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It's not bad. But in older browsers that don't support those new CSS features it always defaults to the single column "small" version even with a large browser

It's not bad. But in older browsers that don't support those new CSS features it always defaults to the single column "small" version even with a large browser window. That's not optimal. The current www.vox.com site displays perfectly fine in older browsers. Sometimes change for the sake of using the latest bleeding edge thing isn't really worth it.

shadeed 4y ago
Hello there! The author of the article is here. The main goal of this is to explore the potential of modern CSS in building such a layout. I agree that some of the features aren't supported yet, but that will become better over time. The article shed light on things like container queries, fluid sizing.. etc.
- kingcharles 4y ago
  Just want to say thank you. Great article and really enjoyed your other about flexbox vs. grid.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  I think it would have been worthwhile mentioning browser support in quite a few places: • Container queries have less than a year’s support in any browser; • Style container queries have only an incomplete implementation in Chromium for a month; • :has() isn’t in Firefox yet and has been in other browsers for a year at most. That is: you can’t actually depend on these features yet.
hanniabu 4y ago
If you're using older browsers you should be accustomed to a sub optimal experience.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  Yeah I always think it's strange that because you have made the deliberate choice to not upgrade your browser in years, ignore all of the "feature not supported on your browser" messages, ignoring security updates, etc. that I should be focusing on your experience, instead for the 98% of people who do do those things. Isn't it a deliberate choice to have that experience? Unless you're in an industry that requires not upgrading, backward compatibility is great, up until a point.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    In my case the text to speech software I use to interact with my computer doesn't exist in the same form in modern operating systems. The modern installable version and voices are much worse. So I stick to an old OS that supports my text to speech. But this means my glibc is also an old version. And this OS was released before docker existed in repos (and has no docker support). So I'm using an older brower with JS completely disabled. It displays HTML, text, images, etc pretty well. It's just the for-profit sites that used to cause problems. But now everyone is cargo culting the for-profit stacks, devs are expecting updates to browsers every 2 weeks, and it's getting harder for me. So yeah, I expect it to be hard. But also, people have legitimate reasons for using old software.
    - motoxpro 4y ago
      Totally fair. Thanks for educating me on a proper use case.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
if you’re using an older browser there’s a good chance you’re vulnerable to a bunch of security holes too, unfortunately we’re past the days of only updating every 2 years
lillecarl 4y ago
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Unless you're targeting some really niche market people will have a relatively up2date browser. It's not a problem to use recent features once they've been implemented by Chrome and Safari.
- 2h 4y ago
  The fact that most browsers aggressively push or even force updates should not be used as a justification for this. You're essentially saying "I want to use this months old API, and fuck you if you still have a browser from last year." People used to respect some amount of backward compatibility.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Browsers used to not auto-update. There's no reason to "respect" backwards compatibility in an inherently online product that auto-updates. There's nothing ideological here, it's just about being practical.
    - 2h 4y ago
      not sure about Chrome, but you can turn off update on Firefox. I do this, and for good reason. I dont like the constant churn of browser UI moving around and changing every few months. So users in that situation should not be punished by web devs who only support the bleeding edge browser versions.
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        Then that's on you. When 90% of users are on the newest version within a couple weeks, that's not "bleeding edge". It's mainstream. You're also opening yourself up to security vulnerabilities as you browse. If you turn off auto update, it's up to you to accept the consequences of both security risks and of sites breaking.
        4y ago
Julesman 4y ago
False. I do professional front end development and haven't browser tested with any rigor in over a year. Who cares about Opera. Seriously.
- 2h 4y ago
  Totally agree. As long as it works in current Chrome, that's all that matters. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
  - Julesman 4y ago
    Your sarcasm isn't hitting the way you think it is. I've spent enough time doing my job and enough time on CanIUse to know that the era of worrying about browser compatibility is behind us. I dismiss Opera because it's only at 1% use. There has never been an expectation at any point in my 15 years doing that that I should browser test for browsers at !% use. And realistically, the properties that aren't currently browser compatible are one's that I never use and have little need for. Some are cool and will be compatible before long. But I can't really remember the last time I looked up a property I wanted to use and found it would be problematic for anything other than Opera. Granted, my attitude might be different if I was building sites for an international audience.
    - 2h 4y ago
      > I've spent enough time doing my job and enough time on CanIUse to know that the era of worrying about browser compatibility is behind us. Its not. Its just that many developers have stopped caring about it. Google is releasing new APIs at a ridiculous pace, many of which are not needed for a huge chunk of websites. if developers want, they can avoid using newer APIs, or use them but add fallbacks for older browsers. > for anything other than Opera. sure, if you look at the current version of major browsers, support is pretty good for everything. but some users are locked to an old version, either out of personal preference, or work mandates. so its helpful if web developers dont use assume everyone is one the latest browser version. they dont need to support every version of every browser, but I think its reasonable to expect a two year old browser to work with most current websites, and more and more that is not the case.
traceroute66 4y ago
> But in older browsers that don't support ... I think, regrettably, that 2023 might be roughly the time where the "old browser" support consideration is finally put to bed. For example, you no doubt have to perform all sorts of code contortions to make things work in old Internet Exploder. It means you have to use old coding methods compared to things that are quicker and easier to implement and get working cross-browser & cross-platform in modern CSS. It also means you are writing more LOC, which means more scope for weird little bugs and time-consuming troubleshooting. Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), making things work in old browsers means you are removing further incentive for people to upgrade. Given the increasing prevalence of browser-based attacks where people can be pwned simply by visiting a website that contains "specially crafted code", I think the quicker everyone gets onto modern browsers the better...
- dmix 4y ago
  I work a niche B2B product and we basically made this a requirement. Unsurprisingly we’ve had 0 issues asking our customers to use recent versions of Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Safari. Obviously not using super new APIs like @container before they are fully read on these 4 but still that’s still basically every modern feature.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    At my last company we were selling into the NHS which was traditionally very conservative with browsers (they were one of the last users of IE6). But even they're on Chrome these days.
petepete 4y ago
Are users of old browsers likely to be using high resolution displays?

shadeed 4y ago

Hello there! The author of the article is here. The main goal of this is to explore the potential of modern CSS in building such a layout. I agree that some of the features aren't supported yet, but that will become better over time. The article shed light on things like container queries, fluid sizing.. etc.

kingcharles 4y ago
Just want to say thank you. Great article and really enjoyed your other about flexbox vs. grid.
chrismorgan 4y ago
I think it would have been worthwhile mentioning browser support in quite a few places: • Container queries have less than a year’s support in any browser; • Style container queries have only an incomplete implementation in Chromium for a month; • :has() isn’t in Firefox yet and has been in other browsers for a year at most. That is: you can’t actually depend on these features yet.

hanniabu 4y ago

If you're using older browsers you should be accustomed to a sub optimal experience.

motoxpro 4y ago
Yeah I always think it's strange that because you have made the deliberate choice to not upgrade your browser in years, ignore all of the "feature not supported on your browser" messages, ignoring security updates, etc. that I should be focusing on your experience, instead for the 98% of people who do do those things. Isn't it a deliberate choice to have that experience? Unless you're in an industry that requires not upgrading, backward compatibility is great, up until a point.
- superkuh 4y ago
  In my case the text to speech software I use to interact with my computer doesn't exist in the same form in modern operating systems. The modern installable version and voices are much worse. So I stick to an old OS that supports my text to speech. But this means my glibc is also an old version. And this OS was released before docker existed in repos (and has no docker support). So I'm using an older brower with JS completely disabled. It displays HTML, text, images, etc pretty well. It's just the for-profit sites that used to cause problems. But now everyone is cargo culting the for-profit stacks, devs are expecting updates to browsers every 2 weeks, and it's getting harder for me. So yeah, I expect it to be hard. But also, people have legitimate reasons for using old software.
  - motoxpro 4y ago
    Totally fair. Thanks for educating me on a proper use case.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

if you’re using an older browser there’s a good chance you’re vulnerable to a bunch of security holes too, unfortunately we’re past the days of only updating every 2 years

lillecarl 4y ago

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Unless you're targeting some really niche market people will have a relatively up2date browser. It's not a problem to use recent features once they've been implemented by Chrome and Safari.

2h 4y ago
The fact that most browsers aggressively push or even force updates should not be used as a justification for this. You're essentially saying "I want to use this months old API, and fuck you if you still have a browser from last year." People used to respect some amount of backward compatibility.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Browsers used to not auto-update. There's no reason to "respect" backwards compatibility in an inherently online product that auto-updates. There's nothing ideological here, it's just about being practical.
  - 2h 4y ago
    not sure about Chrome, but you can turn off update on Firefox. I do this, and for good reason. I dont like the constant churn of browser UI moving around and changing every few months. So users in that situation should not be punished by web devs who only support the bleeding edge browser versions.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      Then that's on you. When 90% of users are on the newest version within a couple weeks, that's not "bleeding edge". It's mainstream. You're also opening yourself up to security vulnerabilities as you browse. If you turn off auto update, it's up to you to accept the consequences of both security risks and of sites breaking.
      - 4y ago

Julesman 4y ago

False. I do professional front end development and haven't browser tested with any rigor in over a year. Who cares about Opera. Seriously.

2h 4y ago
Totally agree. As long as it works in current Chrome, that's all that matters. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
- Julesman 4y ago
  Your sarcasm isn't hitting the way you think it is. I've spent enough time doing my job and enough time on CanIUse to know that the era of worrying about browser compatibility is behind us. I dismiss Opera because it's only at 1% use. There has never been an expectation at any point in my 15 years doing that that I should browser test for browsers at !% use. And realistically, the properties that aren't currently browser compatible are one's that I never use and have little need for. Some are cool and will be compatible before long. But I can't really remember the last time I looked up a property I wanted to use and found it would be problematic for anything other than Opera. Granted, my attitude might be different if I was building sites for an international audience.
  - 2h 4y ago
    > I've spent enough time doing my job and enough time on CanIUse to know that the era of worrying about browser compatibility is behind us. Its not. Its just that many developers have stopped caring about it. Google is releasing new APIs at a ridiculous pace, many of which are not needed for a huge chunk of websites. if developers want, they can avoid using newer APIs, or use them but add fallbacks for older browsers. > for anything other than Opera. sure, if you look at the current version of major browsers, support is pretty good for everything. but some users are locked to an old version, either out of personal preference, or work mandates. so its helpful if web developers dont use assume everyone is one the latest browser version. they dont need to support every version of every browser, but I think its reasonable to expect a two year old browser to work with most current websites, and more and more that is not the case.

traceroute66 4y ago

> But in older browsers that don't support ... I think, regrettably, that 2023 might be roughly the time where the "old browser" support consideration is finally put to bed. For example, you no doubt have to perform all sorts of code contortions to make things work in old Internet Exploder. It means you have to use old coding methods compared to things that are quicker and easier to implement and get working cross-browser & cross-platform in modern CSS. It also means you are writing more LOC, which means more scope for weird little bugs and time-consuming troubleshooting. Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), making things work in old browsers means you are removing further incentive for people to upgrade. Given the increasing prevalence of browser-based attacks where people can be pwned simply by visiting a website that contains "specially crafted code", I think the quicker everyone gets onto modern browsers the better...

dmix 4y ago
I work a niche B2B product and we basically made this a requirement. Unsurprisingly we’ve had 0 issues asking our customers to use recent versions of Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Safari. Obviously not using super new APIs like @container before they are fully read on these 4 but still that’s still basically every modern feature.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  At my last company we were selling into the NHS which was traditionally very conservative with browsers (they were one of the last users of IE6). But even they're on Chrome these days.

petepete 4y ago

Are users of old browsers likely to be using high resolution displays?