211–220 of 226 posts
it would be nice to see a 2.0 vs 1.9 bench on FF/Chrome/IE9+, much more interested in that than a non-noticeable 11k size reduction for the end user (maybe only slightly noticeable on very slow mobile).
Yeah, I was also scratching my head as to the 'performance' gains. Even if jQuery 2.0 has computational benchmark gains they also are likely insignificant in proper context.
2.0 is slightly faster on every measures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How relevant will IE8 be in just two years, though? That very much depends on your target audience. For home users IE8 is pretty much dead already, the only subset of people stuck there are the few who are using XP and have not switched to Firefox/Chrome/other. As more and more game-y things on the web start demanding newer features rather than creating/using/supporting fallback options for IE8 (canvas in particula…
XP falls out of support next year: any bank using it would be going against very strong security guidance from Microsoft. Once you're on non-antique Windows, there's nothing preventing you from going all the way to IE10 which, again, starts getting into situations where not upgrading for security reasons starts approaching negligence.
But Vista and 7 do not, and you can can run IE8 on them just fine. IE8 itself is supported as long as Windows 7 is, which is Janurary 2020 for the extended support phase.
> Once you're on non-antique Windows, there's nothing preventing you from going all the way to IE10
Nothing. Nothing at all. Unless you consider a large collection of legacy applications that either just plain don't work in anything other than legacy IE or simply haven't been tested (and signed-off as compatible and SLA-covered by the supplier) in anything else.
They can't take the risk of not getting getting those apps thoroughly tested before upgrading and that will cost money (as will any changes, or complete replacemets, needed) and more importantly a huge amount of time (nothing moves quickly inside a bank no matter how hard enthustic and/or concerned people push - organisations of that size have trouble working up the inertia for significant internal changes).
My suggestion has always been to install something else alongside IE and migrate that way: keeping IE around for those applications that require it (or have not been signed-off as working well on something else) but having something better for applications that don't rely on "classic" IE's excetricities. I get funny looks for that suggestion though - the thought of training users to cope with two programs where they once had one seems to trike TS people cold.
> approaching negligence
One of the key drivers working against building up change inertia is fear of neglidence (or accusations there-of). Large organisations have a significan aversion to risk, organisations within regulated industries (where you may do more than fail: you may fail and pick up a hefty fine and/or loss of license along the way) in particular, if they were people you'd probably call them neurotic on the matter. Change without sufficient plannig is a form of negligence, and fear of this is a large part of what adds friction to any forward movement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is the classic open-source "fuck you with a smile" response. Since open source is free and open, it really can't fuck you †. You can however screw yourself by relying on it to do your work for you. As you say, few people have the skills, time and desire to fix these sorts of problems, and that means you can't rely on open source to fix them for you. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this called "money…
I like how you denied the "fuck you with a smile" response with the very "fuck you with a smile" response he was complaining about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is shitty about it? Old browsers can still display text, images and hyperlinks. There are millions of use-cases perfectly covered by them.
For starters, users expect modern-looking websites. That includes users on old browsers, thanks to the amount of bending over backwards done in the web industry to provide those users with as much of the modern browsing experience as possible. If you serve up a page looking like the c2.com wiki to a non-technical user, they're not going to be too happy about it. Far more so than that, though, what's shitty about havi…
Secondly, you don't have to design 1:1 pixel-perfect copy of your website that looks the same on all browsers.
The main thing - if your developers cannot degrade the website functionality - they are seriously doing something wrong - get more experienced
You can as well design Flash site and call it "progress" and tell the rest of our users to go somewhere else. Now, how is it different from other "modern" technologies? Its W3C support?
"but that doesn't mean an iPhone app developer is going to want to spend time porting his apps to one."
If your customers still use Palm Pilot, then why would you design your site ONLY FOR IPHONE??????
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really going to give them better experience (IE8 vs whatever latest chrome)? What is it going to be?
By not supporting old browsers with all of their inconsistencies, a team can save a significant amount of development time. That development time can then go directly towards new features, bug fixes, etc. It's not so much that the latest browsers can do so many new things (though in some cases it's that as well), it's that you can actually develop for them efficiently without diving into a rabbit hole of IE compatibi…
And if you don't develop cross-platform because of lack of time this is fine. Please, don't cover it with insults about dumb CEOs and ignorant lame users - bad excuse for bad programming habits (not personal, just generalisation).
Again, there is no technical reason not to give workable version of the website to all major browser users. It doesn't have to be a pixel-perfect copy. It just has to work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By not supporting old browsers with all of their inconsistencies, a team can save a significant amount of development time. That development time can then go directly towards new features, bug fixes, etc. It's not so much that the latest browsers can do so many new things (though in some cases it's that as well), it's that you can actually develop for them efficiently without diving into a rabbit hole of IE compatibi…
Of course, it is easier to support only 1 mature platform , 1 database, 1 application server, 1 library of whatever. However we don't have this luxury even on the backend, and you cannot seriously expect it to be different for browsers. And if you don't develop cross-platform because of lack of time this is fine. Please, don't cover it with insults about dumb CEOs and ignorant lame users - bad excuse for bad programm…
I didn't insult anyone, CEOs or users, so your generalization is a very poor one.
The technical reason for not giving a workable version to IE6 is that it can take as long to make a workable version for IE6 as for all other browsers combined. IE8 is not that bad, but it's similar in principle. If I have to spend 50% of my time on 10% of my users, I'm better off doing twice as much for the other 90%.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For starters, users expect modern-looking websites. That includes users on old browsers, thanks to the amount of bending over backwards done in the web industry to provide those users with as much of the modern browsing experience as possible. If you serve up a page looking like the c2.com wiki to a non-technical user, they're not going to be too happy about it. Far more so than that, though, what's shitty about havi…
Even if the users expect "modern-looking" websites - it is not something that cannot be done with IE6. Secondly, you don't have to design 1:1 pixel-perfect copy of your website that looks the same on all browsers. The main thing - if your developers cannot degrade the website functionality - they are seriously doing something wrong - get more experienced You can as well design Flash site and call it "progress" and te…
If your customers still use Palm Pilot, you've chosen the wrong market segment. Yes, make something people want, but you're allowed to be selective about who those people are. If you're a hacker, it's very likely because you enjoy creating and working on interesting and fun things. Making websites work in IE6 is not a fun thing. There is enough value waiting to be created that we don't have to waste our talents and energy on this kind of nonsense.
I am not too troubled by the drop of support of IE 6/7/8. As long as they continue to support IE8 in 1.9 until Windows XP EOL next year I don't really see a problem. Asking jQuery to support those browsers longer than Microsoft itself is willing do seems a bit harsh.
While I agree with jQuery's decision here, this isn't really fair right? Windows XP and most old stand-alone software they have installed will continue to work after MS drops support.
When we're talking about the web, a reasonable effort should be made to support those legacy users. Of course, you can only do so much, but according to the general consensus in these comments, that's around 10% of visitors. Whether or not dropping them is worth saving the 12% in code size, is a different question.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is the classic open-source "fuck you with a smile" response. Since open source is free and open, it really can't fuck you †. You can however screw yourself by relying on it to do your work for you. As you say, few people have the skills, time and desire to fix these sorts of problems, and that means you can't rely on open source to fix them for you. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this called "money…
I like how you denied the "fuck you with a smile" response with the very "fuck you with a smile" response he was complaining about.