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Ah, I didn't know that. jQuery didn't have this support when Glow was started. You can read a full list of reasons at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/glow/docs/article

by Ovid 17y ago

Ah, I didn't know that. jQuery didn't have this support when Glow was started. You can read a full list of reasons at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/glow/docs/articles/what_is_glow.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/glow/docs/articles/what_is_glow.shtml

jeresig 17y ago
The section on that page titled "How about contributing to a library?" is especially interesting. > Perhaps we could have contributed code to an existing library to add support for the older browsers our users had? Many of the libraries had previously supported some of our "problem" browsers, and actively chosen to drop that support. That's correct - jQuery use to have support for IE 5.5 and Safari 1.3 but support for both were dropped after 1) No significant number of users supported either of those browsers and 2) There were no longer any extra resources to dedicate to supporting them. > We felt it was unlikely they would be enthused about bringing back old browsers they were probably glad to see the back of! There would've only been one way to find out: To ask! The BBC was a big user of jQuery back in 2007 and we would've bent over backwards to make sure everyone was happy - especially if they were (apparently) willing to contribute code/patches to help solve existing problems. Unfortunately we didn't find out until the Glow efforts had already been started - it's just water under the bridge at this point. It's ok though. The BBC is happy with their set up (which is really all that any organization should look for in a library) and we've all learned a lot since then. C'est la vie.
- codepants 17y ago
  > we would've bent over backwards to make sure everyone was happy Or maybe you wouldn't. I guess it all depends. If you happened to decide the BBC's goals were becoming contradictory to your own then who knows which way you'd bend? The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs, and no offense but to tell a very large company like the BBC, "trust me, I'll make sure you're happy, now build all your web pages on top of my library" is not particularly reassuring. And I don't think anyone has to be a mindreader to know what you'd say if they submitted a patch that meant you'd have to lose some of the selectors you now support and run more slowly in order to add support for a browser with 1.5% market share. They looked into it and determined it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork. Okay, whatever. Their needs are unique and they came up with a unique solution, so what? This isn't a zero sum game. > C'est la vie. Indeed. For organizations that don't have to give full support to the same minority browsers that the BBC does, then of course it makes sense to use an off-the-shelf library like JQuery. No one ever suggested otherwise.
  - neaj 17y ago
    > The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs At the point you felt it wasn't working out, you could simply fork it. > it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork But it's cost effective to write a new library from scratch. Err, right.
- rarepleasues 17y ago
  > It's ok though. The BBC is happy with their set up Who says we are ? No everyone within the organisation agrees that Glow is wanted or was even needed. Certainly not everyone is happy with how this has come about.

by Ovid 17y ago

jeresig 17y ago

The section on that page titled "How about contributing to a library?" is especially interesting. > Perhaps we could have contributed code to an existing library to add support for the older browsers our users had? Many of the libraries had previously supported some of our "problem" browsers, and actively chosen to drop that support. That's correct - jQuery use to have support for IE 5.5 and Safari 1.3 but support for both were dropped after 1) No significant number of users supported either of those browsers and 2) There were no longer any extra resources to dedicate to supporting them. > We felt it was unlikely they would be enthused about bringing back old browsers they were probably glad to see the back of! There would've only been one way to find out: To ask! The BBC was a big user of jQuery back in 2007 and we would've bent over backwards to make sure everyone was happy - especially if they were (apparently) willing to contribute code/patches to help solve existing problems. Unfortunately we didn't find out until the Glow efforts had already been started - it's just water under the bridge at this point. It's ok though. The BBC is happy with their set up (which is really all that any organization should look for in a library) and we've all learned a lot since then. C'est la vie.

codepants 17y ago
> we would've bent over backwards to make sure everyone was happy Or maybe you wouldn't. I guess it all depends. If you happened to decide the BBC's goals were becoming contradictory to your own then who knows which way you'd bend? The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs, and no offense but to tell a very large company like the BBC, "trust me, I'll make sure you're happy, now build all your web pages on top of my library" is not particularly reassuring. And I don't think anyone has to be a mindreader to know what you'd say if they submitted a patch that meant you'd have to lose some of the selectors you now support and run more slowly in order to add support for a browser with 1.5% market share. They looked into it and determined it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork. Okay, whatever. Their needs are unique and they came up with a unique solution, so what? This isn't a zero sum game. > C'est la vie. Indeed. For organizations that don't have to give full support to the same minority browsers that the BBC does, then of course it makes sense to use an off-the-shelf library like JQuery. No one ever suggested otherwise.
- neaj 17y ago
  > The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs At the point you felt it wasn't working out, you could simply fork it. > it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork But it's cost effective to write a new library from scratch. Err, right.
rarepleasues 17y ago
> It's ok though. The BBC is happy with their set up Who says we are ? No everyone within the organisation agrees that Glow is wanted or was even needed. Certainly not everyone is happy with how this has come about.