5 ms·

One thing I didn't see addressed was why it's a good idea to add in site-specific patches at all? I understand that taken as a whole there's no real fixed langu

by user24 15y ago

One thing I didn't see addressed was why it's a good idea to add in site-specific patches at all? I understand that taken as a whole there's no real fixed language that website used - it's all some of html5, some html4, some just totally broken stuff etc etc. But I cannot see why sitepatching can ever be a scalable solution to that problem. It just reeks of hackery to me. edit: looking into it, it seems that the tech behind this is http://www.opera.com/docs/browserjs/ http://www.opera.com/docs/browserjs/

riffraff 15y ago
it probably isn't a scalable solution but it seems at least in some cases it is the only solution, when e.g. the page does browser sniffing, or relies on behaviour that is different in other browsers but not necessarily _wrong_ in opera.
Indyan 15y ago
Opera uses browserjs as a measure of last resort. They use it only on very popular websites after everything else has failed. Opera needs to do this due to the large number of popular websites, which don't stick to the standards, or test their code properly across different browsers. Have a look at http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog and you will realise how big a problem browser sniffing really is. Take a look at the websites that Opera fixes using sitepatches. They are websites like Facebook, CNN, and Amazon. If popular websites like these didn't work in Opera, users aren't going to sympathetise with Opera just because its not Opera's fault. They will simply switch to a different browser. Opera doesn't really have a choice. Also relevant: i) http://twitter.com/#!/brucel/status/113529174316154880 http://twitter.com/#!/brucel/status/113529174316154880 ii) http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2009/11/05/the-lengths-to-go-to-to-get-a-site-fixed http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2009/11/05/the-lengths-to-go-t... This incident highlights an exceptional situation where the fault was Opera's. However, in most cases it is not so. ##Edited post to elaborate on my point.##
- smackfu 15y ago
  Incidentally, this is the same argument Microsoft makes for the various compatibility modes in new versions of Windows. If Vista breaks an app, and it's due to poor app coding, the users are still going to blame Vista.
pornel 15y ago
Opera loses users when high-profile websites don't work, and often getting websites fixed is impossible — authors respond (if you can reach them at all) "We don't support Opera, duh". Some of the patches target common scripts (especially unmaintained ones like all those "hot" DHTML menus and WYSIWYG editors full of browser sniffing and hacks), so few lines of browser.js can fix thousands of sites. Although it sometimes backfires, most often it offers a fix without the rewrite-engine—release—everyone-upgrades cycle :)
eli 15y ago
IE has a similar internal list of popular sites that must be rendered with one of its various compatibility modes to work correctly. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd567845(v=vs.85).aspx#introduction http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd567845(v=vs.85).as... I'm sure this has driven developers crazy when they can't figure out why the site works differently in IE on the production domain than on a test one.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kitcar 15y ago
At the end of the day its the job of the manufacturer to ensure that their product performs to the specifications they set. If the customer decides to use the product in an extreme environment, and the product fails to perform as desired, the customer will blame the manufacturer, even though the product was never designed to work in such a scenario. From the manufacturers perspective, it could be deemed cheaper to write "single-purpose" fixes for such scenarios, versus responding to the backlash of consumers which decide to use the product in such scenarios.

by user24 15y ago

riffraff 15y ago

it probably isn't a scalable solution but it seems at least in some cases it is the only solution, when e.g. the page does browser sniffing, or relies on behaviour that is different in other browsers but not necessarily _wrong_ in opera.

Indyan 15y ago

Opera uses browserjs as a measure of last resort. They use it only on very popular websites after everything else has failed. Opera needs to do this due to the large number of popular websites, which don't stick to the standards, or test their code properly across different browsers. Have a look at http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog and you will realise how big a problem browser sniffing really is. Take a look at the websites that Opera fixes using sitepatches. They are websites like Facebook, CNN, and Amazon. If popular websites like these didn't work in Opera, users aren't going to sympathetise with Opera just because its not Opera's fault. They will simply switch to a different browser. Opera doesn't really have a choice. Also relevant: i) http://twitter.com/#!/brucel/status/113529174316154880 http://twitter.com/#!/brucel/status/113529174316154880 ii) http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2009/11/05/the-lengths-to-go-to-to-get-a-site-fixed http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2009/11/05/the-lengths-to-go-t... This incident highlights an exceptional situation where the fault was Opera's. However, in most cases it is not so. ##Edited post to elaborate on my point.##

smackfu 15y ago
Incidentally, this is the same argument Microsoft makes for the various compatibility modes in new versions of Windows. If Vista breaks an app, and it's due to poor app coding, the users are still going to blame Vista.

pornel 15y ago

Opera loses users when high-profile websites don't work, and often getting websites fixed is impossible — authors respond (if you can reach them at all) "We don't support Opera, duh". Some of the patches target common scripts (especially unmaintained ones like all those "hot" DHTML menus and WYSIWYG editors full of browser sniffing and hacks), so few lines of browser.js can fix thousands of sites. Although it sometimes backfires, most often it offers a fix without the rewrite-engine—release—everyone-upgrades cycle :)

eli 15y ago

IE has a similar internal list of popular sites that must be rendered with one of its various compatibility modes to work correctly. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd567845(v=vs.85).aspx#introduction http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd567845(v=vs.85).as... I'm sure this has driven developers crazy when they can't figure out why the site works differently in IE on the production domain than on a test one.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

kitcar 15y ago

At the end of the day its the job of the manufacturer to ensure that their product performs to the specifications they set. If the customer decides to use the product in an extreme environment, and the product fails to perform as desired, the customer will blame the manufacturer, even though the product was never designed to work in such a scenario. From the manufacturers perspective, it could be deemed cheaper to write "single-purpose" fixes for such scenarios, versus responding to the backlash of consumers which decide to use the product in such scenarios.