I like the use of "Can be" there (honest, not sarcastic).AKA Panama Jack wrote:I just mentioned it to point out that browser sniffing can be a useless thing to do anymore because you never know what browser is really browsing your site.
Lets assume the OP wants to avoid adding a feature to his site that is unsupported in some browsers. (Canvas is a good example, as IE doesn't support it yet, but most other browsers do now).
If he sniffs the browser of users, he might find (assuming a technical site) that only 40% of his users use a browser other than IE. So perhaps he decides not to use canvas - despite the fact that 20% of his users are using Opera or Firefox, but disguising them as IE!
However, if instead he chose to sniff the browser's support for that technology, he would likely have close to a 100% accurate view of how many users could use canvas (in the example, 60%). That would lead to a very different result!
But the reason I like the "can be" is that there are other situations where browsing sniffing isn't entirely useless. If you want to get a (rough, inaccurate) view of the *trending* on browser usage, browser sniffing is very good.
Generally, right on the money, and the exception fits neatly in "can be".
Nicely worded.