What's the Best Web Programming Test Platform?

Hi All,

I'm in need of a new computer, mine is dying. In the past I've always bought a PC to be compatible with my school or employer. Since I am now working for myself that restriction no longer applies.

So, at the risk of starting a PC vs Mac war; those of you who have been working on the web for a while...What browser/OS makes for the best test platform for web programming/development?

My current dying machine has Windows 98, IE 5.5, and even more ancient copies of Netscape, Mozilla and Opera. I have access to another machine that has XP Home, IE six (six key has died), and FF. The differences between those can be the difference between a page displaying correctly and entire sections of a page not being displayed.

I realize that to be safe, one should always test on more than one browser. I'm just wondering if there is one that is somewhat more reliable. I've found among the options I have access to, when I program for XP Home and FF I seem to get fairly good results with the rest.

So, the question is; if you had only one browser/OS combination you could pick from, which one would most accruately represent the bahavior of the others?

Thanks for any suggestions and please let's not turn this into a thread of PC vs Mac and instead a rational discourse on the reality of browser/os conformance to the W3 standards.

 

I alway make my sites to look as they should in Firefox and then test in IE.

The reason for this is Firefox is a standards compliant browser and IE is the only one that is not so if you get it looking as it should in Firefox you can then just use hacks to make it look the same in IE.

Then I also test in Opera, Netscape and then use an online tool to check it in Safari ut 99% of the time if it is good in Fire fox it is good in everthing except crappy non standards compliant IE.

Aslong as you make your site standards compliant and it looks as you want in Firefox it is easy to make any adjustments needed to make it look good in all browsers.

 

How close is FF to Safari and the other Mac browsers?

 

Carnt say I have ever had any problems I can think of.

As long as you use compliant code thats is, if you dont make your sites with compliant code you always gonna have problems getting your pages looking the same in all browsers.

This is the tool I use to check my sites.

 

YMC, johneva's absolutely right on the browser. Firefox, at this time is the most correctly compliant browser in general use. Unfortunately, if you can have only one computer, it'll have to be a Windows machine. You must have IE, simply because it is too crappy to expect anything to render correctly, so you have to have a copy to test on.

cheers,

gary

 

Yep definatly!

 

yeah, exectly