高程上午英语第二篇原文:
cdove 2003-10-15 01:16:04 The Irrelevance of Browsers
By Steve Steinke, Editor-in-Chief
01/07/2002, 9:41 AM ET
Reading over the Justice Department's proposed settlement with Microsoft is worth a chuckle for rehashing just how much the Web browser's significance has been overemphasized for the last four years. At its root, a Web browser is simply a terminal emulator, designed to display text on a screen. The two essential differences between an ordinary
terminal emulator and a Web browser are that the browser knows how to
deal with hyperlinks, and that it has a mechanism for displaying
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graphical files. Display text, display graphics, and navigate hyperlinks-
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there's 99 percent of the Web browser's value.
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That's not to say that Microsoft, Netscape, and others didn't go all-out to attach a hyperactive efflorescence of useless capabilities onto their browsers. Remember when media channels in the browser were a big deal, instead of the clutter you can't wait to delete from your favorites or bookmarks menu? Remember when the browser plug-in was supposed to become the preferred platform for application development? Remember when client-
side Java applets were supposed to become the preferred platform for
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application development? Remember frames and all their nasty side effects? Remember the "Active Desktop" option in Windows to "View As Web Page"?
http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20020106S0004