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Why did you have the impression a B.S. in CompSci would teach you about legacy browser support? I dunno, the first few weeks of my internship I had to do the s

Why did you have the impression a B.S. in CompSci would teach you about legacy browser support? I dunno, the first few weeks of my internship I had to do the same thing. If nothing else it was a great way to learn about what the company did by doing low-level grunt work. However I'd really recommend that if this is all you'll be doing for the duration of the internship, maybe look for something else. Otherwise be thankful that you'll eventually have the flexibility to choose a career path that doesn't require you to maintain compliance with IE6.

true_religion 15y ago
I hate to make a "me too" like post, but as soon as I read his biography, I thought "... wait we should stop supporting X browser because some kid doesn't know how to support it too?". Are we now just leveling the playing field so experience is irrelevant, and kids just out of college should be able to compete with those who have been working the field for ages (ages which I might add included a time when IE6 was the dominant browser, and you ignored it at your own peril).
- derleth 15y ago
  > we should stop supporting X browser because some kid doesn't know how to support it too? No, we should look seriously at whether we need to keep doing things the cheap labor can't perform anymore. Supporting IE6 is a Black Art, and keeping people who can perform Black Arts reliably is expensive. I suppose the traditional comparison is to COBOL codebases and greenscreen IBM development. If thinking about that convinces you IE6 isn't the mainstream anymore, go for it. The point is that increasing the number of different, and I mean really different, browsers your team has to know about is not free, as the cheap labor only knows the relatively tight cluster of post-IE6 graphical browsers. The article's the evidence of that.
  - pjscott 15y ago
    ... and keeping people who can perform Black Arts reliably is expensive. I have nothing to add ("me, too!"), but would like to point out that this sounds like a line from a fantasy novel written by an economist. If such a thing actually exists, I would love to hear of it.
    - neild 15y ago
      Harald, by David Friedman. (There are a number of notable David Friedmans. This is the anarcho-capitalist-son-of-Milton-Friedman one.) Harald is quite good, IMO, but there isn't a lot of overt economics so it may not be what you're looking for.
      - gabebw 15y ago
        I really didn't think the GP would get an answer to that extremely specific question. Thanks, and I'll be checking this out.
  - notahacker 15y ago
    For the majority of websites it's not so much a Black Art as something anyone who designed websites more than 5 years ago should manage competently (assuming there aren't unreasonable requirements such as pixel perfection or reproducing every hover effect). The comparison is more finding someone that knows how to program Python instead of copy/pasting PHP scripts.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Html and css were not designed to be an arcane programming language, but a simple layout markup. If well designed then copy paste should work fine. Arguably we didnt quite make that simplicity, but I think your Python PHP comment is way off as far as html css is concerned...
  - duggi 15y ago
    supporting ie6 is not a black art, its a dipshit art
- dave_sullivan 15y ago
  Re: fresh out of college kids competing with the oldtimers, I'm thinking that yes, the field is being leveled and certain types of experience are worth less and less. The greater the pace of innovation, the greater the chance that new tools are adopted that make certain knowledge obsolete. This is good in many ways, but it also requires constant learning and change, which is frustrating. Not that it's right or wrong, but I think it's the reality. Once this plays out, I really think we'll see calls for unionization, which would be unfortunate. Re: supporting IE6, there's a cost associated with that. So if someone shows me that 20% of my traffic comes from IE6 users and that traffic is profitable traffic (enough profit to offset the costs) then yes, let's support IE6. But I think the payoff on supporting IE6 is becoming lower and lower.
JanezStupar 15y ago
Progress? Why do some graybeards feel this sadistic need to make juniors learn pointless stuff (which archaic legacy support kludges for buggy browsers certainly are)? Please note that you may have spent better part of the last 10 years slowly learning about these workarounds, while making your own mistakes. This is the most pointless type of elitism I have ever seen. Why not use the new advanced knowledge, this kids have? Some of them kids know more of how standards work than most graybeards. Pushing new fresh minds down the madhouse hallway that IE6 is, seems like a moral hazard to me. They might get the wrong idea. Or are we going to demand that people write their own compilers and languages, before they even start doing productive work? Mentality like this, wastes customers money all around while contributing nothing to the business or society at large.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  I had to double-check to make sure you were actually responding to me. I'm the opposite of a greybeard, but thank you. I was not trying to be grizzled when I responded, just realistic. Doing IE6 support is still a pretty fresh memory for me. It's just realistic.
  - JanezStupar 15y ago
    I don't know if I misread your post or you edited it afterwards. When I originally read it I have seen punctuation that made your post imply that legacy browser support SHOULD be taught and that rookies SHOULD be indoctrinated in legacy support. I apologize for misreading your post. p.s.: If you had to support IE6 - then you are a graybeard :D. Even if you are a 25 year old graybeard.
    - mattdeboard 15y ago
      Nope, never edited it. edit: Also, I really like the layout of your blog. The font & placement of your headlines is really nice.
      - JanezStupar 15y ago

true_religion 15y ago

I hate to make a "me too" like post, but as soon as I read his biography, I thought "... wait we should stop supporting X browser because some kid doesn't know how to support it too?". Are we now just leveling the playing field so experience is irrelevant, and kids just out of college should be able to compete with those who have been working the field for ages (ages which I might add included a time when IE6 was the dominant browser, and you ignored it at your own peril).

derleth 15y ago
> we should stop supporting X browser because some kid doesn't know how to support it too? No, we should look seriously at whether we need to keep doing things the cheap labor can't perform anymore. Supporting IE6 is a Black Art, and keeping people who can perform Black Arts reliably is expensive. I suppose the traditional comparison is to COBOL codebases and greenscreen IBM development. If thinking about that convinces you IE6 isn't the mainstream anymore, go for it. The point is that increasing the number of different, and I mean really different, browsers your team has to know about is not free, as the cheap labor only knows the relatively tight cluster of post-IE6 graphical browsers. The article's the evidence of that.
- pjscott 15y ago
  ... and keeping people who can perform Black Arts reliably is expensive. I have nothing to add ("me, too!"), but would like to point out that this sounds like a line from a fantasy novel written by an economist. If such a thing actually exists, I would love to hear of it.
  - neild 15y ago
    Harald, by David Friedman. (There are a number of notable David Friedmans. This is the anarcho-capitalist-son-of-Milton-Friedman one.) Harald is quite good, IMO, but there isn't a lot of overt economics so it may not be what you're looking for.
    - gabebw 15y ago
      I really didn't think the GP would get an answer to that extremely specific question. Thanks, and I'll be checking this out.
- notahacker 15y ago
  For the majority of websites it's not so much a Black Art as something anyone who designed websites more than 5 years ago should manage competently (assuming there aren't unreasonable requirements such as pixel perfection or reproducing every hover effect). The comparison is more finding someone that knows how to program Python instead of copy/pasting PHP scripts.
  - justincormack 15y ago
    Html and css were not designed to be an arcane programming language, but a simple layout markup. If well designed then copy paste should work fine. Arguably we didnt quite make that simplicity, but I think your Python PHP comment is way off as far as html css is concerned...
- duggi 15y ago
  supporting ie6 is not a black art, its a dipshit art
dave_sullivan 15y ago
Re: fresh out of college kids competing with the oldtimers, I'm thinking that yes, the field is being leveled and certain types of experience are worth less and less. The greater the pace of innovation, the greater the chance that new tools are adopted that make certain knowledge obsolete. This is good in many ways, but it also requires constant learning and change, which is frustrating. Not that it's right or wrong, but I think it's the reality. Once this plays out, I really think we'll see calls for unionization, which would be unfortunate. Re: supporting IE6, there's a cost associated with that. So if someone shows me that 20% of my traffic comes from IE6 users and that traffic is profitable traffic (enough profit to offset the costs) then yes, let's support IE6. But I think the payoff on supporting IE6 is becoming lower and lower.

JanezStupar 15y ago

Progress? Why do some graybeards feel this sadistic need to make juniors learn pointless stuff (which archaic legacy support kludges for buggy browsers certainly are)? Please note that you may have spent better part of the last 10 years slowly learning about these workarounds, while making your own mistakes. This is the most pointless type of elitism I have ever seen. Why not use the new advanced knowledge, this kids have? Some of them kids know more of how standards work than most graybeards. Pushing new fresh minds down the madhouse hallway that IE6 is, seems like a moral hazard to me. They might get the wrong idea. Or are we going to demand that people write their own compilers and languages, before they even start doing productive work? Mentality like this, wastes customers money all around while contributing nothing to the business or society at large.

mattdeboard 15y ago
I had to double-check to make sure you were actually responding to me. I'm the opposite of a greybeard, but thank you. I was not trying to be grizzled when I responded, just realistic. Doing IE6 support is still a pretty fresh memory for me. It's just realistic.
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  I don't know if I misread your post or you edited it afterwards. When I originally read it I have seen punctuation that made your post imply that legacy browser support SHOULD be taught and that rookies SHOULD be indoctrinated in legacy support. I apologize for misreading your post. p.s.: If you had to support IE6 - then you are a graybeard :D. Even if you are a 25 year old graybeard.
  - mattdeboard 15y ago
    Nope, never edited it. edit: Also, I really like the layout of your blog. The font & placement of your headlines is really nice.
    - JanezStupar 15y ago