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This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

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Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#131

Post by J_Darnley »

bosdev wrote: post #102
J_Darnley wrote: post #61

If you were writing HTML documents would it really matter which browsers people were using?

You mean without JavaScript and CSS? The reason browser versions matter is because there has been a massive amount of innovation in JS and CSS in the last decade. That innovation has allowed websites to move closer and closer to the capabilities of desktop applications, which is a win for ease-of-installation, security and for the web as a platform.

Yes, basically. You don't need javascript for presentation. You don't need overloaded eye candy driven by oodles of css. An HTML document is like http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ or http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ or this website Hacker News.

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#133

Post by tracker1 »

ehnto wrote: post #91
mcs_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't know... how much is the cost to develop an application to cover 100% of the available desktop browsers? maybe use that value to improve mobile target make more sense at this point?!

It really, really depends on your site's demographic. Example: skin care website, they sell women's beauty and anti aging products. Their demographic is 15% IE8, but you know who are most likely to buy their products? Mature women, who are also more likely to be the ones in that 15%. The next part of that puzzle was when they launched into China. China has a huge population still on XP and IE8. Literally millions of…

I would think mature women would be the ones more likely to be using an iPad/iPhone. I've worked in several positions where the demographics are skewed towards middle age, and the use of the iPad alone is far larger than IE<11.

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#134

Post by hitekker »

I have a fun story.

IE10 and below have two modes. "Browser" mode, which means the IE10, IE9, IE8, IE7 rendering engines. "Document" mode which means the engine treating the page like it was meant for IE9, IE8, IE7 etc. Or so it says.

Confused? Take a look at this chart:

https://i-msdn.sec.s-msft.com/dynimg/IC780294.jpg

More confused? So was and am I. I don't fully understand document mode and I suspect Microsoft doesn't either. Likely the reason they deprecated the moment Windows 10 came out[1]

So what's the problem? Well, even though a web page would render fine in IE9, IE9 could look at it, take issue with your markup, and then, surprise! Your user sees it like it's IE7... using the IE9 rendering engine.

For most web developers that needed to support IE, you basically always needed to insert a tag with a value of X-UA-Compatible in the of your page. It forces the latest document mode, i.e., "treat this page like a modern page and render it without being stupid." 99% of the time this is what you want. 1% of the time (the need for document mode) is when a page was so reliant on older browser quirks that it needs to be treated as an IE7 page.

Cool, that's all we need right?

Enter oracle.com. In all versions of IE9, there is a hidden, built in compatibility mapping which will always force a certain document mode[2]. So even if your little page brings with it a valid meta tag and uses completely valid markup, IE9 will take look at its name on its blacklist, smile, pat your page on the head, and then shove it the trash compactor.

Smash. So IE9 forces a terrible document mode upon all pages on oracle.com and several other domains mode and Microsoft, to this days, says just about nothing about the hidden blacklist in their documentation. The only way I found this out was by searching "oracle.com" in all of IE9's source code, whereupon I found the responsible XML file, the blacklist.

So what's the solution?

Well, after some hair loss, I discovered the solution is to bring the X-UA-Compatible OUTSIDE of the tag and put it right above the HTML one. In complete contrivance to everything Microsoft said in its documentation, and also normal browser logic.

... That, kids, is why IE9 and below needs to die.

[1]https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn384051(v=vs.85).a...

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#135

Post by tracker1 »

kdamken wrote: post #78
chris_wot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a developer, I'd carefully look at my referer logs and if only 15% of my user community was using IE 8-10, I'd just develop for IE 10. I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade, I'd just let script errors occur and not release any compatibility fixes. I'd respond to support tickets explaining that there are bugs in their old version of IE and suggest they upgrade, or install Chrome or Firefox.…

While I completely get where you're coming from, realistically this can be very messy. You'd quickly find that an increasing number of your support calls were from those users having issues. 15% doesn't sound like a lot, but 15% of a million people is 150,000 people. So, you'd succeed in angering a lot of customers. Much better to try and inform all of your customers (not just corporate) of the upcoming changes, and…

Maybe you should use conversion metrics combined with usage statistics weighted against trending and flow relative to feature enhancements and capabilities instead of any raw value against general hits?

Each business is different, and even then different areas of a product can have differing requirements and needs. What is 15% for you, may be <2% and declining for others. My current and former positions see iPad users in greater numbers than any other single platform/browser, as an example. It may be better served to create features that work for the larger audience and other platforms easily supported than grasping at a fraying edge.

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#136

Post by tracker1 »

perlgeek wrote: post #75
chris_wot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a developer, I'd carefully look at my referer logs and if only 15% of my user community was using IE 8-10, I'd just develop for IE 10. I would NOT warn the end users about needing to upgrade, I'd just let script errors occur and not release any compatibility fixes. I'd respond to support tickets explaining that there are bugs in their old version of IE and suggest they upgrade, or install Chrome or Firefox.…

Giving 15% of your users a shitty experience is a really bad of doing business.

Where I work IE<11 accounts for under 5%, ymmv.

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#137

Post by jacquesm »

tracker1 wrote: post #126
jacquesm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely rare that the cost to support a browser outweighs the economic importance of those using those browsers. If it is then you are probably too small an entity to matter anyway, but as soon as your IE6 users are numerous enough that you can assign a percentage to the population you would probably be well advised to simply serve them rather than to attempt to force them to upgrade, if they haven't done so…

I am working at a Fortune 100 financial company currently, IE8 support is already retired, and IE9 in the next month or so. This being a numbers based decision.

I suspect that the demographic make-up of the customer base is a huge factor in this. Location and age, predominantly.

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#138

Post by will_pseudonym »

oliwarner wrote: post #86
will_pseudonym wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the 80/20 rule for me. Think about the type of client (individual user/corporation) that is still using Entities who use legacy software have more problems than their browser. It's symptomatic of a much larger issue, and I love being able to filter them out!

On behalf of other developers, thanks for the extra business.

You're welcome! I know it's easy money. It's just not worth it to me. :)

Re: This is party time; Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 die on Tuesday

#140

Post by oliwarner »

madaxe_again wrote: post #106
oliwarner wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you've got a system that is, for example, underpinning your whole business operation (eg billing, machine controls, whatever) and that cost thousands (often tens or hundreds of thousands) to implement and it only works on a legacy version of an operating system (be that Win 3.11, Linux 2.4, or even just XP) you WILL move heaven and earth to avoid disrupting that system. Even if it's a smooth migration to a curre…

What's wrong with continuous improvement? Our entire ethos is that software is never finished.

I love CI but it does only works if it's continuous.

The scenarios I was describing don't lend themselves to it. It's usually vendor deployed, closed source software. Not an in-house production. That or it truly is ancient, from an era when CI wasn't a thing.

You can resurrect development but as I mentioned before, this can often involve resurrecting people, not just the project. And employing them indefinitely for something that —for the past 10 years— has been free. It's a bloody hard sell to higher management.

My last post wasn't my opinion. I wasn't advocating for never updating, I'm just passing along my experiences with the sorts companies that have systems they don't touch out of fear.

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