4 ms·

> We see more of this fragmentation every day I'd be curious to see this backed up. Certainly with a long enough timeline we are not at a maximum of "works onl

> We see more of this fragmentation every day I'd be curious to see this backed up. Certainly with a long enough timeline we are not at a maximum of "works only in x", and -- ignoring those beleaguered Opera users still subjected to crappy UA sniffing -- I can't think of the last time I came across a site that blocked me for whatever my choice of browser (I'm a Chrome and Firefox user as well). If, on the other hand, you're talking about fancy new CSS3 or WebGL (or whatever) demos leaving out some browser due to neglecting to add a particular prefixed property (or whatever), I don't really see that as a problem. Prototype then standardize, right? Yes, not feature detecting and prefixing properly is poor web development practice and yes, they are cutting out part of their audience, but using an experimental feature inherently means that it may break at some point, and almost certainly isn't supported in all browsers. When 3d CSS transforms land in Firefox soon, there are going to be a whole lot of demos out there that won't work. I would say that's an education and library problem, not a fragmentation one.

BrendanEich 15y ago
I was explicit about the problem, which is not new features that come to some browsers first, advertised in a browser-agnostic way. That is ok, provided the features are on a standards track. What I cited is fragmentation due to capital-C Chrome as a requirement. Google is doing deals and marketing web apps and add-ons as "Chrome". This is showing up all over the place, most recently in my experience on the Starbucks free wireless service agreement page. Major content publishers Mozilla has talked to are surprised that we can host their Chrome-targeted web apps and HTML5-based extensions. They think such things are exclusive to Chrome. If they use Dart and need native performance, then that'll be true. There is a slippery slope, especially when more and more of the differentiation is not on a standards track (Dart, NaCl, WebSQL). Nevertheless most of the current differentiation is bogus and any modern browser will do. There's certainly some "WebKit required" fragmentation. We saw this with Amazon's kindle web app, which is specifically built to WebSQL and not IndexedDB. But I do not believe any big player is pushing "WebKit required" as an agenda or marketing program. In contrast, Google is clearly pushing "Chrome" as a requirement or works-best-in brand. The Chrome experiments, most recently http://www.allisnotlo.st/index_en.html http://www.allisnotlo.st/index_en.html are obvious, maybe too obvious. Defenders can always play up the "experiment" hedge. That helps but only so much, especially when many of these experiments could work in other browsers with trivial changes. I'm told that people have run chrome.angrybirds.com in Firefox. So it should be html5.angrybirds.com but -- no surprise from a marketing angle -- the domain name starts with C not H.
- foobarbazetc 15y ago
  Brendan, First, I'm a huge fan. :) ... and I was with you until the WebSQL vs IndexedDB thing. IndexedDB is a horrible, horrible thing. It should be put out of its misery and replaced with WebSQL in Firefox. Mozilla is singlehandedly holding back offline web apps with the insistance on a slow and hard to program -- yet buzzword friendly -- technology that no one actually wants to use. There's no reason what so ever to stick with a dumbed down K/V store when you're not trying to replicate data across data centers. So, IMHO, you've bought this bit of "WebKit required" onto yourselves. WebSQL is the only production ready offline web app technology available today. Take it from someone who offline enabled one of the biggest web apps on the web: I'd rather leave out offline entirely than code IndexedDB. Considering that Apple will never support it, it's pretty much dead. And I feel that Mozilla is really on the losing end of this particular battle. TL:DR; Please support WebSQL in Firefox. :)
  - drgath 15y ago
    The first step would be for WebSQL to be a W3C/WHATWG approved standard & recommendation. Until that happens, no browser should implement it.
  - BrendanEich 15y ago
    Maybe IndexedDB is bad. I'm withholding judgment. That's not the point, and your demurral on that particular example should not make you reject my entire argument. WebSQL is not standards-track, period. Whether it should somehow get back on the standards track, let's debate elsewhere. We could go awry on H.264 vs. VP8 too (I'm not religious), but note how Chrome has best of both worlds, including paying the gangster fee (MPEG-LA license). Not exactly "open". The minor point for this discussion is that works-in-WebKit happens, but mostly unintentionally or out of rank laziness on content authors' parts. It may even (as you suggest and I agree) provide a big clue-stick to repair a standardization mistake or pox-on-both-houses-try-again situation. Meanwhile, and this is the major point: works-best/only-in-Chrome looks like an intentional marketing game, backed by a nine-figure budget. Big difference there.
  - ootachi 15y ago
mcepl 15y ago
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk?hc=search&hcp=main https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp... and https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejjicmeblgpmajnghnpcppodonldlgfn?hc=search&hcp=main https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejjicmeblgpmajnghn... if you want two most recent examples of Chromium-only applications, where nobody gave a damn whether they follow agreed upon standards.
- magicalist 15y ago
  I agree that gmail only having offline for certain browsers is suboptimal for the web (though they claim, like amazon with their kindle app, that they will expand support), but it's worth noting that at least the gmail app includes an installable component equivalent to an extension...and there are plenty of single-browser extensions for every browser.

BrendanEich 15y ago

I was explicit about the problem, which is not new features that come to some browsers first, advertised in a browser-agnostic way. That is ok, provided the features are on a standards track. What I cited is fragmentation due to capital-C Chrome as a requirement. Google is doing deals and marketing web apps and add-ons as "Chrome". This is showing up all over the place, most recently in my experience on the Starbucks free wireless service agreement page. Major content publishers Mozilla has talked to are surprised that we can host their Chrome-targeted web apps and HTML5-based extensions. They think such things are exclusive to Chrome. If they use Dart and need native performance, then that'll be true. There is a slippery slope, especially when more and more of the differentiation is not on a standards track (Dart, NaCl, WebSQL). Nevertheless most of the current differentiation is bogus and any modern browser will do. There's certainly some "WebKit required" fragmentation. We saw this with Amazon's kindle web app, which is specifically built to WebSQL and not IndexedDB. But I do not believe any big player is pushing "WebKit required" as an agenda or marketing program. In contrast, Google is clearly pushing "Chrome" as a requirement or works-best-in brand. The Chrome experiments, most recently http://www.allisnotlo.st/index_en.html http://www.allisnotlo.st/index_en.html are obvious, maybe too obvious. Defenders can always play up the "experiment" hedge. That helps but only so much, especially when many of these experiments could work in other browsers with trivial changes. I'm told that people have run chrome.angrybirds.com in Firefox. So it should be html5.angrybirds.com but -- no surprise from a marketing angle -- the domain name starts with C not H.

foobarbazetc 15y ago
Brendan, First, I'm a huge fan. :) ... and I was with you until the WebSQL vs IndexedDB thing. IndexedDB is a horrible, horrible thing. It should be put out of its misery and replaced with WebSQL in Firefox. Mozilla is singlehandedly holding back offline web apps with the insistance on a slow and hard to program -- yet buzzword friendly -- technology that no one actually wants to use. There's no reason what so ever to stick with a dumbed down K/V store when you're not trying to replicate data across data centers. So, IMHO, you've bought this bit of "WebKit required" onto yourselves. WebSQL is the only production ready offline web app technology available today. Take it from someone who offline enabled one of the biggest web apps on the web: I'd rather leave out offline entirely than code IndexedDB. Considering that Apple will never support it, it's pretty much dead. And I feel that Mozilla is really on the losing end of this particular battle. TL:DR; Please support WebSQL in Firefox. :)
- drgath 15y ago
  The first step would be for WebSQL to be a W3C/WHATWG approved standard & recommendation. Until that happens, no browser should implement it.
- BrendanEich 15y ago
  Maybe IndexedDB is bad. I'm withholding judgment. That's not the point, and your demurral on that particular example should not make you reject my entire argument. WebSQL is not standards-track, period. Whether it should somehow get back on the standards track, let's debate elsewhere. We could go awry on H.264 vs. VP8 too (I'm not religious), but note how Chrome has best of both worlds, including paying the gangster fee (MPEG-LA license). Not exactly "open". The minor point for this discussion is that works-in-WebKit happens, but mostly unintentionally or out of rank laziness on content authors' parts. It may even (as you suggest and I agree) provide a big clue-stick to repair a standardization mistake or pox-on-both-houses-try-again situation. Meanwhile, and this is the major point: works-best/only-in-Chrome looks like an intentional marketing game, backed by a nine-figure budget. Big difference there.
- ootachi 15y ago

mcepl 15y ago

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk?hc=search&hcp=main https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp... and https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejjicmeblgpmajnghnpcppodonldlgfn?hc=search&hcp=main https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejjicmeblgpmajnghn... if you want two most recent examples of Chromium-only applications, where nobody gave a damn whether they follow agreed upon standards.

magicalist 15y ago
I agree that gmail only having offline for certain browsers is suboptimal for the web (though they claim, like amazon with their kindle app, that they will expand support), but it's worth noting that at least the gmail app includes an installable component equivalent to an extension...and there are plenty of single-browser extensions for every browser.