal websites work properly on Safari. Laying out blanket statements akin to "there is never, ever a reason to test a website in safari" is just plain incorrect.