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Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

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Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#131

Post by icebraining »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #119
icebraining wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? The semantic web and using more metadata is making it easier than ever. Nowadays in many cases not only you have the content, as it is tagged with microformats or RDFa. Try looking at Freebase or DBpedia and tell me where did you have such a huge amount of easily parsable, semantic content in the 90s.

More and more content is being taken entirely off the open web and siloed behind a server that talks an unstable proprietary protocol, with exactly one blob of javascript in existence that knows how to tunnel requests over HTTP to access shreds of that content and cram them into an utterly non-semantic DOM. We are hurtling backwards into the client-server hell the web had saved us from.

Yeah, I don't see that. I see more and more accessible APIs[1] and pages having more and more an incentive to being semantic due to search engines now reading that data (hRecipe, for example).

Service architecture have also been moving from stuff like SOAP to REST, which is definitively more open and accessible.

And even Ajax-ladden webpages are still just a Firebug Network tab away since they all run over HTTP, and then you have a nicely structured data format instead of having to deal with messy HTML pages.

[1] http://www.programmableweb.com/apis

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#132

Post by valisystem »

cypherpunks wrote: post #22
jarrett wrote: post #16

I'm quite grateful to Google for this. As a web developer, I'd always hoped that some big industry player would start forcing people to use modern browsers, and now it's happening. As small players, dropping support for older browsers kind of pulls us into the morass of a Nash equilibrium. Everyone would benefit if all web developers could agree on requiring modern browsers. We'd all be saved the pain of supporting o…

As a web user, I'm not grateful. I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. All websites look slightly better, but the client side dies a little bit every time. In the web circa '96, anyone could write a web spider or web browser, and everyone did. There was tremendous innovation both client-side and server-side. Client-side innovations included things like…

> I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better.

I think the point for making ie7 deprecated legacy is more about its hideous bugs in the parsing, internal document representation and rendering bugs.

It is the things that makes proper code unable to be displayed properly without the tedious work of understanding the dysfunctions to circumvent them properly. To me, the old IE rendering engines alone has slowed web innovation for at least several years all by themselves.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#133

Post by yock »

ori_b wrote: post #93
yock wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A web browser isn't akin to plumbing, rather it would be closer to a fixture. And I do understand why folks would want to update their fixtures often.

I don't. Why would I want to upgrade my fixtures twice a year if they're working and look fine? I'd be happy to keep the same set for 20 years, myself.

Is it really worth carrying a metaphor out to its absurd conclusion? A web browser does not exactly equate to a plumbing fixture, yet they both have maturation cycles that prompt people to upgrade over time. Browser technology moves faster than plumbing, I don't think anyone would be terribly surprised by that revelation, yet when plumbing technology advances I will upgrade. I will upgrade sooner rather than later because the savings in time and energy pay off over time, just like with browser technology. The further behind the cycle I remain, the more it costs me to modernize in the future and the more it costs me to stick with the old. The literal time period is completely irrelevant.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#134

Post by lachlanj »

jarrett wrote: post #16

I'm quite grateful to Google for this. As a web developer, I'd always hoped that some big industry player would start forcing people to use modern browsers, and now it's happening. As small players, dropping support for older browsers kind of pulls us into the morass of a Nash equilibrium. Everyone would benefit if all web developers could agree on requiring modern browsers. We'd all be saved the pain of supporting o…

I disagree, as a web developer big or small it is your job to set the standards for what the web should be.

Small freelancers make up a greater percentage than bigger firms as developers. At very least you should make it known that supporting old browsers is not a standard service and will incur extra costs to the client. There is plenty of literature to point your clients to in order to back up your point. If we all do this one by one it will have a greater impact than this move by Google.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#135

Post by danssig »

eropple wrote: post #124
maratd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. If that's all it was, then you'd be right. You can't do geolocation, local storage, audio/video, canvas/svg/webgl, etc. etc. on old browsers. It's not about making things pretty. It's about creating software that can compete with desktop alternatives.

Unspoken assumption: that competing with desktop alternatives is good or desired. Personally, I can't think of a single desktop application that I use that is better done in a browser with the possible exception of Google Maps, and I say "possible" because I haven't seen a desktop contender. I use GMail's web interface solely because I can't stand any of the Mac clients (at work) and Outlook isn't available on Linux…

I share you views. Making a web app is easier for the developer: just one platform to support, no restrictions on implementation, etc. But a desktop app is nicer for the users (the ones we're supposed to care about, right?). In the very best case a web app would be able to function as good as a desktop app. The best case is usually not achieved.

Imagine if a person at your job said they had just made a new client app for your business users workflow. When you ask how it's implemented the person says that the GUI itself is just a skin that reads everything from the database. The GUI layout, how the buttons behave, all of it is stored in the database and the actual GUI is nothing more than a kind of platform for what's in the database. I've actually seen this done and the team who did it were sacked, their application deprecated. As far as I know it's still running because the team in charge of replacing it still doesn't completely understand it. But this is what web apps are. Model, view, presenter, they're all stored in the same place.

Personally, I prefer having a back end RESTful server with native... shall we say "fit" clients (not fat but not thin either) using it. The browser gets a simplified, default version of the app which has a link to the appropriate native client somewhere visible.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#136

Post by danssig »

tomjen3 wrote: post #68
eddieplan9 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, but adapting to a vendor is not how IT departments run (especially when a vendor aims to replace your IT departments).

They do when they don't have a choice (which is also mostly the only way you can get most people to change at all).

I think a lot of places would drop google apps before they let google dictate what software they use.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#137

Post by DCoder »

rimantas wrote: post #62
cypherpunks wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 years ago, I could reasonably write a search engine. Myself. 1 person. In a few weeks (modulo bandwidth and server farm). I write a program that grabs a web page, and reads out keywords. Today, if I grab a web page, quite often, that web page has nothing except for JavaScript code. That code grabs the actual content from the server, lays it out, and animates it. To write a web search engine, I need to write a comp…

15 years ago the thing we call "web application" hardly existed. If web page "has nothing except JavaScript" (e.g. GMail) is probably is web app and indexing it makes little sense anyway. If someone misuses JS on content site, that's another story. And your comment about innovation makes no sense at all. Capabilities of modern browsers (Canvas, geolocation, local storage, offline apps, etc.) offer more opportunities…

If web page "has nothing except JavaScript" (e.g. GMail) is probably is web app and indexing it makes little sense anyway.

What about JS frameworks like JavascriptMVC or Sammy [1]? Google even created a spec [2] for crawling such sites.

[1] http://sammyjs.org/ [2] http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started...

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#139

Post by dspillett »

politician wrote: post #109
dstein wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should go further. A more Microsoft-esque thing to do would be if someone is using IE to require the use of Chrome Frame.

No, I think they're doing the right thing here. A firm hand on the backs of people who would otherwise never upgrade, not a punch in the face. Frankly, I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of people in Redmond that secretly approve this move. Microsoft has to play the role of stabilizer for their enterprise customers (so therefore updates are optional), but I'm certain that they wish their home users could play wit…

> Frankly, I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of people in Redmond that secretly approve this move.

It is no secret. MS themselves have gone as far as putting up "anti"-IE6 sites and not supporting IE6 in their own online office apps. IE7 can't be far behind. IE prior to version 9 is an embarrassment to them compared to IE9 and versions of other browsers from three (or more) years ago and they'd like to sweep them under the carpet and get users running IE9+ ASAP.

MS will draw the line at IE8 which Google (and anyone following a similar pattern) may not (they may drop IE8 support soon after IE10 is released if sticking with a "current and previous only" model), as MS won't want to lock off XP+IE8 users (at least until April 2014 when XP with SP3 completely falls out of extended support anyway) because that might further encourage shifting to Firefox or Chrom{e|ium} as an upgrade to IE9 is not possible on XP.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#140

Post by nodata »

ggchappell wrote: post #72

Yes, dropping support for IE 7 is fine. But the recently weird-ified FF release schedule is going to make this new Google Apps policy have strange results. FF 4 was released 3 months ago. It's just now looking confidence-inspiring enough that I'm considering upgrading to it on my Mac this week. But now Google is going to drop support for it when FF 6 is released in a couple of months??? Another issue: if I'm not mist…

Basing support on version numbers is stupid because version numbers mean nothing. Firefox 6 beta is due out in two weeks time!

Time based support would be better.

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