Post #80,974
2/11/03 4:34:05 PM
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Just understand--some sites will break...
...if you replace the string in toto.
If you're just trying to send a message to server admins without losing functionality, tag the string onto the end of your current one, like this: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible) Stop obsessing over user-agent and code to W3C standards already."
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #81,074
2/12/03 1:28:21 AM
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Changing the string doesn't break sites....
Sites discriminating on the basis of user-agent strings\r\nchose to break functionality. \r\n\r\n That's also precisely the point. By refusing to provide an agent\r\nstring capable of being discriminated on, site designers are forced to\r\nsimply write standards fucking compliant code. Which\r\nis what they should have been doing in the first place. If you can't\r\nsurf what they write, take your business elsewhere, and tell them\r\nwhy. \r\n --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
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Post #81,174
2/12/03 12:26:58 PM
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Uh...yeah.
Sorry I wasn't religiously explicit. What I meant to say was, "If you go whole-hog on this user agent thing, you'd better be prepared to sacrifice your ability to get work done in the name of advocacy; however, there is a more moderate approach."
The "take your business elsewhere" argument is woefully and anachronistically self-centered. It is tantamount to scrapping your long-standing relationship with your mechanic because he went from drip to instant coffee. I work in a community, where relationships are complex.
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #81,196
2/12/03 2:10:06 PM
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Lemme guess... Educational??
Are your Faculty better than ALL THE OTHERS on this planet?
I suppose not... hehe...
b4k4^2
| [link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] [link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@kQMsmc74S0Tw3KHQiRQmDem0gAIPAgM/edcurry/1//|ED'S GHOST SPEAKS!] | | [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,857673,00.asp|Writing on wall, Microsoft to develop apps for Linux by 2004] | Heimatland Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
These [link|http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberstrategy-draft.html|Civilian General Orders], please memorize them.
"Questions" will be asked at safety checkpoints. |
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Post #81,207
2/12/03 3:27:20 PM
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Buh...not educational.
So I'm not even sure what you were trying to say. That K's point was common knowledge...? I missed it.
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #81,221
2/12/03 4:18:23 PM
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No...
I was talking about your comment about "complex relationships..."
Faculty... bah!
b4k4^2
| [link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] [link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@kQMsmc74S0Tw3KHQiRQmDem0gAIPAgM/edcurry/1//|ED'S GHOST SPEAKS!] | | [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,857673,00.asp|Writing on wall, Microsoft to develop apps for Linux by 2004] | Heimatland Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
These [link|http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberstrategy-draft.html|Civilian General Orders], please memorize them.
"Questions" will be asked at safety checkpoints. |
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Post #81,880
2/15/03 2:46:33 AM
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Microsoft is boiling the frogs again....
Here's the deal. \r\n\r\n You can exercise your right to request standards now. Or find\r\nyourself locked into "solutions" which solve more of your vendors'\r\nproblems than your own. \r\n\r\n Nobody ever said being principled doesn't incur some level of pain.\r\nIt's generally an offset of current vs. future benefits. The path of\r\nleast resistance tends to have negative long-term consequences. \r\n\r\n If you've got some compelling business app that requires a dedicated\r\nbrowser, you may make an exception. But note that you're doing so, and\r\ninform your vendor that you consider the requirement a negative\r\nstrike. \r\n\r\n Two parallels: \r\n\r\n \r\n- "Binary only" GNU/Linux kernel drivers. These were somewhat popular\r\nfor a time with HW manufacturers who didn't want to go fully open\r\nsource, but didn't want to miss the GNU/Linux bandwagon either. Their\r\ncompromise was binary drivers. The catch was that a given driver was\r\nrated for a limited set of kernel version(s). The inevitable conflict\r\nwas feature X supported in kernel n, and driver Y, only supported in\r\nkernel n + epsilon. The usual result: another hardware vendor was\r\nfound when at all possible. Binary-only drivers are frequently worse\r\nthan useless: they provide a false impression of support.
\r\n\r\n- Consider the logical outcome of accepting arbitrary browser\r\nrequirements: what's to make site A's requirements reasonable, but not\r\nsite B's? And if these requirements conflict? A well-known limitation\r\nof MSIE is that because it's "integrated" to the OS (actually: the user\r\nshell), a given system can only support one version of MSIE. With most\r\nalternatives, it's trivial to support multiple browser versions (I've\r\nhad systems with NS 3.01 - 7 installed for compatibility testing\r\npurposes). It's pretty easy to get into the situation where one site's\r\nrequirements conflict with another and a given computing platform lacks\r\nthe flexibility to accomodate the conflict. The business world is\r\ncurrently advocating standards-based web application design precisely\r\nfor this reason. You simply can't accomodate different browser\r\nrequirements from different vendors, clients, or partners.
\r\n \r\n\r\n In short: while my own motivations for this action are principled,\r\nthe truth is that it's really the only pragmatic choice. User-agent\r\nbased discrimination is not tolerable. Best push back\r\nnow. \r\n --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
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Post #81,933
2/15/03 2:11:31 PM
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Re: Microsoft is boiling the frogs again....
In short: while my own motivations for this action are principled, the truth is that it's really the only pragmatic choice. User-agent based discrimination is not tolerable. Best push back now.
I 100% agree. Of course, because of my platform, I don't really have the choice anyway... but AFAIC messing my UA string is only going to happen if I can make it say something like you've advocated above, though right now it says I'm running Moz. --\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\r\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\r\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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