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I'd consider supporting IE8 an anti-feature. The browser is insecure, unsupported, and non-standards compliant. I've spent way too many hours of my life learni

I'd consider supporting IE8 an anti-feature. The browser is insecure, unsupported, and non-standards compliant. I've spent way too many hours of my life learning quirks of the horrible piece of garbage that is IE8. I don't think I hate any other piece of software as much. If I had to support IE8 I'd instead try to make the site work without any JS. Anything even moderately complex would run horribly anyway.

webster23 9y ago
I think the reason for the IE8 support is that there are still lots of old windows machines used in china. And if you think IE8 is bad, have you ever had to support IE6? ;-)
- git-pull 9y ago
  IE 5.5 with no box models would be a contender [1] At Social Amp (2012), I was making cross domain single-page applications for sites like 1-800-Flowers, where we had to support back to IE6, but, since a tag was missing from the main website, we had to do some hacks to "shore up" IE6 so the padding would be there. It's feasible to have some pretty sweet JS (backbone.js, easyxdm) on IE6. The limitation came from the engine's performance, stylesheet and js caps, and really strict rules on, dangling commas (memory is a bit fuzzy in which instances, but it'd crash our whole script). In some cases, there'd be no errors, and it'd just freeze it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_box_model_bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_box_model_bu...
  - bonzini 9y ago
    Border-box is arguably more useful than content-box, so the IE5.5 is not a huge deal. You can make other browsers act like IE5.5. Back in the day it was quite a PITA though.
- Touche 9y ago
  People who say this rarely have tried using a SPA on IE8. As the OP said, you'll provide a better experience giving them a pain ole server rendered app.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  > IE6 Jesus... And I thought IE11 was bad (enterprise SaaS such as Salesforce is dropping its support already). I’ve tried to run IE11 debugger on Virtualbox and it was slow as molasses.
synapseradio 9y ago
It looks like these guys are from China, where ie8 support still makes sense. It's still used a lot there unfortunately.
mhd 9y ago
Making a site written in React work without JS is quite an endeavor. If you’re not just using it for some progressive enhancement (and frankly, that seems a dying art), then it’s either a whole new backend or trying to be “isomorphic”. The latter is somewhat difficult in an environment where IE8 is a factor (node as enterprise backend software is often a no-go).
- patrickthebold 9y ago
  You can use Java/nashorn for server side rendering of react.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    ... you can also use react for server-side rendering of react
- betenoire 9y ago
  You say isomorphic almost like you dismiss it. I structured my site so that, in the worst case, the user has a plain old site of HTML + CSS and lots of hyperlinks that work just fine. My drop down headers default to pages that show the drop down content. The embarrassing part was I had a simple bug affecting a sizable chunk of my user-base. In a certain browser, no code would run. But I never received a single complaint, because no one noticed. Sure, some fancy extras didn't work, but they are used to that with that particular browser. The information and required functionality was there. And I didn't have to write it in both PHP AND Javascript.
ng12 9y ago
I think you underestimate how much money is made selling software to firms who still use IE8.
muglug 9y ago
> I've spent way too many hours of my life learning quirks of the horrible piece of garbage that is IE8 Son, let me tell you about Netscape 4...
- city41 9y ago
  But Chrome and Firefox are IE8 contemporaries. IE8 was just abysmal considering its competition.
DogPawHat 9y ago
I still remember the horror when I learned the Sharepoint 2010 site i was pulled off React/Typescript for only supported IE8. And then learning the client was actually (slowly going down) our biggest source of revenue, and has so much stuff on SP2010 migrating away or upgrading SharePoint is out of the question. I would'nt like to keep IE8 alive, sooner enterprises can't throw any more money at the problem, sooner we all get big paydays from the migration projects.

webster23 9y ago

I think the reason for the IE8 support is that there are still lots of old windows machines used in china. And if you think IE8 is bad, have you ever had to support IE6? ;-)

git-pull 9y ago
IE 5.5 with no box models would be a contender [1] At Social Amp (2012), I was making cross domain single-page applications for sites like 1-800-Flowers, where we had to support back to IE6, but, since a tag was missing from the main website, we had to do some hacks to "shore up" IE6 so the padding would be there. It's feasible to have some pretty sweet JS (backbone.js, easyxdm) on IE6. The limitation came from the engine's performance, stylesheet and js caps, and really strict rules on, dangling commas (memory is a bit fuzzy in which instances, but it'd crash our whole script). In some cases, there'd be no errors, and it'd just freeze it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_box_model_bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_box_model_bu...
- bonzini 9y ago
  Border-box is arguably more useful than content-box, so the IE5.5 is not a huge deal. You can make other browsers act like IE5.5. Back in the day it was quite a PITA though.
Touche 9y ago
People who say this rarely have tried using a SPA on IE8. As the OP said, you'll provide a better experience giving them a pain ole server rendered app.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
> IE6 Jesus... And I thought IE11 was bad (enterprise SaaS such as Salesforce is dropping its support already). I’ve tried to run IE11 debugger on Virtualbox and it was slow as molasses.

synapseradio 9y ago

It looks like these guys are from China, where ie8 support still makes sense. It's still used a lot there unfortunately.

mhd 9y ago

Making a site written in React work without JS is quite an endeavor. If you’re not just using it for some progressive enhancement (and frankly, that seems a dying art), then it’s either a whole new backend or trying to be “isomorphic”. The latter is somewhat difficult in an environment where IE8 is a factor (node as enterprise backend software is often a no-go).

patrickthebold 9y ago
You can use Java/nashorn for server side rendering of react.
- lucideer 9y ago
  ... you can also use react for server-side rendering of react
betenoire 9y ago
You say isomorphic almost like you dismiss it. I structured my site so that, in the worst case, the user has a plain old site of HTML + CSS and lots of hyperlinks that work just fine. My drop down headers default to pages that show the drop down content. The embarrassing part was I had a simple bug affecting a sizable chunk of my user-base. In a certain browser, no code would run. But I never received a single complaint, because no one noticed. Sure, some fancy extras didn't work, but they are used to that with that particular browser. The information and required functionality was there. And I didn't have to write it in both PHP AND Javascript.

ng12 9y ago

I think you underestimate how much money is made selling software to firms who still use IE8.

muglug 9y ago

> I've spent way too many hours of my life learning quirks of the horrible piece of garbage that is IE8 Son, let me tell you about Netscape 4...

city41 9y ago
But Chrome and Firefox are IE8 contemporaries. IE8 was just abysmal considering its competition.

DogPawHat 9y ago

I still remember the horror when I learned the Sharepoint 2010 site i was pulled off React/Typescript for only supported IE8. And then learning the client was actually (slowly going down) our biggest source of revenue, and has so much stuff on SP2010 migrating away or upgrading SharePoint is out of the question. I would'nt like to keep IE8 alive, sooner enterprises can't throw any more money at the problem, sooner we all get big paydays from the migration projects.