History of Netscape and Mozilla 195
Sabah Arif writes "Netscape was there at the beginning of the internet boom. In 1996, the company controlled 90 percent of the browser market, but now its usershare is in the single digits. The spawn of Netscape, Firefox, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat Microsoft in the browser market. Read the history of Netscape and Mozilla at MLAgazine."
Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a firefox fanatic, it's without doubt the superior browser. But spouting such mindless rubbish as that comment doesn't do anyone any good. In my mind 'Poised to beat' would be when Firefox is at 49% browser share, not the less than 10% (compared to 80%+ for IE). Keep the propaganda out of news items please, and let Firefox promote itself by simply being the better browser.
Jolyon
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe? Maybe not. How about:
The spawn of xv, The Gimp, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat Photoshop in the graphics market.
Nah... Perhaps:
The spawn of some Swedes, Blender, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat 3d Studio Max in the 3d modelling market.
You gotta be happy with *one* of those.
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2)
IE was only ahead because of the way it locked people into writing for the funny way it displays pages. When IE had 95% market share, web developers wrote for IE only. Now Firefox has 25% market share on some sites [w3schools.com], web developers are writing for both browsers, at least. And when sites work the same in any browser, users can change browsers at will, without
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, that sounds like another browser I know. Long before Microsoft entered the browser arena to make Windows a viable internet machine out of the box, a company called Netscape was destroying competition in the browser world with it's "embrace and extend" philosophy. Rather then follow the standards of the day, Netscape proceeded to liberally "enhance" their browser with quirks only they supported (most infamous being the blink tag). With their vision of turning the web into a form of TV (where the webpage controlled your computer with crap like popups, window resizing and statusbar changing) they managed to create a browser that had lots of interesting (or stupid, depending on your view) things for web developers to do, but was completely incompatible with every other browser. Their monopoly got so bad webservers where being coded to look for the "Mozilla" string at the beginning of the agent field, rejecting people who didn't use the one browser because pages designed for it wouldn't render correctly on standard browsers. This forced the competition to modify their user agent just to get a page (even Internet Explorer had to identify itself as "Mozilla"), at which point they still had to try and emulate Netscapes propritary extensions.
Now by Netscape 3 the rest of the original browser market had been crushed by anti-competitive practices. However a new browser was appearing at this time, the first viable version of Internet Explorer, IE 3. Unlike smaller companies that Netscape could push around, IE was being made by a company with enough money to play (and eventually beat) Netscape at it's own game. IE 3 matched a great deal of Netscapes extended standard, then proceeded to do some extending of their own. By the next major incarnation, Netscape/IE 4, Explorer was not only playing Netscape's game, it was playing it just as well if not better then the master. What really helped though was that at this point there was an actual standards body appearing, creating CSS as a web standard. IE, in addition to creating it's own extensions, proceeded to try and support it (creating the first viable implimentation). Now while the IE CSS implimentation is today seen as quirky and incomplete, back then it looked quite good compared to Netscape, who apparently believing they where still living in the one browser world where Netscape could simply define a new standard whenever they wanted to kill competition, had proceeded to try making their own new standard, implimenting CSS as less then an after thought (where as IE has problems rendering CSS exactly to spec, Netscape just plain crashed on all but the simplest code). This created a market where the choice was between a browser that came on your computer, rendered its webpages and the webpages of the competition correctly, and was generally quite stable, vs a browser you had to download, didn't render half of new webpages correctly, and had a habbit of randomly crashing (CSS was sometimes the cause, but especially during the 4.5 period you could expect at least 1 crash for no reason each session). Netscape sealed the deal when they waited forever to release Netscape 6 (they skipped the 5 generation, allowing Microsoft to get a further leg up), which when finally released turned out to be the least stable browser ever concieved by man (for reasons unknown Netscape dropped their code base and wrote 6 from scratch - the successor to Netscape, Mozilla, was based on the actually usable 4.x codebase)
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:5, Informative)
Blink certainly was a bad choice, but Netscape also created tags such as table and center.
For the 4.x browsers, Netscape created the layer tag. MS saw the beta, and decided to out do Netscape by creating a different standard and pushing it through the W3C before Netscape tried pushing theirs through. That's how things ended up like they did.
Netscape 6 was just the Mozilla release of the time with the name & logo changed. The Netscape 4.x code was horrible. The Mozilla team was almost ready to do a 5.0 beta release, but eventually decided it wouldn't be a hell of a lot better than 4.x and would just piss people off more. A complete rewrite of the project was being done in parallel which was always intended to be used for 6.0. They underestimated the amount of work necessary to finish the 6.0 branch, and decided to completely skip 5.0 figuring 6.0 wasn't too far away.
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2)
Adding Style tags to HTML was the obvious thing to do for the medium -- You can't really blame Netscape for not using a stylesheet system that wasn't even concieved at the time. Their real crime was the pathethic CSS support in v4.x, which kept FONT tags on the web five years longer tha
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2)
Anyone who was around at the birth of the "web" knows that from the user interface perspective, it was basically not much better than gopher (yes, there used to be a "web-like" system called gopher), and contained much less content overall.
Capabilities like text centering, forms, and tables are what turned the web into something that non-geeks and businesses could embrace for Commerce and Content delivery (note capito
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2, Funny)
Netscape was out-weaseled by Microsoft. Which makes them the lesser weasel. But still a weasel.
'Nuff said.
The numbers (Score:3, Informative)
W3 shows IE at 65%, Opera at 2%, Firefox at 25%, Mozilla at 3.5%, and Netscape at 1%. While this is the lowest IE has every been, its decreasing slowly.
Re:The numbers (Score:2)
Yeah, you tell 'em. The other day my grandma was browsing W3 Schools, and she told me she thought their HTML reference was "the bomb". She uses Firefox because she says it is "totally pimp." Grandma thinks my mom "doesn't get it." She says, "Your mom is old school, because she's not chillin' with the Fox."
*Sigh* W3 Schools' statistics are meaningless as a measure of publ
Re:The numbers (Score:2)
In defense of marketing. (Score:2)
TFF Firefox and the anti-flash plugin.
I agree you should pick your battlegrounds wisely and leave nothing for the enemy to pick at. Witness the petstore project fiasco for java, where an un-tuned app meant for mere newbie step-up was
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:5, Interesting)
W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.
These facts indicate that the browser figures below are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:3, Informative)
Why so high Firefox figures? W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers. These facts indicate that the browser figures below are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of th
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2)
Re:Please cut out the mindless propaganda. (Score:2)
Netscape 4 to IE 5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Once Foxfire became stable and usable I switched to it, and some time later it became Firefox. So far it's the best browsing experience I've had and the extentions published for it make it endlessly expandable.
I think there will always be a segment of the market that is satisfied with whatever does the minimum possible to get the job done, but as we see Firefox's market share rise we know that some people will take the time to upgrade to the superior browser.
Re:Netscape 4 to IE 5 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Netscape 4 to IE 5 (Score:3, Funny)
RTFA! Phoenix! and Marketshare? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RTFA! Phoenix! and Marketshare? (Score:2)
Stupid brain!
Re:Poorly researched article (Score:2)
Re:RTFA! Phoenix! and Marketshare? (Score:2)
Yep, Phoenix first until 0.6 I think, then Firebird (because of trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies), then Firefox with the release of... was it 0.8?... because a Firebird project already existed (OSS database)
And there was born Firesomething [extensionsmirror.nl], allowing me to browse the web with my neato Mozilla Spacesloth
Re:RTFA! Phoenix! and Marketshare? (Score:2)
iirc the firebird database ALSO used to be called phoenix....
i wonder what the next oss project to be called phoenix will end up being called
Re:Netscape 4 to IE 5 (Score:2)
I used IE for about 6 months until Mozilla was even r
Re:Netscape 4 to IE 5 (Score:2)
I remember when I got tired of Netscape 4. I didn't want to use IE, so I looked around and discovered a little browser called Opera 4 (shortly after I switched Opera 5 was released). I have never looked back since. I am probably one of the few people that has never used IE as my primary browser at any point.
How about taking apple webcore (Score:2)
webcore they allow to freely download so anybody could download that and work on a better browser. and if the current lgpl violations can be worked out it could make yet another very good alternative to IE so together firefox netscape mozilla safari and other webcore browsers could take IE market share
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:1)
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:3, Insightful)
Does your typing involve conscious thought, or merely involuntary, peristaltic regurgitation of mutated Slashdot memetic material?
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:2)
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:2)
And mind you, how is Safari going to take more market share from IE? Firefox is in fact doing it much better than anyone would have expected, and part of its secret are things like extensions, which Safari doesn't supports.
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about taking apple webcore (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, and Webcore isn't platform specific and does not use MacOSX specific features that ain't replicated anywhere else, which means that it'll be easy to port Safari to W32 machines...
Just the facts, ma'am (Score:5, Insightful)
> Firefox, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat Microsoft in the browser market.
Come on, folks, I'm a rabid Firefox fan and even *I* know this kind of rhetoric doesn't belong on the front page...
Re:Just the facts, ma'am (Score:2)
Come on, folks, I'm a rabid Firefox fan and even *I* know this kind of rhetoric doesn't belong on the front page...
Yeah, it is a bit lacking. How about "The virtuous, open-source Firefox browser, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat the evil, deficient, and closed-source Microsoft Internet browser."
Please people, we gotta keep the standards up.
Re:Just the facts, ma'am (Score:2)
1. Firefox has never been more popular [than] Microsoft in the browser market.
2. Firefox is poised to beat Microsoft in the browser market.
Article's text (Score:4, Informative)
NCSA Mosaic was the first popular, graphical browser available to personal computer users. Before, the internet and its resources were primarily only available to those in academia and other research institutions. Eventually, online providers began to offer internet access in addition to their proprietary networks, and HTML took off. The first browsers available to the public were very primitive, typically only capable of rendering simple text and hyperlinks. The University of Illinois, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, developed the Mosaic browser. It was innovative because it was capable of rendering images, and itself had a graphical interface. By 1993, it was the dominant force on the internet. It had almost complete dominance over the internet, and was widely applauded for its quality.
Other people and companies wanted in on the game. Jim Andresson, developer of Mosaic for UNIX, and Jim Clark left the NCSA to found Mosaic Communications on April 4, 1994. Capitalizing on the former student's familiarity of the Mosaic browser, Mosaic Communications released its first browser months later. Its name was Netscape. Almost instantly, it became more popular than Mosaic, mostly because of bundling deals with internet service providers. Navigator included many new features not found in Mosaic. The most popular one was the ability to display pages as they download. Unlike most other browsers, a user did not have to wait for the entire page to download before it was usable. The NCSA took issue with the name Mosaic Communications, and the company was renamed Netscape Communications, and the browser was renamed Navigator.
A year later, Netscape was short on funds, and decided to go public with its initial stock price at $28. On its IPO, the stock price rose to $75, an unheard of leap in the software business. Netscape continued to gain marketshare, and controlled %90 of the browser market in mid-1995.
Version 2 of Netscape included a plethora of new features, many of them haphazardly implemented. The new version included support for cookies, frames and a new email client. Netscape 2 grew even faster than the first version, and helped Netscape double its revenues every quarter in 1995.
Navigator was evolving. It had added many new features and tags that were not available on any other browser (though eventually, most of these tags would be adopted the W3C), which made it difficult for other browsers to coexist with Netscape. As its marketshare and revunes grew, so to did the company's scope. Netscape began developing a product called Constellation. Constellation would allow a user to access files from a desktop anywhere on a network. It was to make the operating system an irrelevant component on the desktop computer.
Microsoft felt threatened by Netscape's continued growth, especially its assertion that the browser would replace the operating system as the most important software on a computer. Several executives visited the Netscape campus in August of 1995, and made a proposal. Netscape would cease all development for their Windows version of Navigator, but would face no competition from Microsoft on other platforms. The company refused, and Microsoft began developing a new web browser.
Unable to develop their own web browser so quickly, Microsoft turned to Spyglass, who had licensed Mosaic's source code from the NCSA. Microsoft would give Mosaic a monthly payment, and a percentage of the revenues the browser generated. Using Mosaic code, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 on August 1995 as part of the Internet Jumpstart pack for Windows 95. The new browser was widely derided for being so primitive and clumsy. It was little m
Re:Article's text (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately the article is wrong in an important aspect - the man is Marc Andresson, not Jim Andresson. Thought I would bring that mistake to light.
browser dominance (Score:1, Insightful)
Alas, we live in the twilight zone where Microsoft gives away it's flagship product and that's called Capitalism!
Re:browser dominance (Score:2, Insightful)
What's next on your agenda, banning charity?
People like IE and don't care enough to look for alternatives
Most Microsoft users can switch to an alternative operating system without being summarily executed by the Secret Police.
Alternatives to Microsoft exist and aren't being hidden under a rock.
People d
IE was the best browser for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Bundling aside, IE crushed Netscape because IE was the better browser.
Re:IE was the best browser for a while (Score:2)
Here is the original post. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151015&cid=126 65634 [slashdot.org]
Re:IE was the best browser for a while (Score:2)
Netscape needed to be based on a real hierarchical rendering engine. IE 4.0 was and it was a revolution in browsing. Granted, Microsoft did drop 500 million bucks or something absurd like that on IE, but Netscape had that kind of money and could have hung in there had they not released a 4.0 that was so limited compared to Microsoft's 4.0.
There were so many things you could not do with Netscape DOM under Netscape 4.0 that yo
Re:IE was the best browser for a while (Score:2)
Re:browser dominance (Score:2)
Re:browser dominance (Score:2)
Monopolization is the antithesis of Capitalism. It's funny how most people who curse the term "Capitalism" don't even know what it means.
Re:browser dominance (Score:2)
Re:browser dominance (Score:2)
I stopped reading... (Score:1, Informative)
This is the second sentence - after which I stopped reading. Jim Clark an NCSA refugee?? Jim Andresson??
The only NCSA refugee here is Marc Andreessen. Jim Clark is the founder of SGI and the money behind Netscape. If they can't get this simple things straight...
Poised to beat?! (Score:5, Funny)
Ready to take the crown ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite I say.. there's unfortunately still a few things holding it back. As I see it, the following hold FF back from being the dominant browser (note: not all these are things that are FF/Mozilla Fndations' fault).
IE is the default browser in all windows distros, unfortunately, this means IE has a defacto advantage, and a huge one at that, as many people dont even know the alternative exists.
On the same note: Many people dont know about FF. Things like spread firefox and word of mouth, and positive press are helping this problem in a big way. Now even some of my non-tech savvy friends proclaim "I'll never touch explorer again, I love the 'Fox". Firefox has become enough of a better browser that they see that as superior.
Stubborn IT policies that refuse to consider new applications, namely a new default browser for companies. I know my school has finally seen the light and included FF as an option on the default install on all publicly available computers. But it's still not on the desktop, hidden away in the programs menu. We need the make it just as easy to launch FF as to launch IE (I know a default install of FF puts a desktop icon there, but we need to get IT departments to leave it there).
The extremely techincally illiterate who hold corporate power. That is, those upper level managers who have only ever known IE, and are terrified to use anything else because of those viruses and worms they keep hearing about. If they're intelligent, they'll listen to smart IT advice, however, we know how often upper management likes to think they know best outside their area.
I'm sure there are areas that i've missed, but these are some of the problem's facing down the 'Fox as I see it.
Re:Ready to take the crown ? (Score:2)
This is a critical problem especially in a corporate environment.
Re:Ready to take the crown ? (Score:2)
Firefox (Score:1)
Re:Firefox (Score:2)
Wow... that was bad. (Score:3, Informative)
Then the article goes on to be filled with gems like: "Several months later, NGLayout, renamed Gecko, was released several months later, but a browser based on it would not be released to the public for years, though there were publicly available betas."
And my favorite: "An open source database from Germany carried the name Firefox, so the project was renamed for the last time. It was called Firefox."
Re:Wow... that was bad. (Score:2)
Admittedly, that would be really cool (kinda like LinuxBIOS [linuxbios.org] but with just a web browser?), but I don't think the Phoenix BIOS was a web browser, by pretty much any definition of the term. Is that what the author really meant?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wow... that was bad. (Score:2)
So the author was wrong still here, and the fact that the german database is called Firebird. I remember those days, FF was really unstable and I thought it would go the way of Mozilla and Netscape 6.
But I'm using Opera now instead of FF, that LITTLE bit of speed difference matters to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wow... that was bad. (Score:2)
You forgot:
XUL is a form of HTML?! (OK, I can understand the confusion: it's XML, which might look like HTML to the uneducated, but, really...)
It's Marc Andresson (Score:2, Informative)
No, it was Jim Clark and Marc Andresson.
Jim Andresson? (Score:2)
I believe that's supposed to be 'Marc Andresson', fact-checkers/reporters at MLAgazine. Sheesh.
My website's stats (Score:4, Interesting)
January 2005:
MS Internet Explorer 95.9 %
Netscape 1.8 %
Mozilla 1 %
Opera 0.4 %
Safari 0.4 %
February 2005:
MS Internet Explorer 92.5 %
Mozilla 4.1 %
Netscape1.4 %
Safari 0.8 %
Opera 0.5 %
March 2005:
MS Internet Explorer 90.9 %
Mozilla 2.7 %
FireFox 2.1 %
Netscape 1.4 %
My guess is that my host just updated awstats so that firefox and mozilla are seperated. It does list FireBird (less than
Re:My website's stats (Score:2)
The article author cannot even get the name right (Score:4, Informative)
The name changes Mozilla has gone through are so confusing even the author cannot properly keep track of them. The database was called Firebird. One good thing to come out of all the messing was they made sure to carefully isolate all the branding information and make tools like Firesomething [mozdev.org] possible, allowing users to personalise their browser.
Re:The article author cannot even get the name rig (Score:2)
Re:The article author cannot even get the name rig (Score:2)
They should just get a trademark on the word "Fire". If that's not possible, it should be quite easy to get a patent on Fire. After the patent search comes up empty, the patent office will just rubber-stamp their application.
mlagazine.com got a boost (Score:2, Interesting)
the cool thing is, most of us that commented actually RTFA - maybe M-LAG-azine did not think they would have anyone read it, just hit the site, see it was full of holes and start clicking some ads or without readers the contents of the article
Mirror (Score:3, Informative)
Retro computing (Score:3, Funny)
firefox may have a chance w/our help (Score:3, Interesting)
As a number of posters have noted, the article is riddled with errors (Jim???), and doesn't say much that isn't common sense. However the conjecture about Firefox taking over the market is only conjecture.
I do think firefox has a chance of doing big things, but it's not going to do it by itself. Firefox still needs our help.
Tomorrow I am going to my brother's house to set up his new computer for his daughter who will take that computer to college this fall. As per normal I will spend about 30 minutes getting it set up, and then about another hour ensuring it has firefox, and thunderbird installed and prominently in the quick launch tray, and also configured for fast startup (always in memory after first use).
Additionally I will expunge all visible references to IE and Outlook (on the START menu, in the Programs menu, etc.) and ensure his default clients are set to firefox and thunderbird.
Fortunately I don't have to give any tutorial on firefox and its features as I've already set up his other computer previously and he now doesn't even really remember how to fire up IE.... so much the better. I also switched out any software that overrides the default browser setting (specifically McAffee).
For all slashdotters, this is one contribution we can make above and beyond posts in this forum. (Lots of good posts and info in this forum.... my brother hasn't a clue what slashdot is, nor does he care -- probably the attitude of 99%++ of the consumer demographic.) Let's all give firefox the additional nudge -- it couldn't hurt.
"Ignorance is Strength" (Score:2)
Good work, OSS thought policeman!
What happened to the Java rewrite? (Score:3, Informative)
The article claims that Netscape was about to go bankrupt just before being purchased by AOL. Given the millions raised by going public this seems unlikely.
Sun's "Butthead Factor" killed the Java rewrite. (Score:2)
E-mail from Microsoft's Charles Fitzgerald to MS execs on Novell/MS Java meeting [zdnet.com]
This is one of the documents recently unsealed in the legal case between Sun Microsystems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. over whether Microsoft behaved in an anti-competitive fashion in its handling of Java.
From: Charles Fitzgera
What happened to the OpenDoc rewrite? (Score:2)
Netscape and Apple Announce Plans to Develop Netscape Navigator for Apple's Cyberdog
Netscape To Support Apple's OpenDoc, Cyberdog Technologies; Apple Chooses Netscape Navigator for Cyberdog
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., CUPERTINO, Calif.--Aug. 27, 1996--Apple Computer, Inc. and Netscape Communications Corporation today announced that they have signed an agreement for Netscape to develop a new version of Netscape Navigator that supports Cyberdog, Apple's Internet suite,
Re:What happened to LiveScript? (Score:2)
The following announcement was made 6 a.m. PST Monday, December 4, 1995.
Key points of this release are:
* Sun and Netscape announce JavaScript, an object-oriented scripting language based on the Java programming language. [THAT IS A LIE: JavaScript is NOT based on Java. They are quite different, especially when you consider their object models, which are as different as day and night, and quite incompatible.]
* 28 leading technology companies endorse JavaSc
Re:What happened to LiveScript? (Score:2)
Bill Joy does however deserve full credit for the "csh" shell scripting language, which, as languages go, is a horribly designed total piece of shit, chock full of gaping security hol
Re:What happened to LiveScript? (Score:2)
-Don
Arrogance hurt Netscape (Score:2)
Re:Arrogance hurt Netscape (Score:2)
Jim Andresson (Score:3, Informative)
I could be horribly mistaken, but wasn't it Mark Andreesen? Are was there both a Jim Andresson and a Mark Andreesen?
James Clark -vs- Jim Clark (Score:2)
-Don
Ouch.... (Score:2)
Wow, you mean there are less than 10 users of Netscape Navigator?
This Is A Terrible Article (Score:2)
All this is general commentary anyone could find on any number of pages.
It's notable only because of all the errors --- misnaming Marc Andreesen as well as the names of the various browsers at different points
Here's a simple reason Netscape fell.
Back then, pretty much everyone was in "ooh! flashy button" mode. The browser was gonna replace the OS, or something like that. Every pretty new feature w
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox, the spawn of Netscape, has never been more popular, and is poised to beat Microsoft in the browser market.
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:1, Informative)
Firefox is being referred to as the spawn of Netscape.
Admittedly it would have perhaps been easier to parse if the subject itself started the sentence:
Firefox, the spawn of Netscape, has never been more popular,
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
So when someone writes hard-to-follow, yet syntactically correct, spaghetti code its not their fault others can't read it? I'm sorry but a writer has a responsibility to make thier sentences easy to parse.
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Strange, I didn't have any problems to parse it. And I'm not even a native English speaker.
... using "its" instead of "it's" and "thier" instead of "their" isn't exactly helpful in parsing :-)
BTW, speaking about the writer's responsibilities
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Strange, I didn't have any problems to parse it. And I'm not even a native English speaker.
While we are nit-picking grammar, "problems to parse it" should be "problems parsing it." Not being a native speaker makes you less
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
BTW, I got a perfect score on the verbal section of the SAT. That's not very piss-poor.
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
I don't claim to be a master language-user because I did well on the verbal SAT. It just means I was good at that particular test format. I mean there is at least some correlation to "actual language skill" (whatever that means) but I don't like to flaunt my score or anything like that. I just couldn't resist bringing it up to feed the troll.
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Consult any journalistic style guide and see what it has to say.
Slashdot is supposed to be a news site. It should use a journalistic style. The S-V-O sentence construction is the bedrock of the journalistic style.
If you prefer to entertain yourself with crazy grammar, I suggest you read a personal blog. They love that kind of stuff.
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
and I only bring them up because I noticed you'd done likewise, you say, in order to feed a "troll" (i.e., me). Fuck you very much.
You made personal attacks (which I have refrained from doing, besides rightfully calling you a troll), by suggesting that I failed grammar school. That is why I brought up test scores. You are most definitely a troll, just look at your nick! I can't believe someone who has graduated from college resorts to saying "what the fuck" and "fuck you" as much as you do. The way you
Re:Taco speaks English as a first language? (Score:2)
Re:How is this offtopic? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good grammar (Score:5, Funny)
The spawn of Netscape and Firefox and has never been more popular and and is poised