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JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

blog.jquery.com

131–140 of 237 posts

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#131
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. It is extremely hard to support so many browsers. Try testing your website on 8 versions of Firefox, 5 versions of Internet Explorer (Mac and PC), 3 versions of Opera and 5 versions of Safari. Ironically, this is what jquery insulates you from to a degree, but at the same time it tends to stifle new features.

We're talking about supporting IE8, not every version of every browser that's ever been made. Where I work, we support browsers with over 2% of traffic, which means IE7,8,9, Chrome (latest), FF (latest and possibly 3.6 or something like that) and Safari (latest, IIRC, possibly latest + 1 older version.) The last 4 are largely the same, except for small bugs, and minor visual degradation is fine for the IEs. If your w…

I might have been a little unclear - I'm not currently developing (hope to soon). Of course it depends on your market - if your market is a whole bunch of corporations that have IE8, then use jquery 1.9.x... if 2% of your clients bring in a substantial amount of money and it's worth your while, then by all means develop for them.

But at some point, it becomes a zero-sum game. I believe this is what is happening with jquery: the amount of effort to support new features on older browsers (yes, that includes IE8) becomes less and less of an advantage. Hence their decision to compromise and support two versions of jquery, and have all or most of the new features implemented in the 2.0 version.

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#132
post #29

I don't know if I can get behind this or not. I understand their desire but I don't see this as a viable option just yet. I'm not so concerned with 2.0 and 1.9 as you can load the right one, but what about when 2.1 comes out? Are they going to back-port all the new features to 1.9.1? If not then I now have a big fragmentation issue if I rely on anything specific to 2.1. Don't forget that IE 8 is the last version XP w…

Don't be silly. There are alternative browsers. XP will not lack proper web access.

Yes, I realize corporate settings can be inflexible enough that it won't happen in some corporations, but isn't it a good thing that corporate IT get more pressure to accomodate?

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on that at all? I realise that Zepto covers a (very) small subset of jQuery functions, but I thought that in a lot of use cases it would be an appropriate substitute?

Last I checked zepto doesn't have support for any of the simulated selectors like `:checked`, `:input` and friends. If you use any of them, its not drop in.

If you build zepto with experimental CSS selectors you can. https://github.com/madrobby/zepto/blob/master/src/selector.j...

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#134

So does this mean that there will be ongoing development in the 1.9 line which will add new features available in the 2.0 line, or is this just the end of the line for IE If that's true, this seems like an odd line in the sand for them to draw. IE9 isn't available before Win7, so it can't die until users upgrade their OS. According to StatCounter[1], IE8 still represents 13.78% of Worldwide visits (plus 1.4% for IE7;…

You don't have to go from IE8 to IE9. You can go from IE8 to _any other browser_, and things will look up.

Tell that to corporate IT.

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#135
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so much BS. Like supporting old browsers is that hard/expensive. Everyone keeps saying that, but I have never ever seen numbers to back it up. Letting it all blow up in the user's face is not an option to me. And I do business with publicity agencies, they don't give a fuck about this stuff, as far as they know everyone owns the latest macbook.

No, it's not difficult to support oldIE. Single Column, nothing fancy. But the business people don't want that. They want it to look identical in every browser, and the web designers are scared shitless of losing money to tell them different. The problem is that business people don't know that hours of extra work are required to do this. And when they are told they don't care.

An old boring website?

No, that isn't that difficult.

Try to do an interactive webap.

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#136
post #120

Sorry, but this is a disaster. Dropping support for IE6 may be OK, IE7 is a bit too soon, but IE8? I haven't tested my stuff on IE6 and IE7 for a long time, but I still do it on IE8 everyday. It was released in 2009! And it's decent enough, PNG transparencies, etc. jQuery's main raison d'être might have gone out the window.

jQuery was never good at this. When I first used it on a project they had already drooped support for Safari 1.x, despite that being available version of Safari available for Mac OS X 10.4. I was, at the time, living with my girlfriend and a friend of hers, both of whom used 10.4 and Safari 1.x: it was honestly quite common among people who couldn't quite afford new computers. Regardless, when we sent the demo of our…

> When I first used it on a project they had already drooped support for Safari 1.x

Which was a perfectly sensible decision from a developer POV considering how bad Safari's JS and DOM support was until 3.x

> despite that being available version of Safari available for Mac OS X 10.4.

10.4 was released with Safari 2.0 and got updates up to 4.1.3. Are you talking about 10.3?

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#137
This is worst of both worlds. Compared to naming branches, they both encourage sites to unnecessarily break compatibility, and are held back from developing new features.

They should give 1.9, 2.0, and 2.1 names, and make 2.0 mainline, and call 1.9 "compat" or something and encourage the conditional comments. Then, soon, they should start working on 2.1, which isn't API compatible with a version that's compatible with IE 6/7/8. The current plans for 2.1 are an awfully long time to wait for features that aren't available with IE 6/7/8, for apps and sites that need such things (and have a target audience that is ready for it).

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#138

Sorry, but this is a disaster. Dropping support for IE6 may be OK, IE7 is a bit too soon, but IE8? I haven't tested my stuff on IE6 and IE7 for a long time, but I still do it on IE8 everyday. It was released in 2009! And it's decent enough, PNG transparencies, etc. jQuery's main raison d'être might have gone out the window.

> IE7 is a bit too soon, but IE8?... It was released in 2009! That's old! When JQuery 1.9 is released in 2013 it'll be four years old. Windows XP is eleven years old and will be end of lifed in early 2014. At what point will you pull the pin? I think this is a good roadmap for phasing out Old IE support. It's not like they're yanking the rug out from under you - 1.9.x will be around for a while yet.

It makes more sense to use the dates they were superseded, than to use the dates when they came out. Most new computers were still shipping Windows XP until Windows Vista came out in 2007. That's just over five years ago.

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#139
This is a retarded decision which I do not support.

IE6 fine, IE7 fine but not IE8. IE8 is required for most corporate environments where they haven't killed of Windows XP yet. That is a surprisingly large amount of people.

If this happens, we'll fork jQuery 1.9 and support it separately.

Re: JQuery 2.0 Drops Support for IE6/7/8; API-Compatible with jQuery 1.9.

#140

Sorry, but this is a disaster. Dropping support for IE6 may be OK, IE7 is a bit too soon, but IE8? I haven't tested my stuff on IE6 and IE7 for a long time, but I still do it on IE8 everyday. It was released in 2009! And it's decent enough, PNG transparencies, etc. jQuery's main raison d'être might have gone out the window.

How is this "dropping support" for old IE? They've said the 1.9 branch will still receive bug fixes for a while. I doubt they'll leave the 1.9 branch behind (in regards to new API features) until IE8 gets close to IE6's current market share.
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