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Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

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Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#61

Post by mkmcdonald »

Ah; browser elitism continues to pervade the web platform. Perhaps one day developers will realize how to develop working pages for static, decade-old browsers. It's not as hard as bloggers evangelize it to be.

HTML and CSS gracefully degrade. Host objects (DOM, etc.) require some care, but can degrade as well.

On an open platform with open software, we continue to punish and castigate users for their choice (or lack thereof) of environment. How infuriating is it for a user that's stuck on IE Moreover, version detection is moronic. Twitter does this by banishing IE 6 users to a "mobile site" because the "desktop site" is poorly written. Browsing in IE 5 yields a broken version of the "desktop site" (CSS and all).

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#62

Post by billpatrianakos »

mkmcdonald wrote: post #61

Ah; browser elitism continues to pervade the web platform. Perhaps one day developers will realize how to develop working pages for static, decade-old browsers. It's not as hard as bloggers evangelize it to be. HTML and CSS gracefully degrade. Host objects (DOM, etc.) require some care, but can degrade as well. On an open platform with open software, we continue to punish and castigate users for their choice (or lack…

While you may be right about browser elitism your tone suggests coder elitism. Yeah, we can often allow sites to degrade gracefully but the old web is dying. The days of static sites are almost totally behind us. We're entering a new era in development and sometimes supporting those old browsers is more trouble than it's worth. Penalizing users of older browsers gives them incentive to upgrade. It really is a win win situation. They get a better experience and we get another user. We can't support these old browsers forever. Ten years doesn't sound like much but on the web it's a lifetime. It's like suggesting reserving one lane of our highways for horse and buggies.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#63

Post by mkmcdonald »

litek wrote: post #3

This is terrific link bait. They've probably checked their stats and figured the exposure is well worth the few missed sales they might encounter.

The "development time" metric is superfluous nonsense perpetrated by lazy, loud-mouthed developers.

Here's a baseless graph that John Resig of jQuery fame included years ago in a speaking session: http://i.imgur.com/1OOcg.png.

Developers are inundated with "ugh; IE sux" propaganda, but the complaints are rarely quantified beyond "my site breaks in IE".

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#64

Post by mkmcdonald »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #62
mkmcdonald wrote: post #61

Ah; browser elitism continues to pervade the web platform. Perhaps one day developers will realize how to develop working pages for static, decade-old browsers. It's not as hard as bloggers evangelize it to be. HTML and CSS gracefully degrade. Host objects (DOM, etc.) require some care, but can degrade as well. On an open platform with open software, we continue to punish and castigate users for their choice (or lack…

While you may be right about browser elitism your tone suggests coder elitism. Yeah, we can often allow sites to degrade gracefully but the old web is dying. The days of static sites are almost totally behind us. We're entering a new era in development and sometimes supporting those old browsers is more trouble than it's worth. Penalizing users of older browsers gives them incentive to upgrade. It really is a win win…

I realize that a certain line must be drawn. However, a large subset of browsers can still be supported. I've found that I can support scripted pages until IE 4, wherein `throw` and `try/catch` are not supported. Niceties such as `Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty` and `Function.prototype.call` were introduced in IE 6⁰, so I can accept complaints about IE 5. A SyntaxError followed by a termination of script seem acceptable in that case.

However, HTML and CSS should degrade fine in old browsers. I have no problems with presenting an acceptable page in IE 6 or Opera 5, even with their quirky float handling. We just don't work hard enough.

⁰ JScript version 5.5, which is implemented in IE 5.5 introduced these. Verson 5.6 was implemented in IE 6.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#65

Post by csallen »

mkmcdonald wrote: post #64
billpatrianakos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you may be right about browser elitism your tone suggests coder elitism. Yeah, we can often allow sites to degrade gracefully but the old web is dying. The days of static sites are almost totally behind us. We're entering a new era in development and sometimes supporting those old browsers is more trouble than it's worth. Penalizing users of older browsers gives them incentive to upgrade. It really is a win win…

I realize that a certain line must be drawn. However, a large subset of browsers can still be supported. I've found that I can support scripted pages until IE 4, wherein `throw` and `try/catch` are not supported. Niceties such as `Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty` and `Function.prototype.call` were introduced in IE 6⁰, so I can accept complaints about IE 5. A SyntaxError followed by a termination of script seem accept…

I disagree that it's an issue of simply not working hard enough. The reality is that it's an issue of opportunity costs: There are only so many hours in a day, and every hour you spend on backwards compatibility is an hour that could have been spent on something else. Naturally, as time passes and the older browsers get older (i.e. less popular and harder to develop for), people are going to see less value in supporting then in lieu of the alternative ways they can spend their development efforts.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#66

Post by billpatrianakos »

mkmcdonald wrote: post #64
billpatrianakos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you may be right about browser elitism your tone suggests coder elitism. Yeah, we can often allow sites to degrade gracefully but the old web is dying. The days of static sites are almost totally behind us. We're entering a new era in development and sometimes supporting those old browsers is more trouble than it's worth. Penalizing users of older browsers gives them incentive to upgrade. It really is a win win…

I realize that a certain line must be drawn. However, a large subset of browsers can still be supported. I've found that I can support scripted pages until IE 4, wherein `throw` and `try/catch` are not supported. Niceties such as `Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty` and `Function.prototype.call` were introduced in IE 6⁰, so I can accept complaints about IE 5. A SyntaxError followed by a termination of script seem accept…

I think we work very hard. You seem to be wrangling old browsers into submission for sport. And that's fine but time is money and we don't have time for all that work for so few users. Thank god for these big guys who are pushing users of old browsers to upgrade. They're sparing the rest of us from not only being the bad guy but from having to do all that extra work. I can see some sites maybe being able to put the effort in to support ancient browsers but then you went after Twitter and I think that's where your argument suffers. First off, Twitter users know what the term "social network" means. Users of IE6 and below will probably never visit such a thing because their browser choice totally gives away their demographic. Beyond that, if Twitter were to cater to these older browsers they'd have a front end code base so bloated it'd rival their backend. Or the other option would be for them to do some graceful degradation work but since a lot of their current UI doesn't lend itself well to that (at least not as far back as you suggest they should) we'd be stuck with a poorer version of their UI which currently is really great! Sites moving toward being as responsive as a desktop app is such a great thing but it just can't be made to work in IE6 and under without bringing down everyone else's experience.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#67

Post by Zak »

paul9290 wrote: post #57
ceol wrote: post #12

I doubt their userbase using IE7 is large enough for this to be a big deal. This tax's real goal is PR for Kogan.

If you are a good front developer then fixing ie7 issues shouldn't be an issue or take you long to fix! For html5 use the html5 boiler plate and ensure your code validates. Also do not use floats to position everything, only elements that need to flow with the contents of the document. Use position absolute for elements that are static and of course in the block that holds said elements add position relative. Using t…

I think you're missing the point. We're all tired of making one version for normal browsers and a bunch of special fixes for six year old browsers nobody should be using anymore. We're all tired of having to constrain the development techniques we use to make it easy to support six year old browsers nobody should be using anymore. We're all tired of thinking about six year old browsers nobody should be using anymore.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#68

Post by masklinn »

mkmcdonald wrote: post #61

Ah; browser elitism continues to pervade the web platform. Perhaps one day developers will realize how to develop working pages for static, decade-old browsers. It's not as hard as bloggers evangelize it to be. HTML and CSS gracefully degrade. Host objects (DOM, etc.) require some care, but can degrade as well. On an open platform with open software, we continue to punish and castigate users for their choice (or lack…

> HTML and CSS gracefully degrade.

No. Not when the targetted browser has bugs, or implements half the properties used for a given technique and not the other half. When a button is hidden and its replacement can't display the degradation is not graceful, when elements are all over the page because positioning doesn't work correctly the degradation is not graceful, when activating buttons doesn't even work because you happened to use an attribute or a property the browser doesn't like the degradation is not graceful, and when the browser just throws or crashes altogether because you accessed a js property the degradation is not graceful.

And that's just user-facing, Kogan notes that their issue is cost, and the cost of supporting IE6 and IE7 is huge not just because their engines are gigantic piles of shit full of bugs and incorrect behaviors but because they don't even provide the tools to debug them.

Supporting anything is possible, the problem is the cost sunk into it for the complete absence of a return on investment.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#69

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

phoboslab wrote: post #25
planetguy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a way to flatter the rest of your customer base, who now get to feel superior for using a different browser. "Hey everybody, I use Chrome, aren't I wonderful?" Further suggestions to let us elite middle-class types feel superior to others: 1. Extra 25% surcharge for anyone who shows up at your cafe wearing Crocs 2. Anyone driving up to your hotel in a Pontiac Aztek has to pay a fifty-dollar uglification fe…

Bad analogies. It would be reasonable to charge extra for anyone who enters a shop with a beautiful wooden floor wearing spikes on their shoes. Spikes induce extra maintenance costs - so does IE7.

No, that's ridiculous. This is like taxing the disabled because they cost more money.

Re: Kogan imposes a tax on IE7 shoppers

#70

Post by epmatsw »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #69
phoboslab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad analogies. It would be reasonable to charge extra for anyone who enters a shop with a beautiful wooden floor wearing spikes on their shoes. Spikes induce extra maintenance costs - so does IE7.

No, that's ridiculous. This is like taxing the disabled because they cost more money.

That's equally ridiculous. Not upgrading your browser is a choice, being disabled is not.
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