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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#541

Post by sf_rob »

Jcowell wrote: post #504
sf_rob wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got an M1 Mac after years on Ubuntu, and decided to give Safari a go. I literally could not figure out how to search for an extension (the extension menu's search box searches the app store). I'm probably missing something obvious, but I'm quick to reject unintuitive consumer software so I'm typing this from Firefox. I know Firefox will inevitably decline one day, but honestly it's still a great browser and th…

The app store is the only place to get extensions. That’s why it’s directing you there to a launch page for Safari Extensions.

Yes, which is acceptable, but then if the extension you want is not in the curated sections you have to search for it as a general Mac App, AFAIK there is no "Safari Extension" filter.

This led me to accidentally install the LastPass desktop app, which I have much less in; I didn't see a LastPass webext despite being available on other WebKit browsers.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#542

Post by loo »

Spivak wrote: post #404
Dah00n wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point. The reason you don't see broken sites is because developers take extra time making sites work in Safari. They shouldn't have to. >My impression is the desire to have good mobile support keeps Safari support alive. I would very much argue the opposite. A good browser in iOS is directly against what Apple want (people in the app store, not in browsers). Safari is at best the absolute…

I always think this is odd. If Safari is as dire as people say then why not just develop in Safari first? If your site works there then it’ll just work in Chrome/Firefox/Edge right?

This argument applied similarly for IE6.

Like IE6, Safari is not a normative subset of web standards.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#543

Post by bastawhiz »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #18

> Because IE was seriously outdated, lacking support for cutting-edge web APIs and technologies enabling the modern websites and web apps we use today. This is just false, or at best only half of the story to make a false equivalence. IE was cutting edge until Firefox. The biggest problem with IE was all the insanely weird shit it did, not missing features. It would “fix” missing tags, that would then be broken on ev…

> IE was cutting edge until Firefox. The biggest problem with IE was all the insanely weird shit it did, not missing features.

This is completely incorrect. IE lacked CSS2, it lacked proper PNG support, it lacked HTML5 tag support for ages, its DOM implementation was missing functions for the DOM spec that it implemented, it lacked SVG support entirely, it didn't have meaningful developer tools (no, the browser toolbar didn't count because it crashed so much) until IE7... The list goes on. It's simply revisionist to say that IE wasn't missing features. It was nowhere close to the cutting edge, even when its releases were cut.

IE lacked just as much as it got wrong, even at the time.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#544

Post by fauigerzigerk »

throwawayswede wrote: post #478
DonHopkins wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means Brendan Eich is opposed to same sex marriage: Brendan doesn't believe that same sex couples should have equal rights as opposite sex couples. There's something about equality that deeply disturbs and confuses Brendan, so much that he donated a large amount of money to the cause of tearing apart families by destroying legally married loving couple's existing same sex marriages in California, while Brendan and…

Biden, Obama and Clinton were against same sex marriage until they "supposedly" switched. You can't judge a person based on what's reported on them. Have you read or talked to Brendan about why he thinks and why he thinks it? Being against same sex marriage does not necessarily mean he thinks same sex couple are lesser people or that he's greater than them, it means he has an opinion, people with means and opinions u…

>Fairness means equality of opportunity, not the equality of outcome. Arguing for the equality of outcome is tyrannical and pure evil.

Equal rights means equal opportunity though, not equal outcomes.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#545

Post by manigandham »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #18

> Because IE was seriously outdated, lacking support for cutting-edge web APIs and technologies enabling the modern websites and web apps we use today. This is just false, or at best only half of the story to make a false equivalence. IE was cutting edge until Firefox. The biggest problem with IE was all the insanely weird shit it did, not missing features. It would “fix” missing tags, that would then be broken on ev…

Both stories are correct.

IE was far ahead of its time in the beginning, bringing us advancements like XmlHttpRequest which set the stage for websites to become webapps. Eventually though the entire team behind it was disbanded and dissolved into other divisions, which let the technical debt accumulate into the eventual mess.

What made it so bad is that web technologies started to progress faster and faster, constantly building pressure on IE to adapt, but it just couldn't be made to work across all of the integrations with Windows, plugins like ActiveX, historic compatibility promises, enterprise policies, and newer rendering stacks used by Firefox and Chrome. Perhaps they should've retired several years earlier or brought out Edge sooner, but the IE story has both a terrific rise and a crazy fall.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#546

Post by marcellus23 »

carlosrg wrote: post #301
simondotau wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think Apple holding the line on browser push might be the single greatest thing Apple has done for the web in the past decade. Meanwhile Google is moving the goalposts of "modern" web development so fast that it's nearly impossible for anyone to keep up. I can't believe the hacker community is so enthusiastic about this—you couldn't get a more canonical example of embrace, extend, extinguish as applied t…

> Meanwhile Google is moving the goalposts of "modern" web development so fast that it's nearly impossible for anyone to keep up. For a second I thought you were talking about Apple’s UI frameworks and languages, with all the different Swift versions over the last couple of years and different UI frameworks like Cocoa, Catalyst, and SwiftUI, deprecation of OpenGL and introduction of their own graphics API, etc.

Uh, what? The UI framework story is pretty simple.

There used to be frameworks specific to each platform (AppKit, UIKit, WatchKit...). SwiftUI replaces those with a cross-platform solution, but it's not all there yet.

Catalyst is basically a sort of stop-gap to let devs easily convert Cocoa Touch apps for Mac.

Long-term, SwiftUI is the only thing that will matter.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#547

Post by yourenotsmart »

Scottopherson wrote: post #414
yourenotsmart wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim Safari is so behind in CSS that it's "quite funny" to discuss making a simple HTML and CSS site in it. And you didn't bother to name even one important missing CSS feature. Very low effort. If you want to be taken seriously, bring some facts and examples next time, not just generic internet flamebait.

> web devs are among the least educated, least sophisticated, most entitled and most whiny bunch there is Of course, you're not spitting out generic flamebait with no backing evidence. That would be very low effort.

The comment I was replying to can serve as evidence.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#548

Post by SimeVidas »

Leherenn wrote: post #343
SimeVidas wrote: post #67

> Further contributing to the frustration is the fact that unlike Chrome or Firefox, Safari updates are not automatic on regular basis. They’re only shipped together with the infrequent updates to the entire OS. I wouldn’t say twice a year is infrequent.

The bigger issue for me is how coupled the OS and Safari updates are. Apple is great at keeping their phone updated, but once it stops, everything stops. My iPhone 6 is on iOS 12, which means Safari 12 and no way to get the latest updates. Android support is dreadful, but at least you can run the latest Chrome on Android 4.

This would be a bigger issue if Apple cut off support for older phones like Android vendors do. The iPhone 6 got OS updates for 5 and a half years. I think that’s enough. It’s actually impressive that Apple created a phone that still works well enough after 7 years that some people continue to use it.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#549

Post by zdragnar »

tinus_hn wrote: post #534
zdragnar wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so wrong it hurts. I know businesses that had to decide between making a mobile PWA style website or a native app for their customers to use... and the customers all wanted the website . No sitting around waiting to download and install updates. No corporate phone-wiping security policies. All the features that mattered, even if Safari didn't look quite as nice and missed one or two. PWA vs native app doesn't…

I’d be interested to see how the customers made an informed choice between a non existent native app and a PWA app. Probably they made the choice after listening to an opinionated story about ‘sitting around waiting for updates’. Which nobody does, of course, because if you mind that you just turn on automatic background updates. At least in this story Safari is good enough to have the features that matter. The world…

As for an informed choice, the company (and their clients) that I am thinking of is in a crowded market. Not having to make employees download a new app ended up being a surprisingly (to us) compelling selling point.

As for safari, we supported IE11, chrome, Firefox, mobile / android chrome, desktop and mobile safari. Safari easily added about 10% to our development budget, and safari users got a downgraded experience in certain cases. Not ideal, but close enough for me to not feel bad calling it the "new IE" (and yeah, I remember developing sites for IE 5.5 and 6).

Edit: speaking of auto updates, I have it turned on myself, and just yesterday had to wait around to update my mobile bank app to virtually deposit a check- log in, get kicked out to update, wait to download and install, then log in again before I could proceed. Not sure why, but auto update isn't a cure-all.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#550

Post by mmis1000 »

jw14 wrote: post #52
kouteiheika wrote: post #10

Speaking from personal experience as a developer (although YMMV) - this is totally true. And I'm not even talking about some newfangled APIs like WebUSB and such (I don't really care about those personally). Safari's handling of regular HTML + CSS is regularly broken compared to other browsers. (At least in my experience.) Open the site in Chromium. Yep it works. Open the site in Firefox. Yep it works. Open the site…

Broken HTML+CSS in Safari? Examples? I started using Safari as my daily driver because I use all apple devices and I like extending my battery life. Before deciding that, I did stints with Firefox and Brave, both of whom had poor sync'ing. I can't remember the last time a site had broken HTML/CSS with Safari. My impression is the desire to have good mobile support keeps Safari support alive. I think I encountered mor…

Safari didn't repaint scroll-attached linear gradient background on container content change (thus resized). If you don't also recreate the container. Your background is going to be screwed.
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