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

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

#161

Post by gouranga »

steve-sanderson wrote: post #158
gouranga wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because historically jQuery has been a buggy pos that we've had to work around a lot.

Really? That seems a little harsh. It's free, it's open source, and it's made web development hugely more productive for massive numbers of us for the last 5 years or so.

That it has, but it has still been very buggy for us. We use a number of commercial and open source products and it's the worst supported, least reliable of the lot. The developers don't seem to take defect reports seriously, there is no consistency between releases and the plugin ecosystem is like a landfill site (full of poorly written crap with a few gems here and there).

I genuinely wish at this point that we'd written our own smaller, tighter framework. Unfortunately, a huge amount of lock in is present now, so it's a case of trashing it entirely.

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

#162

Post by mpd »

alttab wrote: post #104
barryfandango wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app I work on dropped IE7 a year ago, and is dropping IE8 in January 2013. Therefore this is the opposite of a disaster, pretty timely actually. They're pretty clear that 1.9 and 2.0 will have API compatibility so there is an option for those who still have to support oldIE and one for those who don't have to. Seems like the best possible arrangement.

API comparability does not ensure functional comparability. Two code bases too.

Unless users of oldIE versions contribute more revenue than it takes to support them (which is obviously app/site-specific), screw them. It's simple economics.

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

#163

Post by mpd »

Uchikoma wrote: post #116

For all the "just upgrade" comments: Internal IT departments have no, no, no incentive to upgrade browsers. "Surfing the internet" is not a reason for IT departments to upgrade.

Then they will be left in the past. It's unreasonable to expect me to hold my own product back because of lazy corp IT depts.

Unless they are contributing more revenue than it takes to support them, screw them. For me at least, this is not remotely the case and I'm happy to leave them in the dust.

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

#164

Post by mpd »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #21
redslazer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

huh?

IE 7 and 8 are still a huge chunk of the market, and they dont support CSS3.

The important metric is how much of a chunk they are to your business. You shouldn't care if some other site (or all other sites!) have significant traffic from such old browsers. Measure your traffic.

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

#165

Post by sanswork »

gouranga wrote: post #160
sanswork wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument doesn't really hold though. You're not upgrading your base(the OS) to fix the problems with it yet you're complaining about a minor(in the grand scheme of things) library removing support in a modern version. If your network is closed off like the NHS one you mention, why not just stick with the old versions you've already fixed? It's like complaining your 56' Chevy doesn't work with the new battery tec…

The problem comes is that the older versions that we've fixed have the fixes integrated in later versions. We really don't want to have to maintain the versions that we've fixed as that kills the entire value proposition of using it in the first place. It's nothing like the 56' Chevy / Volt analogy. The technology is the same - they just can't be bothered with supporting one vendor's product any more.

Why do those fixes matter? Again if you're in a closed environment then you can surely control the versions of a JS library. So fix it until it works in your space then move on. Them dropping support for your outdated choice of platform isn't a problem. Your desire to use cutting edge software with your outdated platform is the problem.

Picking a platform and sticking with it is a nobel and occasionally needed position to have. Expecting everyone else to hold themselves back because you chose to do so is impossibly greedy however.

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

#166

Post by chris_wot »

drummer32 wrote: post #144
chris_wot wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, nobody uses Windows update?

yes, a lot of people (generally the people who don't know what a browser is) don't. Also IE8 is the last available browser on winXP.

That's hardly the point - the original poster was complaining about the default browser on Windows 7.

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

#167

Post by nilliams »

I think there's a key point that hasn't been mentioned yet, that there may just be no need to deliver JavaScript to IE 6-8 at all. A lot of smart devs are already taking a similar approach with CSS, serving up a minimal 'print' stylesheet for oldIE [1] [2].

- If you're using JS for progressive enhancement on an otherwise static site, e.g. form validation, pjax, image carousels, tabs, animations... simply drop that JS for 6-8. Form validation should just round-trip to the server as it has to do anyway, pages should just link normally, other visual enhancements can be dropped. That's the progressive enhancement way after all.

- If you're trying to build a single-page web app for IE 6-8 and this is your reason for wanting jQuery to work, then you're going to find those browsers have JS engines that are incredibly slow and a JS-heavy web app for oldIE is not going to deliver a good user experience even if you get it to 'work'. I think frankly this is an unrealistic goal from the get-go. The pitiful speed of JS on these browsers is something that does seem to be often overlooked.

If you absolutely have to push a single-page web app to a corporate customer stuck on oldIE, Chrome Frame is a very sensible option. This has served us well and we've yet to encounter a customer who complains, as long as you give them plenty of forewarning and explanation. It can be tied down to only trigger on your site, so sysadmins really have nothing to gripe about with respect to FUD about attack vectors etc.

Anyway I'm not saying 'you definitely shouldn't be serving JS to oldIE' I'm just putting it out there as something to consider, as usual in this business there's no single answer.

[1] http://css-tricks.com/ (serves a print stylesheet for oldIE - possibly just IE6 I forget)

[2] http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/universal_inter...

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

#168

Post by rmc »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #41
51Cards wrote: 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…

>JQuery has just set a time limit on proper web access for an entire OS. doesnt chrome work on xp?

Firefox aswell

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

#169

Post by skyhook_mockups »

alttab wrote: post #101
gilini wrote: 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.

I'll tell you the numbers. We spend way too much effort trying to make our sophisticated web app work with ie7. The industry demands innovation in ux but it's nearly impossible to provide it when you are writing for 4 browsers. In a lot of cases we struggle for hours on one problem and end up writing a separate implementation for that feature that doesn't perform as well. Now we have segmentation in experience, help…

Why not use chrome frame for ie users? If you're building a 'sophisticated web app' then you really are nuts to try to support way back to ie7.

Chrome frame takes about 30-45 sec to DL & install. Doesn't require a browser restart and doesn't require admin rights. Its incredibly slick. and then you're free to work with HTML5 and CSS3 in ie6+

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

#170

Post by dspillett »

tambourine_man wrote: post #31
wycats wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise is that jQuery 1.9 and 2.0 are API-compatible, so you can do something like: New browsers will get a lighter download and a faster runtime. oldIE will still work with all the hacks required to make it work.

We deal with enough conditionals already. Besides, sharing the same API won't stop you from bumping into some bug that's present in one version and not the other. We'll have to deal with two codebases. Download and runtime speed are not a problem on the Desktop. They should have had the guts to admit that this is all about mobile. Their denial at the end of the post is symptomatic.

> Download and runtime speed are not a problem on the Desktop.

When I'm stuck in the wilderness with nothing but an atom based netbook tethered to a patchy and expensive GPRS connection, I beg to differ.

Anyway, it isn't just about your bandwidth to your desktop - if each user is transferring less it can be significant for the server-side.

If they make proper efforts to maintain 1.9.x for a goodly amount of time the "hitting a bug in one version but not the other" issue shouldn't be more significant than the current "hitting a bug in a third party library (jQuery) which I don't have the expertise to locate+fix" issue that we already have to consider. Of course the "if" at the start of that sentence could be cause for concern but I think the jQuery project has done well enough at QA in the past for me to give them the benefit of the doubt (or at least to reserve judgment) at this point.

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