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It's not just an upgrade issue. Many organisations aren't running Windows 10 and so have no browser upgrade path to Edge at all. Many organisations still have a

It's not just an upgrade issue. Many organisations aren't running Windows 10 and so have no browser upgrade path to Edge at all. Many organisations still have an older version of IE, probably IE11 but sometimes earlier, as their standard desktop browser. Experience tells us that those organisations aren't in a hurry to upgrade their standard desktop deployment just to get a new browser so web developers can play with the shiny new toys. Did we learn nothing from the XP and IE6 era? So it's all very well talking about newer JS features, but pragmatically, you can't just wish away the need for compatibility with browsers more than a year or two old if your target audience is businesses, governments, or other large organisations. There's an unhealthy complacency among parts of the web dev community, as if something being available in the latest Chrome canary now means it can be used everywhere. That's just not how a distributed system works when you don't fully control the client. Even if it were, you're not just going to retrofit something as significant as multi-threaded architecture into most existing JS code bases. Outside the HN bubble, not everyone gets to start a greenfield JS project every six months. I think aphextron's original comment was fair and realistic: as a practical matter, even with the rapid pace of change in the JS ecosystem, we still can't use a lot of day-to-day features in JS that would be routine in most other modern programming languages.

JimDabell 9y ago
> It's not just an upgrade issue. Many organisations aren't running Windows 10 and so have no browser upgrade path to Edge at all. Many organisations still have an older version of IE, probably IE11 but sometimes earlier, as their standard desktop browser. That's an upgrade issue. They are using older software and a feature you'd like to use is being added to a newer version of that software. Yes, upgrades aren't always convenient or timely, but it's still just an upgrade issue, not a technology you have to give up on because two major browser vendors aren't interested in developing it. > So it's all very well talking about newer JS features, but pragmatically, you can't just wish away the need for compatibility with browsers more than a year or two old if your target audience is businesses, governments, or other large organisations. I'm not wishing away the need to support older versions. I'm just saying that this is something we'll be able to use eventually, not something we'll never be able to use because two major browser vendors refuse to implement it. It's an upgrade issue.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Well, OK, but by that argument almost anything is just an upgrade issue, so I'm not sure that really gets us anywhere. In particular, it doesn't solve the practical problem that even with all the recent developments in the JS ecosystem, as things stand today a lot of front-end web developers don't have access to language features and programming techniques that are widely available in other environments. Unfortunately, this is just an inherent problem in the way that web tools have been repurposed for more general software development: the developers don't control a significant part of the infrastructure, so they will always have to code to the least common denominator among their target market.
  - JimDabell 9y ago
    > Well, OK, but by that argument almost anything is just an upgrade issue, so I'm not sure that really gets us anywhere. That makes no sense. My argument is very narrow, clearly applies here, and I don't see how it applies to "almost anything". > In particular, it doesn't solve the practical problem that even with all the recent developments in the JS ecosystem, as things stand today a lot of front-end web developers don't have access to language features and programming techniques that are widely available in other environments. That doesn't really have much to do with what I've been saying.
    - Silhouette 9y ago
      Maybe we're talking at cross-purposes, but you seem to be saying that (a) it doesn't matter that there was no support for a feature planned for IE, because it is planned for Edge and (b) IE and Edge are essentially the same browser, and one is just the upgrade for the other. I contend that this is what Microsoft's marketing department would like everyone to think, but the reality in larger organisations (and for those developing web sites and apps aimed at those organisations) is that they are two completely different browsers. In many cases, the only way you can "upgrade" from one to the other would be literally upgrading the entire organisation's standard desktop environment, including the OS. If you're going to contend that a missing feature in one product is only an upgrade issue because you can change the entire OS and then install a completely different product to do the same job and then get that feature then I don't know what wouldn't be "just" an upgrade issue.

JimDabell 9y ago

> It's not just an upgrade issue. Many organisations aren't running Windows 10 and so have no browser upgrade path to Edge at all. Many organisations still have an older version of IE, probably IE11 but sometimes earlier, as their standard desktop browser. That's an upgrade issue. They are using older software and a feature you'd like to use is being added to a newer version of that software. Yes, upgrades aren't always convenient or timely, but it's still just an upgrade issue, not a technology you have to give up on because two major browser vendors aren't interested in developing it. > So it's all very well talking about newer JS features, but pragmatically, you can't just wish away the need for compatibility with browsers more than a year or two old if your target audience is businesses, governments, or other large organisations. I'm not wishing away the need to support older versions. I'm just saying that this is something we'll be able to use eventually, not something we'll never be able to use because two major browser vendors refuse to implement it. It's an upgrade issue.

Silhouette 9y ago
Well, OK, but by that argument almost anything is just an upgrade issue, so I'm not sure that really gets us anywhere. In particular, it doesn't solve the practical problem that even with all the recent developments in the JS ecosystem, as things stand today a lot of front-end web developers don't have access to language features and programming techniques that are widely available in other environments. Unfortunately, this is just an inherent problem in the way that web tools have been repurposed for more general software development: the developers don't control a significant part of the infrastructure, so they will always have to code to the least common denominator among their target market.
- JimDabell 9y ago
  > Well, OK, but by that argument almost anything is just an upgrade issue, so I'm not sure that really gets us anywhere. That makes no sense. My argument is very narrow, clearly applies here, and I don't see how it applies to "almost anything". > In particular, it doesn't solve the practical problem that even with all the recent developments in the JS ecosystem, as things stand today a lot of front-end web developers don't have access to language features and programming techniques that are widely available in other environments. That doesn't really have much to do with what I've been saying.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    Maybe we're talking at cross-purposes, but you seem to be saying that (a) it doesn't matter that there was no support for a feature planned for IE, because it is planned for Edge and (b) IE and Edge are essentially the same browser, and one is just the upgrade for the other. I contend that this is what Microsoft's marketing department would like everyone to think, but the reality in larger organisations (and for those developing web sites and apps aimed at those organisations) is that they are two completely different browsers. In many cases, the only way you can "upgrade" from one to the other would be literally upgrading the entire organisation's standard desktop environment, including the OS. If you're going to contend that a missing feature in one product is only an upgrade issue because you can change the entire OS and then install a completely different product to do the same job and then get that feature then I don't know what wouldn't be "just" an upgrade issue.