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Spent 5 years building websites with tables before a client's Netscape crash showed me the light
Was fixing a layout bug on a client's old Geocities site and accidentally opened their page in Netscape 4.7 - the whole thing collapsed into a mess of misaligned cells and broken rows. Anyone else have a moment where an old browser revealed how janky your code actually was?
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nancy_owens3mo ago
Always test in the oldest browser you can find first. Saves headaches later.
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viola_cooper623mo ago
Accidentally opened their page in Netscape 4.7" - wow, that takes me back. I had a similar moment around 2001 with a site I built for a local hardware store. I was so proud of my table-based layout, thought I was clever using those transparent spacer GIFs to get pixel-perfect alignment. Launched it in Internet Explorer and it looked great. Then I tested it in Netscape 4.7 and the whole thing just collapsed like a house of cards. All those nested tables went sideways, the columns overlapped, and text started spilling out everywhere. Made me realize I was building on quicksand instead of solid ground.
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