4 ms·

I agree that accessibility is important but I disagree with a larger point behind this sentiment. Governments can and do exclude cars from roads all the time,

I agree that accessibility is important but I disagree with a larger point behind this sentiment. Governments can and do exclude cars from roads all the time, if they dont meet safety standards for instance, or aren't suited to the type of road (try riding a golf cart on a highway). Similarly, while I agree that a wealthy government with world class resources should absolutely support those in wheelchairs (SF BART and NYC MTA have little excuse to have constantly broken elevators and many stations without wheelchair support), I don't blame a city with extremely constrained resources in the developing world that can't service the majority, from prioritizing the majority. Similarly, I don't demand that a complex web app (like, say Figma) needs to work on a late 90s Japanese flip phone, because doing that would be the wrong vehicle for that road; nor do I blame a resource-constrained, web-inexperienced startup founder, for focusing on their main constituency of able-bodied on modern browsers, if that's the composition of their userbase. Besides rejecting web apps as being inappropriate altogether (and you're probably on the wrong side of history by dying on that hill), it's facetious to claim that supporting IE4 for a complex app is a simple task. Personally perfect is the enemy of good. Agreed that well-funded corporations with traction and broad markets don't have much excuse, though.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
You claim to agree that accessibility is important in the first sentence, but after that you say everything against that. Accessibility is not just about screenreaders. It is allowing ACCESS to anyone, whether they are vision impaired, hearing impaired, have a slow or older device, slow Internet connection, unable to process long chunks of text, or even unable to read very well. Before I address the rest of your argument, please explain what makes it so difficult to make an app work in IE4. You are the one who added the word "complex", I never claimed such a thing. I claimed a reasonably functional website, and I stand by my claim that making it work in IE4 is not that difficult. IE3 is a different beast, but it's still possible. I find it worth supporting for its beautiful toolbar. You're right, golf carts are not supported on highways, but I sometimes see them on major roads, and they do just fine as long as they stay out of the way. Also I see tractors and excavators occasionally scurry across short distances. A Model T is grandfathered in and allowed, and so is a 1940s Buick. There is no reason to disallow them, and there is no reason to disallow IE6, for example, which still has a small install base, except developer incompetence, in my opinion. I did not claim something like Figma should work in all browsers, but I do claim that something like a forum for basic chat should. You are moving the goal posts, and I don't appreciate it. Nor do I recall rejecting web apps altogether, where did I ever say that? A web app is just a website with additional functionality, and can work well across many different browsers with progressive enhancement.
- presentation 6y ago
  My point was to be a counterpoint to what you were saying, which is why I focused on the reasons why being a stickler for legacy browser support isn't a great policy either. To me, it's meaningless to say something like "X is important." Important to whom, for what end, relative to what? Nothing is important in a vacuum, when there's limited resources you're always choosing between several "important" things. Supporting old browsers is a tradeoff, not just for saving developer time, but also for the user. For instance, do you care about internationalization? A lot of browser internationalization APIs don't work or exist in old browsers. Sure, you can make them work by bloating the payload that you send to a user on an antiquated browser. So what's more important to your users - accessibility for an old browser, or accessibility for a spotty internet connection, or accessibility to people who speak different languages? My point about web apps is that it's often impractical to support extremely old browsers because they often lack the APIs, the users, nor the OEM support that make web apps worthwhile.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

You claim to agree that accessibility is important in the first sentence, but after that you say everything against that. Accessibility is not just about screenreaders. It is allowing ACCESS to anyone, whether they are vision impaired, hearing impaired, have a slow or older device, slow Internet connection, unable to process long chunks of text, or even unable to read very well. Before I address the rest of your argument, please explain what makes it so difficult to make an app work in IE4. You are the one who added the word "complex", I never claimed such a thing. I claimed a reasonably functional website, and I stand by my claim that making it work in IE4 is not that difficult. IE3 is a different beast, but it's still possible. I find it worth supporting for its beautiful toolbar. You're right, golf carts are not supported on highways, but I sometimes see them on major roads, and they do just fine as long as they stay out of the way. Also I see tractors and excavators occasionally scurry across short distances. A Model T is grandfathered in and allowed, and so is a 1940s Buick. There is no reason to disallow them, and there is no reason to disallow IE6, for example, which still has a small install base, except developer incompetence, in my opinion. I did not claim something like Figma should work in all browsers, but I do claim that something like a forum for basic chat should. You are moving the goal posts, and I don't appreciate it. Nor do I recall rejecting web apps altogether, where did I ever say that? A web app is just a website with additional functionality, and can work well across many different browsers with progressive enhancement.

presentation 6y ago
My point was to be a counterpoint to what you were saying, which is why I focused on the reasons why being a stickler for legacy browser support isn't a great policy either. To me, it's meaningless to say something like "X is important." Important to whom, for what end, relative to what? Nothing is important in a vacuum, when there's limited resources you're always choosing between several "important" things. Supporting old browsers is a tradeoff, not just for saving developer time, but also for the user. For instance, do you care about internationalization? A lot of browser internationalization APIs don't work or exist in old browsers. Sure, you can make them work by bloating the payload that you send to a user on an antiquated browser. So what's more important to your users - accessibility for an old browser, or accessibility for a spotty internet connection, or accessibility to people who speak different languages? My point about web apps is that it's often impractical to support extremely old browsers because they often lack the APIs, the users, nor the OEM support that make web apps worthwhile.