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> "Want global web compatibility? Fuck you buy a Mac" Still better than "whatever we throw over the wall is now a standard" that Chrome has, and you can see pe

> "Want global web compatibility? Fuck you buy a Mac" Still better than "whatever we throw over the wall is now a standard" that Chrome has, and you can see people clamouring for those on HN.

bioemerl 4y ago
Not really in my experience as a primary Firefox dev. It's easy enough to not use stuff like web USB, and in my experience chrome and firefox "get along" while a page (doing more advanced things) not built for safari simply will not work in safari. The problem with safari is that Apple makes it so you have to use it if you want your site to work on it. Chrome, I can safely ignore. I also literally can't use safari if I don't have a Mac.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  > It's easy enough to not use stuff like web USB Unless you have the option to use it for your product then the decision is ship a product using just your web developers and have it not work on Safari/iPads or hire iOS developers and build and maintain a completely separate app. So it's a 6-7 figure cost to your business that could be saved if they supported that.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > while a page (doing more advanced things) not built for safari simply will not work in safari. I've yet to see such a page [1]. And I've been using Safari since 2007 [1] Unless it's built with Chrome's non-standards of course. Edit: of course there will be pages broken in Safari (or FF) for no reason other than the sheer incompetence of people building them. E.g. we have an internal dashboard page that is literally nothing more than tables and charts. Ooops, "only works in Chrome". There's also the minor case of nominally open audio and video codecs that Google pushes to device manufacturers on pain of removing access to its services, but even that hasn't affected me, or most people really, that much.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    > I've yet to see such a page Developers are eating the problems for you because safari support is almost always a requirement. This is a developer side problem, not a user side one. > for no reason other than the sheer incompetence of people building them Safari never breaks, but when it does it's because the developers are incompetent? The fact it takes a bunch of extra work to support safari (in more advanced cases like graphs and dashboards) is the whole problem. I have every intent to kick safari out of any home game stuff I do.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > Developers are eating the problems for you because safari support is almost always a requirement. The problems "developers are eating" are hugely overblown > Safari never breaks, but when it does it's because the developers are incompetent? In 99% of the times? Yes. > The fact it takes a bunch of extra work to support safari No, it doesn't. Source: web developer myself. Of course, if you rely on Chrome-only non-standards, that's a different issue. > in more advanced cases like graphs and dashboards Graphs and Dashboards are advanced use cases now. Gotcha.
      - bioemerl 4y ago
        You should reconsider your position when your only response is dismissal and insult.
        illiarian 4y ago
        > You should reconsider your position when your only response is dismissal and insult. I've been in these threads many times, and it's the same thing again and again: - Safari is holding back the web! It doesn't. Well, if you think that Chrome is web, then you're entitled to your opinion - Safari is new IE! It's not. That it doesn't implement the 400 or so APIs a year that Chrome implements is a feature, not a bug. If your site ends up with a "only works in Chrome" badge, that is your new IE - Chrome split from WebKit three years after WebKit appeared. And the only reason for the split? Well, to do the same thing you accuse Apple and MS of doing: control. And look how well it worked for them. Everything they do is now considered standard and gospel by the gullible masses of web devs. And so on. The irony is that it's Chrome that breaks the web often, and badly, but they get a pass because it's Chrome! They have the new shiny APIs!
- the_other 4y ago
  > I also literally can't use safari if I don't have a Mac. You should embrace this; this is how the web should be. I don't mean you need to buy a Mac. Instead, I mean that the web standards effort originally came up out of supporting diversity. There was a wider range of possible clients, on a wider range of "popular" platforms. As developers we had to cater to support diverging capabilities. Progress on API development was slower, but it was more evenly spread out. Today, Chrome lurches ahead of everyone else in terms of API feature count, mostly supporting Google's business aims, and many vocal developers seem to think they should only support one set of capabilities. The slower, broader, way was better, in my opinion.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. Use APIs that are broadly supported and somewhat settled and agreed upon. There is seldom an actual need to use whatever new thing that just became supported or is only implemented by Chrome… 95%+ of sites and web apps are doing the same old CRUD things that sites and web apps have been doing for decades and work fine with "boring" APIs.
zdragnar 4y ago
That's part of the ECMA standards process, and part of some others; progressing from a certain stage requires a minimum of two major implementations. The chrome team happens to sit on the leading edge of that process, being more willing to experiment. Safari sits on the other end, for better or worse depending on the feature.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > progressing from a certain stage requires a minimum of two major implementations. The chrome team happens to sit The Chrome team happens to throw something over the wall and ship it to production with no oversight. And sometimes complain that that they cannot hide it behind a flag because people are already using it. There's no end of people right here on HN who scream bloody murder when Safari (and Firefox) refuse to implement some new Chrome-only API.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > sometimes complain that that they cannot hide it behind a flag because people are already using it The way this is supposed to work is an origin trial: you ship something behind a flag, and then allow sites to flip the flag for testing and experimentation. But it's well documented that this is a temporary process, some Chrome visitors you get won't be eligible for trials, and it's not guaranteed that features in origin trials will ship. What are you thinking of where they just shipped something, without an OT?
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > The way this is supposed to work is an origin trial: you ship something behind a flag, and then allow sites to flip the flag for testing and experimentation. For something to become a standard they way it's actually supposed to work is for browsers to come up with two independent implementations. And yet, Chrome frequently ships APIs it calls standard with just Chrome as the sole implementor.
      - jefftk 4y ago
frozenlettuce 4y ago
At least Chrome does not have a price tag - In my country a MacBook equals 22 months of work on minimum wage
andybak 4y ago
How is it better?

> "Want global web compatibility? Fuck you buy a Mac" Still better than "whatever we throw over the wall is now a standard" that Chrome has, and you can see people clamouring for those on HN.

bioemerl 4y ago

Not really in my experience as a primary Firefox dev. It's easy enough to not use stuff like web USB, and in my experience chrome and firefox "get along" while a page (doing more advanced things) not built for safari simply will not work in safari. The problem with safari is that Apple makes it so you have to use it if you want your site to work on it. Chrome, I can safely ignore. I also literally can't use safari if I don't have a Mac.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> It's easy enough to not use stuff like web USB Unless you have the option to use it for your product then the decision is ship a product using just your web developers and have it not work on Safari/iPads or hire iOS developers and build and maintain a completely separate app. So it's a 6-7 figure cost to your business that could be saved if they supported that.
illiarian 4y ago
> while a page (doing more advanced things) not built for safari simply will not work in safari. I've yet to see such a page [1]. And I've been using Safari since 2007 [1] Unless it's built with Chrome's non-standards of course. Edit: of course there will be pages broken in Safari (or FF) for no reason other than the sheer incompetence of people building them. E.g. we have an internal dashboard page that is literally nothing more than tables and charts. Ooops, "only works in Chrome". There's also the minor case of nominally open audio and video codecs that Google pushes to device manufacturers on pain of removing access to its services, but even that hasn't affected me, or most people really, that much.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  > I've yet to see such a page Developers are eating the problems for you because safari support is almost always a requirement. This is a developer side problem, not a user side one. > for no reason other than the sheer incompetence of people building them Safari never breaks, but when it does it's because the developers are incompetent? The fact it takes a bunch of extra work to support safari (in more advanced cases like graphs and dashboards) is the whole problem. I have every intent to kick safari out of any home game stuff I do.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > Developers are eating the problems for you because safari support is almost always a requirement. The problems "developers are eating" are hugely overblown > Safari never breaks, but when it does it's because the developers are incompetent? In 99% of the times? Yes. > The fact it takes a bunch of extra work to support safari No, it doesn't. Source: web developer myself. Of course, if you rely on Chrome-only non-standards, that's a different issue. > in more advanced cases like graphs and dashboards Graphs and Dashboards are advanced use cases now. Gotcha.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      You should reconsider your position when your only response is dismissal and insult.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        > You should reconsider your position when your only response is dismissal and insult. I've been in these threads many times, and it's the same thing again and again: - Safari is holding back the web! It doesn't. Well, if you think that Chrome is web, then you're entitled to your opinion - Safari is new IE! It's not. That it doesn't implement the 400 or so APIs a year that Chrome implements is a feature, not a bug. If your site ends up with a "only works in Chrome" badge, that is your new IE - Chrome split from WebKit three years after WebKit appeared. And the only reason for the split? Well, to do the same thing you accuse Apple and MS of doing: control. And look how well it worked for them. Everything they do is now considered standard and gospel by the gullible masses of web devs. And so on. The irony is that it's Chrome that breaks the web often, and badly, but they get a pass because it's Chrome! They have the new shiny APIs!
the_other 4y ago
> I also literally can't use safari if I don't have a Mac. You should embrace this; this is how the web should be. I don't mean you need to buy a Mac. Instead, I mean that the web standards effort originally came up out of supporting diversity. There was a wider range of possible clients, on a wider range of "popular" platforms. As developers we had to cater to support diverging capabilities. Progress on API development was slower, but it was more evenly spread out. Today, Chrome lurches ahead of everyone else in terms of API feature count, mostly supporting Google's business aims, and many vocal developers seem to think they should only support one set of capabilities. The slower, broader, way was better, in my opinion.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Yes, exactly. Use APIs that are broadly supported and somewhat settled and agreed upon. There is seldom an actual need to use whatever new thing that just became supported or is only implemented by Chrome… 95%+ of sites and web apps are doing the same old CRUD things that sites and web apps have been doing for decades and work fine with "boring" APIs.

zdragnar 4y ago

That's part of the ECMA standards process, and part of some others; progressing from a certain stage requires a minimum of two major implementations. The chrome team happens to sit on the leading edge of that process, being more willing to experiment. Safari sits on the other end, for better or worse depending on the feature.

illiarian 4y ago
> progressing from a certain stage requires a minimum of two major implementations. The chrome team happens to sit The Chrome team happens to throw something over the wall and ship it to production with no oversight. And sometimes complain that that they cannot hide it behind a flag because people are already using it. There's no end of people right here on HN who scream bloody murder when Safari (and Firefox) refuse to implement some new Chrome-only API.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > sometimes complain that that they cannot hide it behind a flag because people are already using it The way this is supposed to work is an origin trial: you ship something behind a flag, and then allow sites to flip the flag for testing and experimentation. But it's well documented that this is a temporary process, some Chrome visitors you get won't be eligible for trials, and it's not guaranteed that features in origin trials will ship. What are you thinking of where they just shipped something, without an OT?
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > The way this is supposed to work is an origin trial: you ship something behind a flag, and then allow sites to flip the flag for testing and experimentation. For something to become a standard they way it's actually supposed to work is for browsers to come up with two independent implementations. And yet, Chrome frequently ships APIs it calls standard with just Chrome as the sole implementor.
    - jefftk 4y ago

frozenlettuce 4y ago

At least Chrome does not have a price tag - In my country a MacBook equals 22 months of work on minimum wage

andybak 4y ago

How is it better?