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Like doing the impossible? Create a responsive layout with 3 sections (header, content, sidebar) that will look exactly the same in the given browsers (at the s

Like doing the impossible? Create a responsive layout with 3 sections (header, content, sidebar) that will look exactly the same in the given browsers (at the same resolution) while still looking great on mobile, without any JavaScript or even server-side feature detection. Bonus points for minimal number of CSS hacks. Seriously, remembering the stuff I had to deal with, in today's world of the "modern browsers", I feel like I changed my profession completely. In other words, I'm afraid that me from 10 years ago wouldn't be able to understand so much from the front-end code I write these days and I'm also not sure about the vice versa. The opposite are, although that I don't enjoy the language too much, my Java projects which feel like they are immortal. I wonder if and when JavaScript will be that mature.

mikekchar 10y ago
Not really an apples to apples comparison. With JS and the browser, you are distributing the runtime libraries separately from the application. Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. The other thing is that Sun owned the standard. So even if you were IBM and were making your own runtime environment, you couldn't call it Java unless Sun agreed. Imagine if you had multiple vendors supplying a JRE and several of them were intentionally breaking their versions to lock users into their implementation. Lately the browser vendors have started to work a little bit better with each other, but I doubt it will ever be like Java.
- egeozcan 10y ago
  Yes, you are right. I wasn't complaining though, as I understand the reason behind the current state of things. It was more of a wish, to be clear. However, in the end, we are still getting something close to Java with Web Assembly (Stable byte-code-like platform and potentially many languages targeting it).
- pvg 10y ago
  Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. You don't have to imagine. Just tried it: http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png Netscape IFC, 1996-1997 vintage. Compiles and runs like a champ on JDK 8, current OS X. Just like it did on JDK 1.
lojack 10y ago
I could do it if there was reasonable limits on the viewport size of IE browsers. For instance, if the IE6 window will always be at least 1024px wide. Once you need to give IE6 responsiveness, the only way I could imagine doing it would rely almost exclusively on CSS hacks.

mikekchar 10y ago

Not really an apples to apples comparison. With JS and the browser, you are distributing the runtime libraries separately from the application. Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. The other thing is that Sun owned the standard. So even if you were IBM and were making your own runtime environment, you couldn't call it Java unless Sun agreed. Imagine if you had multiple vendors supplying a JRE and several of them were intentionally breaking their versions to lock users into their implementation. Lately the browser vendors have started to work a little bit better with each other, but I doubt it will ever be like Java.

egeozcan 10y ago
Yes, you are right. I wasn't complaining though, as I understand the reason behind the current state of things. It was more of a wish, to be clear. However, in the end, we are still getting something close to Java with Web Assembly (Stable byte-code-like platform and potentially many languages targeting it).
pvg 10y ago
Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. You don't have to imagine. Just tried it: http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png Netscape IFC, 1996-1997 vintage. Compiles and runs like a champ on JDK 8, current OS X. Just like it did on JDK 1.

lojack 10y ago

I could do it if there was reasonable limits on the viewport size of IE browsers. For instance, if the IE6 window will always be at least 1024px wide. Once you need to give IE6 responsiveness, the only way I could imagine doing it would rely almost exclusively on CSS hacks.