It's also much easier for beginners to learn about JavaScript by concentrating on the code through the early stages and leaving cross-browser complications for a later date.
For these reasons we publish a lot of JavaScript information that's specific to the IE5 browser, and often won't work in Netscape.
But despite this gung-ho attitude, we also know there are times when you need to be careful about using IE5-only code.
We use it ourselves for page enhancement, for example the bookmark link on The Really Useful Page, and the middle windows in the starting sequence of Amazing HTML. In both cases the code works fine in IE5, and in Netscape it's benign, in other words it does nothing at all and doesn't crash the browser.
But for important stuff like moving from one page to another we make sure we use cross-browser JavaScript that works in all version 4+ browsers.
So, if you're building Web pages as part of a nuclear reactor control system, please (please!) think twice before you base them on our IE5-only code. But if you want to learn about JavaScript without too many complications, and maybe make some of your pages more dynamic or slightly more functional for the majority of visitors, hit that back button and read on.
"These pages will look best if you come round to my office and look at them on my monitor."
