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The web platform doesn’t need to move this fast. Google is, often unilaterally, pushing new features and declaring them standards. In my opinion, the web should

The web platform doesn’t need to move this fast. Google is, often unilaterally, pushing new features and declaring them standards. In my opinion, the web should not be changing so fast that a truly open source community project couldn’t keep up. I don’t like how the web has become reliant on the largesse of billion dollar corporations. I recognise that this is a controversial take, but in my opinion what Google is doing is a variant of “embrace and extend”. Traditionally, this meant proprietary extensions (e.g. VBScript) but I think this a subtle variant with similar consequences.

runlaszlorun 10mo ago
VBScript is a word I hadn't heard in quite a while! Brings back memories of editing 5k line .asp files to find an if statement and then a 1000 lines of html and such. Sadly, I dont' think web development is actual better 20+ years later, just different...
concinds 10mo ago
I know it's fashionable to forcefully shove the same pet peeves about Chromium into any topic even loosely related, but here I'm talking about Safari webcompat fixes, bug fixes, and improvements having very long delays between being written and landing in customers' hands. I would make the same argument if Chrome never existed. Thank you for presenting the 10,001st reissue of this "controversial take".
- simondotau 10mo ago
  The behaviour of entities that WebKit is ostensibly told to be compatible with isn't a "loosely related" topic, it's precisely on-point. It's certainly no less on-point than nebulous criticisms of Apple for assumed NIH syndrome or marketing priorities. You criticise Apple for not having a rapid release schedule; I am criticising the very notion of rapid release schedules (other than security patches). The web platform doesn't need to move so fast.
  - hu3 10mo ago
    How can you defend Safari rendering broken sites for long periods due to lack of frequent updates as a good thing? The ever current adage of distortion field applies here. Just like Safari not having webgpu was touted as a feature and now that it has support, webgpu suddenly turned into a feature. Apple can do no wrong to some. Whatever they do is a feature. And if they don't do, it's a feature too.
    - simondotau 10mo ago
      I agree that numerous companies inspire occasional weird reflexive defences from their most enthusiastic supporters. Thankfully, bad arguments have no transitive value. Implying otherwise is itself a bad argument. It is true that Safari sometimes lagged in ways that are legitimately open to criticism. There are instances where Safari had incomplete or broken feature implementations. But many claims of “broken sites” are really just evidence of lazy developers failing to test beyond Chrome or to implement graceful fallback. Relying on bleeding-edge Chromium features before they've been broadly adopted by browsers is, IMHO, a infatuation with novelty over durability. It's also, IMHO, a callous disregard for the open web platform in favour of The Chrome Platform. Web developers are free to do whatever they like, but it's misleading to blame browsers for the bad choices and/or laziness of some web developers.
      - saagarjha 10mo ago
        Why do you keep conflating bug fixes with new platform features?
        simondotau 10mo ago
        Because such bugs were predominantly associated with then-new platform features. As a web developer myself, I appreciate the frustration with Safari's flexbox bugs of a decade ago and viewport bugs more recently. I also remember being endlessly frustrated by Chrome bugs too, like maddening scroll anchoring behaviours, subpixel rounding inconsistencies, and position:fixed bugs which were broken for so long than the bugs became the de-facto standard which other browsers had to implement. All browsers have bugs. To suggest that Safari was uniquely bad is to view history with Chrome-tinted glasses.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
kyle-rb 10mo ago
The web platform on your device needs to be locked to a specific version because the OS stopped being updated. Once the OS stops being updated, you're supposed to buy a new device. You shouldn't be allowed to use an old device with an updated browser, especially not a browser from a 3rd party, because that doesn't help Apple sell more iPads.
troupo 10mo ago
"Google learned from Microsoft’s mistakes and follows a novel embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy by breaking the web and stomping on the bits. Who cares if it breaks as long as we go forward." https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_the_we.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th...
- simondotau 10mo ago
  That's a good article. Thanks for surfacing.

runlaszlorun 10mo ago

VBScript is a word I hadn't heard in quite a while! Brings back memories of editing 5k line .asp files to find an if statement and then a 1000 lines of html and such. Sadly, I dont' think web development is actual better 20+ years later, just different...

concinds 10mo ago

I know it's fashionable to forcefully shove the same pet peeves about Chromium into any topic even loosely related, but here I'm talking about Safari webcompat fixes, bug fixes, and improvements having very long delays between being written and landing in customers' hands. I would make the same argument if Chrome never existed. Thank you for presenting the 10,001st reissue of this "controversial take".

simondotau 10mo ago
The behaviour of entities that WebKit is ostensibly told to be compatible with isn't a "loosely related" topic, it's precisely on-point. It's certainly no less on-point than nebulous criticisms of Apple for assumed NIH syndrome or marketing priorities. You criticise Apple for not having a rapid release schedule; I am criticising the very notion of rapid release schedules (other than security patches). The web platform doesn't need to move so fast.
- hu3 10mo ago
  How can you defend Safari rendering broken sites for long periods due to lack of frequent updates as a good thing? The ever current adage of distortion field applies here. Just like Safari not having webgpu was touted as a feature and now that it has support, webgpu suddenly turned into a feature. Apple can do no wrong to some. Whatever they do is a feature. And if they don't do, it's a feature too.
  - simondotau 10mo ago
    I agree that numerous companies inspire occasional weird reflexive defences from their most enthusiastic supporters. Thankfully, bad arguments have no transitive value. Implying otherwise is itself a bad argument. It is true that Safari sometimes lagged in ways that are legitimately open to criticism. There are instances where Safari had incomplete or broken feature implementations. But many claims of “broken sites” are really just evidence of lazy developers failing to test beyond Chrome or to implement graceful fallback. Relying on bleeding-edge Chromium features before they've been broadly adopted by browsers is, IMHO, a infatuation with novelty over durability. It's also, IMHO, a callous disregard for the open web platform in favour of The Chrome Platform. Web developers are free to do whatever they like, but it's misleading to blame browsers for the bad choices and/or laziness of some web developers.
    - saagarjha 10mo ago
      Why do you keep conflating bug fixes with new platform features?
      - simondotau 10mo ago
        Because such bugs were predominantly associated with then-new platform features. As a web developer myself, I appreciate the frustration with Safari's flexbox bugs of a decade ago and viewport bugs more recently. I also remember being endlessly frustrated by Chrome bugs too, like maddening scroll anchoring behaviours, subpixel rounding inconsistencies, and position:fixed bugs which were broken for so long than the bugs became the de-facto standard which other browsers had to implement. All browsers have bugs. To suggest that Safari was uniquely bad is to view history with Chrome-tinted glasses.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

kyle-rb 10mo ago

The web platform on your device needs to be locked to a specific version because the OS stopped being updated. Once the OS stops being updated, you're supposed to buy a new device. You shouldn't be allowed to use an old device with an updated browser, especially not a browser from a 3rd party, because that doesn't help Apple sell more iPads.

troupo 10mo ago

"Google learned from Microsoft’s mistakes and follows a novel embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy by breaking the web and stomping on the bits. Who cares if it breaks as long as we go forward." https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_the_we.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th...

simondotau 10mo ago
That's a good article. Thanks for surfacing.