How web pages workLesson 2, Fundamentals of the Web 29Soon designers discovered they could not rely on the same HTML code for all browsers.
Designers added “hacks,” extra code, to pages, making certain that layouts worked in
diff erent browsers. Some designers would go so far as to create two versions of a site, and the
appropriate version would be displayed based upon the browser being used by the viewer.
Other designers would add badges to their sites, letting viewers know that the site performs
best with a particular browser. To this day you can still see some sites with notices such as
“This site is optimized for Internet Explorer” or some other browser.
Web pages that were designed to work only in a single browser were taking the web in the wrong direction.
Designers, businesses, and the companies developing browsers eventually discovered that
inconsistency and proprietary tags that worked only with their browser were hurting the
user experience and harmful to the vitality and growth of the web. The various browser
manufacturers have started to recognize the importance of consistency, and most are working
with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and independent testing bodies to validate
the compliance of their browser with accepted standards. Browser developers now promote
their compliance with standards and speed at displaying standards-based pages.
Now that you understand some of the history and concepts behind the web, you’ll start to
examine some of the HTML code that powers web pages.