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Hundreds of browsers are available, but how can we code to support them all? Why would you want to support them all?
Well, let's answer question #2 first. About 90% of the Internet today is viewed by Internet Explorer users. So why not only design for Internet Explorer? Because its that extra 10% and the extra mile that'll bring in more clientele, money and a better reputation to your company.
To answer question #1, we must first know what browsers we're going to code for. Obviously there's Internet Explorer, but the remaining 10% is powered by such browsers as Netscape and Opera, and many others which use Mozilla technology (www.mozilla.org).
 Why do users choose different browsers? Some for work-related reasons, some because they don't favorMicrosoft, some because they've learned computers using something different and others for multitudes of different reasons.
Anyhow, there are three ways to approach this.
The first way is called trial and error. This means install IE and Netscape, as well as Firefox, and test your site when you make changes in the different browsers to see if they look the same. Try testing on several versions of IE and Netscape to also ensure backward compatibility.
Dreamweaver has a built in validator you can customize to validate your code. I mean customize by going into your preferences and letting it know what type of code you want it to be compatible with. For basic HTML, it is best to design AND validate in XHTML which is cross-browser compliant for every browser. This will show you where your mistakes are. This is an excellent way to learn how to code, and how to do it properly.
Then we've got the third way, which is done simply by visiting www.w3.org and use their online validators to check your code. This can be a good toy to find out if someone else's page is compliant. FYI - w3 is the company that sets the standards for code on the net. By following their standardized guidelines, your code is safe for what you're designing for.
If you don't quite understand this, that's fine. Visit http://www.w3.org and read up on it a little bit.
This process does take patience and does provide a learning curve for even the most advanced user.
Is this really a big issue? Not really if you're only shooting for Internet Explorer users. W3's standards aren't 'official' as of yet either so making W3 happy isn't going to win you any brownie points. Even more, chances are the majority of your customers will never notice. However, as the Internet and languages progress, standardization is becoming a focus to support multiple languages the same way across multiple platforms and browsers.
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