5 ms·

Days of the old web where flash was pervasive and best viewed in [IE6|Netscape|Mosaic|...] pages were everywhere. Every generation of the web has had really cra

by nkassis 10y ago

Days of the old web where flash was pervasive and best viewed in [IE6|Netscape|Mosaic|...] pages were everywhere. Every generation of the web has had really crappy devs building bad experiences. The current generation is not making anything worse than it's predecessor.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
>... is not making anything worse... That's a pretty low bar.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  Maybe, but it's an accurate assessment to someone pining for the "old days"...
TorKlingberg 10y ago
"best viewed in Chrome" is getting annoyingly common.
- inanutshellus 10y ago
  Bank Of America recently told me it only supported Safari and Chrome on MacOS... But... supported Firefox on Windows. Whaaaa....
  - clarry 10y ago
    And my bank keeps constantly nagging me that my browser (Firefox LTS) is no longer supported and that I must update immediately.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    "Support" means they are on the hook if something is broken. Every OS/browser combination is a cost center and potential liability.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    I called my bank because I couldn't log in "We recommend Internet Explorer."
inanutshellus 10y ago
My current-favorite problem with modern web development is mobile-specific redirection. e.g. you click a link in your email and it takes you to "www.foo.com/somethingWithParametersAndImportantStuff", foo.com detects you're on a phone and redirects you to their mobile homepage at "m.foo.com", blowing away your URL or even better not supporting your particular URL's page in the mobile site... where... your mobile browser could've just rendered the original site, albeit pinched. It comes to mind because I'm currently dealing with this as an issue with UPS.com. We're halfway to 2017, people! How can we be having these problems.... :-)
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Digression: 'clicking on a link' may become an obscure reference soon, like dialing a phone. How many young people ever use a mouse?
  - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
    Any young person ( please define) who has ever used a desktop computer?
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    I'm very curious about this: is there a hypothesis that non-mobile computers are going away in the business world and/or that "young people" will not be involved in that world? I don't know the stats - are tablets making big inroads in business computing?
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Dunno. But my niece and nephew are tablet/phone experts, and have never used a mouse. And they are 4 and 6.
      - clarry 10y ago
        I think that just means new computing devices have expanded the market, not replaced old devices. Some functionality that was once used exclusively on PCs (what else did you have?) may now be more commonly accessed via mobile devices. You didn't have a PC in your pocket when you needed to look up directions on a map..
clarry 10y ago
Well, "your browser is unsupported" is something I still live with. And on the other hand, if I don't have the setup the developer expects, things just quietly break with nothing to tell me what's up. How is that better? Flash never really was a problem for me; very very few used it for anything critical. It was mostly for entertainment and media that has no value for me. I lived just fine with no flash installed, and got performance & security benefits for simply not having it. Living with JS (and other obnoxious features) disabled, on the other hand, has gotten really fucking difficult now. And frankly the "best viewed in whatever" websites weren't a problem either. On one hand it was mostly fanboyism. On the other, web designers using some niche feature that had no real impact on functionality or my ability to read & navigate the content. Again, I don't recall ever having to switch to another browser because of that. So it really was better for me back in the day.
- nkassis 10y ago
  "Flash never really was a problem for me; very very few used it for anything critical." Actually there was a period (end of the 90s, early 2000s) where flash was pervasively used to build entire sites. They were worse than single pages app of today. Completely broke browser history, urls etc... Those are similar complaints to today but now that APIs and workaround exit, it's mostly laziness that prevent people from properly building apps that avoid these pitfalls. "And frankly the "best viewed in whatever" websites weren't a problem either". There were days where not having a windows machine with IE installed meant not being able to bank online, access university course website etc... This is no longer an issue that I run into much in 2016. "Living with JS (and other obnoxious features) disabled, on the other hand, has gotten really fucking difficult now." That used to be the case too with Flash (and java to a smaller extent). Without flash many many sites were completely broken. This obviously got better with time to the point where it's hard to remember but it was pretty horrible to try to use the web without flash circa 2000-2006 or so. I get that some want JS disabled but it's the only cross browser method of achieving certain interactive experiences on the web. It's not new technology and has been around since the earliest days of the web. The percentage of people with JS disabled is so low (less than 1% in sites on many sites I've dealt with) that it was very hard to justify the added effort to support both (in the case of the sites I worked on, they were large enough that the effort was made). As the web becomes used for more and more use cases, it's going to be hard to keep accommodating a very small minority of users. If JS wasn't there, something else would have to exist to do what it does.
otabdeveloper1 10y ago
> ...and best viewed in [IE6|Netscape|Mosaic|...] pages were everywhere We have "best viewed in Chrome" today, which is no different.
- nkassis 10y ago
  nope I agree, like I said it's as bad as it ever was. The past wasn't better.

by nkassis 10y ago

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

>... is not making anything worse... That's a pretty low bar.

jdmichal 10y ago
Maybe, but it's an accurate assessment to someone pining for the "old days"...

TorKlingberg 10y ago

"best viewed in Chrome" is getting annoyingly common.

inanutshellus 10y ago
Bank Of America recently told me it only supported Safari and Chrome on MacOS... But... supported Firefox on Windows. Whaaaa....
- clarry 10y ago
  And my bank keeps constantly nagging me that my browser (Firefox LTS) is no longer supported and that I must update immediately.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  "Support" means they are on the hook if something is broken. Every OS/browser combination is a cost center and potential liability.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  I called my bank because I couldn't log in "We recommend Internet Explorer."

inanutshellus 10y ago

My current-favorite problem with modern web development is mobile-specific redirection. e.g. you click a link in your email and it takes you to "www.foo.com/somethingWithParametersAndImportantStuff", foo.com detects you're on a phone and redirects you to their mobile homepage at "m.foo.com", blowing away your URL or even better not supporting your particular URL's page in the mobile site... where... your mobile browser could've just rendered the original site, albeit pinched. It comes to mind because I'm currently dealing with this as an issue with UPS.com. We're halfway to 2017, people! How can we be having these problems.... :-)

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Digression: 'clicking on a link' may become an obscure reference soon, like dialing a phone. How many young people ever use a mouse?
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
  Any young person ( please define) who has ever used a desktop computer?
- sanderjd 10y ago
  I'm very curious about this: is there a hypothesis that non-mobile computers are going away in the business world and/or that "young people" will not be involved in that world? I don't know the stats - are tablets making big inroads in business computing?
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Dunno. But my niece and nephew are tablet/phone experts, and have never used a mouse. And they are 4 and 6.
    - clarry 10y ago
      I think that just means new computing devices have expanded the market, not replaced old devices. Some functionality that was once used exclusively on PCs (what else did you have?) may now be more commonly accessed via mobile devices. You didn't have a PC in your pocket when you needed to look up directions on a map..

clarry 10y ago

Well, "your browser is unsupported" is something I still live with. And on the other hand, if I don't have the setup the developer expects, things just quietly break with nothing to tell me what's up. How is that better? Flash never really was a problem for me; very very few used it for anything critical. It was mostly for entertainment and media that has no value for me. I lived just fine with no flash installed, and got performance & security benefits for simply not having it. Living with JS (and other obnoxious features) disabled, on the other hand, has gotten really fucking difficult now. And frankly the "best viewed in whatever" websites weren't a problem either. On one hand it was mostly fanboyism. On the other, web designers using some niche feature that had no real impact on functionality or my ability to read & navigate the content. Again, I don't recall ever having to switch to another browser because of that. So it really was better for me back in the day.

nkassis 10y ago
"Flash never really was a problem for me; very very few used it for anything critical." Actually there was a period (end of the 90s, early 2000s) where flash was pervasively used to build entire sites. They were worse than single pages app of today. Completely broke browser history, urls etc... Those are similar complaints to today but now that APIs and workaround exit, it's mostly laziness that prevent people from properly building apps that avoid these pitfalls. "And frankly the "best viewed in whatever" websites weren't a problem either". There were days where not having a windows machine with IE installed meant not being able to bank online, access university course website etc... This is no longer an issue that I run into much in 2016. "Living with JS (and other obnoxious features) disabled, on the other hand, has gotten really fucking difficult now." That used to be the case too with Flash (and java to a smaller extent). Without flash many many sites were completely broken. This obviously got better with time to the point where it's hard to remember but it was pretty horrible to try to use the web without flash circa 2000-2006 or so. I get that some want JS disabled but it's the only cross browser method of achieving certain interactive experiences on the web. It's not new technology and has been around since the earliest days of the web. The percentage of people with JS disabled is so low (less than 1% in sites on many sites I've dealt with) that it was very hard to justify the added effort to support both (in the case of the sites I worked on, they were large enough that the effort was made). As the web becomes used for more and more use cases, it's going to be hard to keep accommodating a very small minority of users. If JS wasn't there, something else would have to exist to do what it does.

otabdeveloper1 10y ago

> ...and best viewed in [IE6|Netscape|Mosaic|...] pages were everywhere We have "best viewed in Chrome" today, which is no different.

nkassis 10y ago
nope I agree, like I said it's as bad as it ever was. The past wasn't better.