The Double Edged Sword of the Web • Hacker News Board

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#41

Post by cortesoft » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

exceptione wrote: post #3

I 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…

Your criticism's may be true, but lets think about it from a web developer's perspective. Being standards compliant is great and all, but when you are creating a website you have to think about the way your users are going to experience it.

If a large majority of your visitors use chrome, you are going to have to prioritize their experience. While ideally you will make it work perfectly for every browser, sometimes you have to make compromises.

It isn't about thinking that Chrome is the world we all SHOULD live in, it is trying to design a web page for the world we DO live in.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#42

Post by s_kilk » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #27

wmichelin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an artist, I came from a Computer Science background, and I still use Apple products. I don't think using Linux as a desktop environment is enjoyable. I don't get the Apple hate.

It's highly contextual. Macs gained a lot of popularity with OSX because of it's BSD underpinnings that allowed developers to go mobile and disconnected without having to run Linux Desktops. However Macs have always been popular with designers, artists, and creative nontechnical users because of their simplicity and intuitiveness. A lot of the hate comes from having to deal with the later group, not the former.

And, crucially, OSX is the only real option for running both unixy programs and high-grade commercial software such as the Adobe Suite on the same machine without dual-booting

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#43

Post by athenot » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

exceptione wrote: post #3

I 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…

Yup. There's an eery parallel with when Internet Explorer + ActiveX extensions where being pushed hard, to the detriment of us mac/linux/bsd users.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#44

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 8:44 PM UTC

s_kilk wrote: post #42

cptskippy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's highly contextual. Macs gained a lot of popularity with OSX because of it's BSD underpinnings that allowed developers to go mobile and disconnected without having to run Linux Desktops. However Macs have always been popular with designers, artists, and creative nontechnical users because of their simplicity and intuitiveness. A lot of the hate comes from having to deal with the later group, not the former.

And, crucially, OSX is the only real option for running both unixy programs and high-grade commercial software such as the Adobe Suite on the same machine without dual-booting

Define "real". Cygwin has been an option on Windows for a long time. It has its complications and issues, but isn't exactly "fake".

Besides that, Windows 10's Bash on Ubuntu on Windows is a very interesting step in this direction. It's going to increasingly be a "real" option.

ETA: Also, Virtual Machines and Remote Login are blurry edges of "real" that aren't dual-booting.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#45

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

SNvD7vEJ wrote: post #20

bhauer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more weird on a 40 inch 4K monitor. But it's tuned for a different kind of privileged web developer. The specific privilege that you and I are bringing (large, high resolution displays) evidently makes us not the target audience. Jokes aside, virtually no sites are tuned for large displays, and there's widespread consensus that you shouldn't simply use the full width of the window for text because lines wou…

I don't know about the "widespread consensus", but forcing people to manually resizing their browser window to fit whatever they currently are reading is bad design in my book. Most good sites, I think, (strangely not Hacker News though) have a width limiting, centered layout which makes it easy to read and browse.

I'll be that odd person to point out that width limiting in a world of widescreens is a strange use of space. I'd personally like to see more love put into CSS3 multi-column support and gentle horizontal scrolling (a standard spec ready equivalent to -ms-scroll-translation, perhaps). I get the feeling I'm in a not very vocal minority of people that currently thinks horizontal scrolling could be a useful answer for an easier to read web on widescreen displays.

I find it strange how many sites seem to be more horizontal gutters than content space these days due their fixed width containers recreating a square virtual monitor inside my widescreen monitor. Admittedly it is good for ad space, I guess, because those gutters can be and often are filled with plenty of ads.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#46

Post by cptskippy » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

SimeVidas wrote: post #30

cptskippy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t get it. Why is this arrogant?

He says that by virtue of that fact that his audience is mostly using Chrome and macOS, they are privileged. Therefore anyone who isn't is therefore underprivileged.

Additionally he refers to it as macOS which pedantic and yet incorrect unless the majority of his users are running a beta OS.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#47

Post by cptskippy » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #44

s_kilk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, crucially, OSX is the only real option for running both unixy programs and high-grade commercial software such as the Adobe Suite on the same machine without dual-booting

Define "real". Cygwin has been an option on Windows for a long time. It has its complications and issues, but isn't exactly "fake". Besides that, Windows 10's Bash on Ubuntu on Windows is a very interesting step in this direction. It's going to increasingly be a "real" option. ETA: Also, Virtual Machines and Remote Login are blurry edges of "real" that aren't dual-booting.

How about not half baked, incomplete, or restricted?

Lets be honest, Cygwin is a joke if you're doing *nix development.

Windows 10's Bash on Ubuntu is months old, we're talking historically on the order of 5-10 years.

VMs and remote systems are fraught with compromises.

Re: The Double Edged Sword of the Web

#48

Post by SimeVidas » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #46

SimeVidas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get it. Why is this arrogant?

He says that by virtue of that fact that his audience is mostly using Chrome and macOS, they are privileged. Therefore anyone who isn't is therefore underprivileged. Additionally he refers to it as macOS which pedantic and yet incorrect unless the majority of his users are running a beta OS.

I think, the author meant that (most) web developers consider themselves privileged, in thinking that all developers should be using MacBook Pros and Chrome, and that there’s no need to test in anything else, when sharing demos and tools between themselves.

Using the term macOS is fine. It’s the new name, and we can start using it before the official release of the next version in the fall. I think you are being pedantic here.