The Double Edged Sword of the Web
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The Double Edged Sword of the Web
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Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#2"Who is correct isn’t important. What should be important is that browsers put consistency across themselves first."
No way - The only way we'll end up with compatibility across browsers is to have unambiguous (as much as possible) specifications that define how they should behave and for browser users to insist their browser vendor aligns with the standard. I lived through that past and have no desire to repeat it.
If you think about it from a network theory perspective, each of the browsers is only trying to be compatible with one other party (the specification) in this mode. The alternative is that each browser is trying to be compatible with "n - 1" other parties where n is the number of browsers in the pool. And the total effort is the classic (n * (n - 1)) / 2 "connections", so the browser industry would be wasting a lot of effort.
Worse yet, there's no single release point. Consider that browser A makes changes to be compatible with browser B (because that behavior seems correct compared to browser C). Unbeknownst to them, browser B is about to change their behavior to be compatible with browser C. Now the A-team's work is either wasted or yet another incompatibility.
Browser-focused standards are the best thing that happened to the web in the last 10+ years.
- http://html5readiness.com/ (now a bit dated)
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#3I wish I could downvote this article. It is from a developer who is married with Google Chrome and who is trying to tell us that other browsers are stupid because they don't have the same bugs as Chrome does.
It's especially unnerving for me as a firefox user since these days I come across a lot more sites that make stupid mistakes that just works fine in their Chrome.
This mindset makes me angry. The same applies when developers think that if your browser blocks google tracking it is ok to just fuck up the whole website.
The web should be
- progressive
- standards-compliant.
Some years ago this was widely believed to be right way forward. Nowadays it seems that developers think that Chrome on OS X is the world we all should live in.
Loosely related: I am not going to switch to Chrome. I would never use a browser from an Ad Company like Google, as I don't trust them at all.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#4I wish I could downvote this article. It is from a developer who is married with Google Chrome and who is trying to tell us that other browsers are stupid because they don't have the same bugs as Chrome does. It's especially unnerving for me as a firefox user since these days I come across a lot more sites that make stupid mistakes that just works fine in their Chrome. This mindset makes me angry. The same applies wh…
I have to agree on this one. I have lots of respect for Nicolás and his work, but I think this article shows a little bit of arrogance towards users who don't use Chrome as their primary user.
On top of that he disabled accessibility on Firefox entirely in favour of design preferences. Many developer might not care, but it's an attitude which needs to stop.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#5I don't necessarily agree with the article as a whole, but I do like this bit very much:
> Humans will seldom use different browsers. Unless there are gross differences across browsers, like using entirely different sets of font faces, humans are not going to care. We need to learn to let go.
Sometimes, the cost/benefit calculation comes out so squarely in the "let's just not" column that even though it may feel wrong to discriminate so blatantly, the economics are just not there. Important to consider whether this discrimination amounts to technical debt which proves costly over time, or whether they are in fact tailored experiences that makes sense to keep around. In any event I agree with the authors sentiment, that chasing the identical look everywhere unicorn often just isn't worth the bother.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#6I might be crazy, but I think that the dotted version of the colored lines (from Firefox/Safari) looked better than the dashed ones he was so insistent on achieving.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#7"Who is correct isn’t important. What should be important is that browsers put consistency across themselves first." No way - The only way we'll end up with compatibility across browsers is to have unambiguous (as much as possible) specifications that define how they should behave and for browser users to insist their browser vendor aligns with the standard. I lived through that past and have no desire to repeat it.…
The single release point is the specification which defines the behaviour in the first place.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#8"Who is correct isn’t important. What should be important is that browsers put consistency across themselves first." No way - The only way we'll end up with compatibility across browsers is to have unambiguous (as much as possible) specifications that define how they should behave and for browser users to insist their browser vendor aligns with the standard. I lived through that past and have no desire to repeat it.…
> If you think about it from a network theory perspective, each of the browsers is only trying to be compatible with one other party (the specification) in this mode.
Sadly, it's usually the predominant browser (i.e. Chrome these days) that they're trying to maintain compatibility with and not the specification.
Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#9I wish I could downvote this article. It is from a developer who is married with Google Chrome and who is trying to tell us that other browsers are stupid because they don't have the same bugs as Chrome does. It's especially unnerving for me as a firefox user since these days I come across a lot more sites that make stupid mistakes that just works fine in their Chrome. This mindset makes me angry. The same applies wh…
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Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web
#10I wish I could downvote this article. It is from a developer who is married with Google Chrome and who is trying to tell us that other browsers are stupid because they don't have the same bugs as Chrome does. It's especially unnerving for me as a firefox user since these days I come across a lot more sites that make stupid mistakes that just works fine in their Chrome. This mindset makes me angry. The same applies wh…
I have to agree on this one. I have lots of respect for Nicolás and his work, but I think this article shows a little bit of arrogance towards users who don't use Chrome as their primary user. On top of that he disabled accessibility on Firefox entirely in favour of design preferences. Many developer might not care, but it's an attitude which needs to stop.
It's more than a little arrogance, it's a superiority complex. My jaw dropped when I read the following because it speaks volumes about his mindset.
> As such, visitors are mostly privileged web developers using macOS and Google Chrome.