Blame Opera for your incompetence

Many Opera users have noticed that some people, be they FFFB or otherwise, constanly makes silly claims about the best browser, Opera. These are for the most part claims that those same people themselved could’ve refuted easily had they only bothered to really try the browser they so much like to slag off. Those are the people blaming Opera for their own ignorance, and there are many answers to them around the web.

Then there’s those who blame Opera when it’s their own incompetence that’s at fault. Take the knowledge of CSS, and a simple thing like having the content of the body all the way out to the edge. Simple – just set “margin: 0” – right? Works in IE, works in Firefox, doesn’t work in Opera. Opera must be broken. And yes, this is an example I’ve seen a couple of times the last couple of days. I’ve seen similar earlier.

Not knowing the default values for margin, padding and so on in the different browsers is perfectly OK. Not knowing that there are default values? Well…You may find yourself with problems that puzzles you. At least until you give it a thought. Not knowing that both margin and padding influence ont the spacing between objects, such as the content in the body and the edge of the browser window, that’s incompetence.

There’s nothing wrong with being incompetent – we’re all incompetent in several areas. In the areas we have an interest, we educate ourselves to become competent. The aforementioned people with their problems with the margin in Opera could educate themselves further by reading or asking, and finding that the solution to their problem is something as simple as setting both margin and padding to 0. Instead of overcoming their incompetence in this field, however, they chose to blame it on Opera. And they’re not alone.

I wonder why so many are so quick to slag off Opera…

Author: Svein Kåre

I have too many interests for my own good, in that I don't manage to make time for them all. A bit artistic, which can be seen to a degree.