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Progress? Why do some graybeards feel this sadistic need to make juniors learn pointless stuff (which archaic legacy support kludges for buggy browsers certain

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
      Thank you. I like it too. However credit goes to Posterous team, since its one of the default themes. Thank you for reminding me about it. Must add more content.
DrStalker 15y ago
IE6 support is not pointless if your target market includes banks and large corporates which are still using IE6.
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  They are wasting money by using IE6. Yes you can argue, that they pay for IE6 development and thus its their money and that we should not care. However it is we who sell Win7 and IE6 support at the same time. And by supporting IE6 we lock our customers into stone age even more. There are plenty of alternatives for any software that had to be done via ActiveX 7 years ago. It is completely our (industry) fault that banks and large corporates keep using IE6 - since we would rather milk them dry with our shitty solutions than to help them move on. So what are you proposing... That banks and large corporates keep using Win XP for the next 10,20 years (????). What about general productivity, usability, security, etc? What these victims should (but will not) learn is that buying software on the cheap, with disregard to open standards is extremely costly and unwise.
  - notJim 15y ago
    Yes, it costs money to stop using IE6. It also costs money to deploy, test, train users to use, rewrite all other applications to use a new browser. When the former cost is greater than the lesser, businesses will upgrade. I fail to see how its the fault of outside vendors that their clients or customers are still using an old browser. And if it's an in-house IT shop, it's purely a cost/business decision. You make it sound as if corporations are not upgrading out of laziness.
    - JanezStupar 15y ago
      Same old set of excuses, covering gross negligence and incompetence that is going on in corporate IT departments. Its hard to train users and IT is against it - are two largest straw men arguments on this topic. I was leading a development effort on this type of project and I took strong position that IE6 shall not be supported (due to some conflicting technical requirements in Request for tender). This specific IT department was delighted with our stance, since nowadays there are literally less than 5% of users who actually prefer their archaic IE6 solutions (which are usually people who don't actually use thy system, but are in position of "power"). This specific IT department also begged us to raise hardware requirements from 500Mhz Pentium III with 512Mb RAM (since that would enable them to push for an upgrade) - which we didn't. Anyways - end users (yes those "computer illiterate" old ladies, everybody keeps on patronizing) were delighted by added usability that got enabled by using modern browsers. We were able to fulfill all the requirements a lot cheaper than dragging IE6 for that knucklehead department head would allow us to. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't tell/show their users what they are missing on. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't explain security risks they are being exposed to, by using archaic software. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't help their customers to not pile even more opportunity costs related to stone age software.

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
    Thank you. I like it too. However credit goes to Posterous team, since its one of the default themes. Thank you for reminding me about it. Must add more content.

DrStalker 15y ago

IE6 support is not pointless if your target market includes banks and large corporates which are still using IE6.

JanezStupar 15y ago
They are wasting money by using IE6. Yes you can argue, that they pay for IE6 development and thus its their money and that we should not care. However it is we who sell Win7 and IE6 support at the same time. And by supporting IE6 we lock our customers into stone age even more. There are plenty of alternatives for any software that had to be done via ActiveX 7 years ago. It is completely our (industry) fault that banks and large corporates keep using IE6 - since we would rather milk them dry with our shitty solutions than to help them move on. So what are you proposing... That banks and large corporates keep using Win XP for the next 10,20 years (????). What about general productivity, usability, security, etc? What these victims should (but will not) learn is that buying software on the cheap, with disregard to open standards is extremely costly and unwise.
- notJim 15y ago
  Yes, it costs money to stop using IE6. It also costs money to deploy, test, train users to use, rewrite all other applications to use a new browser. When the former cost is greater than the lesser, businesses will upgrade. I fail to see how its the fault of outside vendors that their clients or customers are still using an old browser. And if it's an in-house IT shop, it's purely a cost/business decision. You make it sound as if corporations are not upgrading out of laziness.
  - JanezStupar 15y ago
    Same old set of excuses, covering gross negligence and incompetence that is going on in corporate IT departments. Its hard to train users and IT is against it - are two largest straw men arguments on this topic. I was leading a development effort on this type of project and I took strong position that IE6 shall not be supported (due to some conflicting technical requirements in Request for tender). This specific IT department was delighted with our stance, since nowadays there are literally less than 5% of users who actually prefer their archaic IE6 solutions (which are usually people who don't actually use thy system, but are in position of "power"). This specific IT department also begged us to raise hardware requirements from 500Mhz Pentium III with 512Mb RAM (since that would enable them to push for an upgrade) - which we didn't. Anyways - end users (yes those "computer illiterate" old ladies, everybody keeps on patronizing) were delighted by added usability that got enabled by using modern browsers. We were able to fulfill all the requirements a lot cheaper than dragging IE6 for that knucklehead department head would allow us to. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't tell/show their users what they are missing on. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't explain security risks they are being exposed to, by using archaic software. The fault of outside vendors is that they don't help their customers to not pile even more opportunity costs related to stone age software.