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"I can’t open this website I always use to make a reservation to volunteer." Regressions are regressions. You don't get to make excuses if you unilaterally cha

"I can’t open this website I always use to make a reservation to volunteer." Regressions are regressions. You don't get to make excuses if you unilaterally changed something for someone.

programmer_dude 5y ago
What's the point of releasing new language features if you can't use them? Web-developers don't deserve quality of life improvements but the developers working for Google and Apple do?
- rossipedia 5y ago
  You absolutely can. The issue isn't _using_ the optional chaining operator, the issue is that it wasn't compiled down to something that older platforms can understand. Developer quality of life doesn't have to conflict with what's supported on older platforms.
  - programmer_dude 5y ago
    Sounds like a good solution to the posted problem. But the device user should be allowed to upgrade their browser and OS too.
    - Bilal_io 5y ago
      Sometimes users use older browser because of ignorance, they don't know how to upgrade, or because they don't want to.
  - teawrecks 5y ago
    And what do you do when the only way to support a new feature on a legacy system necessarily introduces a security risk? Special case it?
    - rossipedia 5y ago
      That's a hard problem to solve, and I don't think there are any easy answers. It depends on many factors. What kind of business, what the risk/threat model is, cost/benefit analysis, all that kind of stuff.
- Falell 5y ago
  You can use the latest goodies in environments that you control. Server side node, client side node, etc. This is a common thing when working on library-like-things outside the web too. Widely used C++ libraries generally aren't taking hard dependencies on C++20 features right now without continuing to support e.g. C++11/14/17.
- slotrans 5y ago
  > Web-developers don't deserve quality of life improvements Don't you think the customer experience is strictly more important than the developer experience?
  - urthor 5y ago
    Essentially, no. Especially if the developer is giving their time for free website. The developer is putting in the hard yards to make the website for their community event. Why shouldn't the user make the effort to have a web browser that's updated to 2022? It's a complex conversation, but "the customer is always right" is not always the case.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  There's a few things that makes it a little different, but the lack of updates is certainly an issue. The developers do have access to statistic about exactly how many clients they'll break. They might have felt that it's so few that the ease of development justifed breaking the website for just a few users. They could tell them that their browser is too old, saving many a lot of headache. In this case, the problem, making a reservation to volunteer, is simple enough that you could have solved it with a CGI script in 2001, and it would still work. So it only broken, because someone felt it needed to be more modern. Remember, this is people who volunteer their time, they're not forced to do anything, so you have to be as accommodating as possible.
teawrecks 5y ago
The site supports the recent browser versions. Always has, always will. That behavior has not changed.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  Optional chaining was only introduced to javascript in April 2020, 18 months ago. That's a pretty gnarly upgrade cycle to demand all your general-public users maintain.
  - teawrecks 5y ago
    Alright, I agree, that is probably too recent to be breaking stuff. But I maintain that no one should be running an out of date browser in the first place. In fact, browsers that are more than X months old should automatically pop up a warning telling the user that it hasn't been updated recently and they're running a security risk by continuing to use it, including/especially on these old EOL devices. Browsers that have reached this point shouldn't be expected to be supported by websites.
zamadatix 5y ago
Sure you do or you eventually find your project goals turn into "supporting the one user who still wants to connect via IE 5" instead of whatever the project goals actually were. I'm not going to say how old a browser your site should support, that depends on the situation, but I will say I've never seen a case where terms as small as "someone" was the right balance. Optional chaining however is missing for something like 8% of users https://caniuse.com/?search=optional%20chaining https://caniuse.com/?search=optional%20chaining so for this specific situation I'd say that's probably a bit too high to not transpile/have a fallback for most anything but a tech demo.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  But this isn't just one user. CanIUse says that only 90% of browsers support optional chaining, so you're potentially losing 10% of all of your users. For an American company, that's like refusing to serve black people, or people from Texas, and it's just as outrageous.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    That's what I commented about this particular situation in the second point, right down to the caniuse reference. The first part about a cutoff point was in response to "Regressions are regressions. You don't get to make excuses if you unilaterally changed something for someone" which is not true or the problem in this situation.
nathancahill 5y ago
There's also a "know your audience" factor. If you're developing a SaaS for a tech product, maybe supporting the latest couple browser versions is fine. Websites for volunteering probably have a wider audience among older generations using older devices. Ideally you'd know what browsers are visiting your site from analytics and support the relevant percentages.

"I can’t open this website I always use to make a reservation to volunteer." Regressions are regressions. You don't get to make excuses if you unilaterally changed something for someone.

programmer_dude 5y ago

What's the point of releasing new language features if you can't use them? Web-developers don't deserve quality of life improvements but the developers working for Google and Apple do?

rossipedia 5y ago
You absolutely can. The issue isn't _using_ the optional chaining operator, the issue is that it wasn't compiled down to something that older platforms can understand. Developer quality of life doesn't have to conflict with what's supported on older platforms.
- programmer_dude 5y ago
  Sounds like a good solution to the posted problem. But the device user should be allowed to upgrade their browser and OS too.
  - Bilal_io 5y ago
    Sometimes users use older browser because of ignorance, they don't know how to upgrade, or because they don't want to.
- teawrecks 5y ago
  And what do you do when the only way to support a new feature on a legacy system necessarily introduces a security risk? Special case it?
  - rossipedia 5y ago
    That's a hard problem to solve, and I don't think there are any easy answers. It depends on many factors. What kind of business, what the risk/threat model is, cost/benefit analysis, all that kind of stuff.
Falell 5y ago
You can use the latest goodies in environments that you control. Server side node, client side node, etc. This is a common thing when working on library-like-things outside the web too. Widely used C++ libraries generally aren't taking hard dependencies on C++20 features right now without continuing to support e.g. C++11/14/17.
slotrans 5y ago
> Web-developers don't deserve quality of life improvements Don't you think the customer experience is strictly more important than the developer experience?
- urthor 5y ago
  Essentially, no. Especially if the developer is giving their time for free website. The developer is putting in the hard yards to make the website for their community event. Why shouldn't the user make the effort to have a web browser that's updated to 2022? It's a complex conversation, but "the customer is always right" is not always the case.
mrweasel 5y ago
There's a few things that makes it a little different, but the lack of updates is certainly an issue. The developers do have access to statistic about exactly how many clients they'll break. They might have felt that it's so few that the ease of development justifed breaking the website for just a few users. They could tell them that their browser is too old, saving many a lot of headache. In this case, the problem, making a reservation to volunteer, is simple enough that you could have solved it with a CGI script in 2001, and it would still work. So it only broken, because someone felt it needed to be more modern. Remember, this is people who volunteer their time, they're not forced to do anything, so you have to be as accommodating as possible.

teawrecks 5y ago

The site supports the recent browser versions. Always has, always will. That behavior has not changed.

hannasanarion 5y ago
Optional chaining was only introduced to javascript in April 2020, 18 months ago. That's a pretty gnarly upgrade cycle to demand all your general-public users maintain.
- teawrecks 5y ago
  Alright, I agree, that is probably too recent to be breaking stuff. But I maintain that no one should be running an out of date browser in the first place. In fact, browsers that are more than X months old should automatically pop up a warning telling the user that it hasn't been updated recently and they're running a security risk by continuing to use it, including/especially on these old EOL devices. Browsers that have reached this point shouldn't be expected to be supported by websites.

zamadatix 5y ago

Sure you do or you eventually find your project goals turn into "supporting the one user who still wants to connect via IE 5" instead of whatever the project goals actually were. I'm not going to say how old a browser your site should support, that depends on the situation, but I will say I've never seen a case where terms as small as "someone" was the right balance. Optional chaining however is missing for something like 8% of users https://caniuse.com/?search=optional%20chaining https://caniuse.com/?search=optional%20chaining so for this specific situation I'd say that's probably a bit too high to not transpile/have a fallback for most anything but a tech demo.

hannasanarion 5y ago
But this isn't just one user. CanIUse says that only 90% of browsers support optional chaining, so you're potentially losing 10% of all of your users. For an American company, that's like refusing to serve black people, or people from Texas, and it's just as outrageous.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  That's what I commented about this particular situation in the second point, right down to the caniuse reference. The first part about a cutoff point was in response to "Regressions are regressions. You don't get to make excuses if you unilaterally changed something for someone" which is not true or the problem in this situation.

nathancahill 5y ago

There's also a "know your audience" factor. If you're developing a SaaS for a tech product, maybe supporting the latest couple browser versions is fine. Websites for volunteering probably have a wider audience among older generations using older devices. Ideally you'd know what browsers are visiting your site from analytics and support the relevant percentages.