5 ms·

Most expensive javascript ever

199 points by pclark 17y ago

ajross 17y ago
Seems to me that it's mistitled. It's only an expensive bug if they lost the contract, and the article doesn't say that. No doubt the parties involved fixed whatever layout glitch or misconception led to the platform test and moved on. Contracts that big are expensive for both sides to cancel.
- crux 17y ago
  Except it wasn't a contract, it was a sample server sent as a sales pitch. If somebody is trying to get your business and sends you a machine that purposefully checks for your flagship product, so that that machine can treat it like a second-class citizen, you probably aren't going to decide to give them your business.
- mbreese 17y ago
  "cost them millions of NOK in lost sales" So, yeah, I'd call that a big loss. According to the article, this was in an evaluation period with several different vendors. This one little piece of Javascript seems to have been enough to remove that company from the running. I don't know if Opera would have liked that company's offerings otherwise, but that would probably be enough to remove them from consideration. I guess if you're trying to sell something to a browser maker, you might want to make sure that your admin interface works with their browser.
  - slig 17y ago
    > This one little piece of Javascript Not just that. The little piece just acknowledge the fact that the browser isn't supported, so removing it doesn't magically makes things work.
    - mahmud 17y ago
      "Enterprise Software" deliberately insists on IE or another pet browser just because it can. Half the time they're not even doing anything browser specific. Millions in lost sales should teach them to take standards seriously.
      - gaius 17y ago
        Not true. When a customer calls with a problem, if they're using some hoky browser (no offence to the Opera folks, but even they have to admit they're a tiny niche), then that's one more factor to eliminate before the problem can be understood. I would be very surprised if the profit on that one sale would cover certifying the product and supporting it going forwards.
        tokenadult 17y ago
        I would be very surprised if the profit on that one sale would cover certifying the product and supporting it going forwards. What technical reason would a server company have for NOT supporting a largely standards-compliant browser like Opera? Isn't the whole point of serving up content to the World Wide Web to be able to communicate with multiple devices all over the world?
        gaius 17y ago
        Well, for a start, it would mean rolling out Opera to every developer, tester and support rep's desktop, and it being someone's job to make sure it worked on every PC they had, to keep it up to date and apply any patches. It also means doing any manual QA cycles again with Opera, and/or rewriting automated tests to use it too. All of those things have cash costs associated with them.
        tokenadult 17y ago
        Well, for a start, it would mean rolling out Opera to every developer, tester and support rep's desktop, and it being someone's job to make sure it worked on every PC they had, to keep it up to date and apply any patches. Is it impossible to write a Web application that simply doesn't test the limits of most browser implementations? Again, I'm asking an informational question to follow up on your interesting response. What actually happens in the typical case of a server vendor's application that is supposed to run on an arbitrary browser if a browser the vendor hasn't considered is used? Does the whole application crash? Or does it just look a little bit less pretty?
  - eds 17y ago
    So as little as $300,000? Unless the amount was much greater, I'm betting there've been far more expensive Javascript mistakes.
- lucumo 17y ago
  > Seems to me that it's mistitled. It's only an expensive bug if they lost the contract, and the article doesn't say that. It does. FTA: > This single statement, apparently written by some sub-contractor they had outsourced admin interface programming to, cost them millions of NOK in lost sales.
  - joezydeco 17y ago
    It's also not a bug. The article never titled it a bug.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- noodle 17y ago
  they did lose the contract, and it was a big one. there wasn't any glitch or misconception, it was a hard-coded redirect specifically designed to kill opera usage. and, just in case you didn't pick it up from the article, this is opera trying to make the purchase. also, opera is a web browser. :)
blhack 17y ago
I hate these sorts of things so much. "I'm sorry, your browser isn't supported" What? Chrome isn't supported? Were you people drunk when you wrote this? Howabout a message that says "the browser you are using has not been extensively tested, please use at your own risk.".
- calcnerd256 17y ago
  Exactly. Code to spec, not to the browser. If you really, really, really want it to look just-so in a certain browser, do that after you get it working to spec. Maybe then more browsers would implement spec. Heck, maybe XHTML2 wouldn't be dead.
- nimbix 17y ago
  Sometimes that's not an option. We were once forced to do the same thing. Block Opera, that is. We had a large-ish JS app which ran fine in FF and IE, but generated all sorts of exceptions in Opera. The reason we didn't fix it was that every single one of those errors read something like "There was an error in [function].". No line numbers, no surrounding code, no nothing. So we blocked it. (We did eventually fix the bugs, but only after a new version of Opera which printed more informative messages was released.)
  - ars 17y ago
    So why block them? Why not a message: "This site probably doesn't work in Opera, but feel free to try."?
    - nimbix 17y ago
      Because sometimes it wasn't immediately obvious that something was broken without looking at the error console. This was a business app and if, for example, a form widget failed to work properly it could result in silent data loss which wouldn't get noticed for a while.
    - trevelyan 17y ago
      Because the customer's perception of your professionalism matters, and the problems with the browser's execution of javascript would strongly and negatively affect their likelihood to use your service and convert to a paying customer? My site depends heavily on custom-coded javascript. Minor browser inconsistencies are one thing you expect to handle or live through. Absolute FAIL because of poor javascript engine implementation is another.
abdulhaq 17y ago
Actually, Opera missed a trick here. They should have asked the supplier to fix the offending software during the evaluation period, thereby chipping away at the small mountain of similar admin interfaces/websites that fail when presented with Opera browser. They might then have further benefited from the supplier's hardware if it had been the best value.
- dexen 17y ago
  I can't help but wonder why the parent post, insightful and well-worded, is upvoted significantly less than the post starting with `I hate these sorts of things...' It's not like I hate these sorts of things so much, but still...
  - biohacker42 17y ago
    Unfortunately the wayback machine does not archive the comments: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://news.ycombinator.com http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://news.ycombinator.com It would be interesting to run something like the stupid filter on comments rated > x for all comments today and for all comments not long after Startup News was renamed Hacker News. I'm curious to see if the totality of comments would show a significant difference in the stupid score as determined by a simple bayesian filter.
  - brown9-2 17y ago
    Well, you are missing his point. Opera could have used this opportunity to get the "major hardware supplier" to add Opera support to their admin tool. Instead of simply being insulted by the company's software, they could have basically bought support for their product from this "major hardware supplier" for free.
    - mrduncan 17y ago
      It's also possible that their move caused that supplier to add support after the incident so that such a thing doesn't happen again.
  - deleted 17y ago
tolmasky 17y ago
I would have done everything in my power to get that line removed and then taken the contract. The short sighted response is to be angry at this server company, but realize that they have many other customers -- customers who may not be using Opera because its not supported with the admin tool.
- brown9-2 17y ago
  Why would Opera want to support a company that actively does not support Opera?
  - kalid 17y ago
    "This single statement, apparently written by some sub-contractor they had outsourced admin interface programming to, cost them millions of NOK in lost sales." The company didn't intend to block opera. Also, it's shortsighted to take a vindictive approach to negotiations if you intend to gain market share. Opera is a nice browser, but they're deluding themselves if they think they can get offended when something isn't supported. They have the dubious honor of being big enough to be known, and small enough to be ignored due to compatibility issues. (There probably wasn't a check for Konqueror or IceWeasel). Opera could have used this as a chance to improve their market share and image (so less admins get the impression that Opera is an also-ran browser that nobody needs to support). But losing the contract, especially for an outsourced component, makes them appear petty.
Keyframe 17y ago
I've done a site about a year or two ago - I don't make websites, but I was pushed into it. So, client wants modern, slick design, some JS functionality etc... and in the end I've received an email with a question why doesn't it work on their windows '95 IE5 computer. I've politely forwarded links to microsoft site where it states '95 and IE5 are not supported anymore, so why should I support it then? By that logic I should support commodore 64 browsing the site. However, if you are doing an application and you have time/resources/will to test and develop on one or two browsers, then state it obviously on the application gateway. This was just a lazy forwarding to error page. MobileMe does a nice, polite notice if you are there with unsupported browser, check it out.
codyrobbins 17y ago
From an objective point of view, why should this matter to Opera when they were trying to evaluating the best hardware for the large amount of money they were spending? It's an emotional reason rather than a rational one, which doesn't seem like a very good way to make a decision when spending gobs of money. Also, is Opera unable to recognize that the vendor has limited engineering and support resources, and that supporting a browser with limited market share has ramifications for both those things? Wikipedia says Opera has less than 1% of browser market share. I have nothing against Opera, but from a neutral point of view, can they really say it makes sense for the vendor to spend time and money testing and supporting a platform that barely anyone uses? I feel like Opera should be asking why the vendor feels the need to do this, rather than getting self-righteous about it.
- callahad 17y ago
  can they really say it makes sense for the vendor to spend time and money testing and supporting a platform that barely anyone uses? There's a huge gulf between "we don't support Opera" and "no version of Opera is allowed to even try to render our pages."
  - codyrobbins 17y ago
    I agree. However, that's the point. Completely barring Opera means they're certain they won't receive any support requests from people using Opera. Doing otherwise means opening their support apparatus to people using Opera, who might find all sorts of things wrong with the software and not realize it's because the software isn't tested with it. Of course, given the small number of people using Opera, the question is whether there would really be much of a burden on their resources.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  If Opera were significantly and wildly incompatible with other "popular" browsers like Firefox and Safari, you might have a point, but not much of one. But the plain fact is that, these days, the only browser which incurs support costs high enough to consider cutting out is Internet Explorer. Stuff that works in any of the other browsers will, almost always, work in all of them.
limmeau 17y ago
The article links to http://www.digi.no/504306/her-kjores-egentlig-opera-mini&bid=6 http://www.digi.no/504306/her-kjores-egentlig-opera-mini&#38... for pictures of the blade server. But that page also reports that they're driving Opera Mini with... Pike! I thought I'd never hear of Pike again. (insert Kirk joke if applicable).
mieses 17y ago
is a significant percentage of Opera users non-Swedish?

199 points by pclark 17y ago

Seems to me that it's mistitled. It's only an expensive bug if they lost the contract, and the article doesn't say that. No doubt the parties involved fixed whatever layout glitch or misconception led to the platform test and moved on. Contracts that big are expensive for both sides to cancel.

crux 17y ago
Except it wasn't a contract, it was a sample server sent as a sales pitch. If somebody is trying to get your business and sends you a machine that purposefully checks for your flagship product, so that that machine can treat it like a second-class citizen, you probably aren't going to decide to give them your business.
mbreese 17y ago
"cost them millions of NOK in lost sales" So, yeah, I'd call that a big loss. According to the article, this was in an evaluation period with several different vendors. This one little piece of Javascript seems to have been enough to remove that company from the running. I don't know if Opera would have liked that company's offerings otherwise, but that would probably be enough to remove them from consideration. I guess if you're trying to sell something to a browser maker, you might want to make sure that your admin interface works with their browser.
- slig 17y ago
  > This one little piece of Javascript Not just that. The little piece just acknowledge the fact that the browser isn't supported, so removing it doesn't magically makes things work.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    "Enterprise Software" deliberately insists on IE or another pet browser just because it can. Half the time they're not even doing anything browser specific. Millions in lost sales should teach them to take standards seriously.
    - gaius 17y ago
      Not true. When a customer calls with a problem, if they're using some hoky browser (no offence to the Opera folks, but even they have to admit they're a tiny niche), then that's one more factor to eliminate before the problem can be understood. I would be very surprised if the profit on that one sale would cover certifying the product and supporting it going forwards.
      - tokenadult 17y ago
        I would be very surprised if the profit on that one sale would cover certifying the product and supporting it going forwards. What technical reason would a server company have for NOT supporting a largely standards-compliant browser like Opera? Isn't the whole point of serving up content to the World Wide Web to be able to communicate with multiple devices all over the world?
        gaius 17y ago
        Well, for a start, it would mean rolling out Opera to every developer, tester and support rep's desktop, and it being someone's job to make sure it worked on every PC they had, to keep it up to date and apply any patches. It also means doing any manual QA cycles again with Opera, and/or rewriting automated tests to use it too. All of those things have cash costs associated with them.
        tokenadult 17y ago
        Well, for a start, it would mean rolling out Opera to every developer, tester and support rep's desktop, and it being someone's job to make sure it worked on every PC they had, to keep it up to date and apply any patches. Is it impossible to write a Web application that simply doesn't test the limits of most browser implementations? Again, I'm asking an informational question to follow up on your interesting response. What actually happens in the typical case of a server vendor's application that is supposed to run on an arbitrary browser if a browser the vendor hasn't considered is used? Does the whole application crash? Or does it just look a little bit less pretty?
- eds 17y ago
  So as little as $300,000? Unless the amount was much greater, I'm betting there've been far more expensive Javascript mistakes.
lucumo 17y ago
> Seems to me that it's mistitled. It's only an expensive bug if they lost the contract, and the article doesn't say that. It does. FTA: > This single statement, apparently written by some sub-contractor they had outsourced admin interface programming to, cost them millions of NOK in lost sales.
- joezydeco 17y ago
  It's also not a bug. The article never titled it a bug.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
noodle 17y ago
they did lose the contract, and it was a big one. there wasn't any glitch or misconception, it was a hard-coded redirect specifically designed to kill opera usage. and, just in case you didn't pick it up from the article, this is opera trying to make the purchase. also, opera is a web browser. :)

blhack 17y ago

I hate these sorts of things so much. "I'm sorry, your browser isn't supported" What? Chrome isn't supported? Were you people drunk when you wrote this? Howabout a message that says "the browser you are using has not been extensively tested, please use at your own risk.".

calcnerd256 17y ago
Exactly. Code to spec, not to the browser. If you really, really, really want it to look just-so in a certain browser, do that after you get it working to spec. Maybe then more browsers would implement spec. Heck, maybe XHTML2 wouldn't be dead.
nimbix 17y ago
Sometimes that's not an option. We were once forced to do the same thing. Block Opera, that is. We had a large-ish JS app which ran fine in FF and IE, but generated all sorts of exceptions in Opera. The reason we didn't fix it was that every single one of those errors read something like "There was an error in [function].". No line numbers, no surrounding code, no nothing. So we blocked it. (We did eventually fix the bugs, but only after a new version of Opera which printed more informative messages was released.)
- ars 17y ago
  So why block them? Why not a message: "This site probably doesn't work in Opera, but feel free to try."?
  - nimbix 17y ago
    Because sometimes it wasn't immediately obvious that something was broken without looking at the error console. This was a business app and if, for example, a form widget failed to work properly it could result in silent data loss which wouldn't get noticed for a while.
  - trevelyan 17y ago
    Because the customer's perception of your professionalism matters, and the problems with the browser's execution of javascript would strongly and negatively affect their likelihood to use your service and convert to a paying customer? My site depends heavily on custom-coded javascript. Minor browser inconsistencies are one thing you expect to handle or live through. Absolute FAIL because of poor javascript engine implementation is another.

abdulhaq 17y ago

Actually, Opera missed a trick here. They should have asked the supplier to fix the offending software during the evaluation period, thereby chipping away at the small mountain of similar admin interfaces/websites that fail when presented with Opera browser. They might then have further benefited from the supplier's hardware if it had been the best value.

dexen 17y ago
I can't help but wonder why the parent post, insightful and well-worded, is upvoted significantly less than the post starting with `I hate these sorts of things...' It's not like I hate these sorts of things so much, but still...
- biohacker42 17y ago
  Unfortunately the wayback machine does not archive the comments: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://news.ycombinator.com http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://news.ycombinator.com It would be interesting to run something like the stupid filter on comments rated > x for all comments today and for all comments not long after Startup News was renamed Hacker News. I'm curious to see if the totality of comments would show a significant difference in the stupid score as determined by a simple bayesian filter.
- brown9-2 17y ago
  Well, you are missing his point. Opera could have used this opportunity to get the "major hardware supplier" to add Opera support to their admin tool. Instead of simply being insulted by the company's software, they could have basically bought support for their product from this "major hardware supplier" for free.
  - mrduncan 17y ago
    It's also possible that their move caused that supplier to add support after the incident so that such a thing doesn't happen again.
- deleted 17y ago

tolmasky 17y ago

I would have done everything in my power to get that line removed and then taken the contract. The short sighted response is to be angry at this server company, but realize that they have many other customers -- customers who may not be using Opera because its not supported with the admin tool.

brown9-2 17y ago
Why would Opera want to support a company that actively does not support Opera?
- kalid 17y ago
  "This single statement, apparently written by some sub-contractor they had outsourced admin interface programming to, cost them millions of NOK in lost sales." The company didn't intend to block opera. Also, it's shortsighted to take a vindictive approach to negotiations if you intend to gain market share. Opera is a nice browser, but they're deluding themselves if they think they can get offended when something isn't supported. They have the dubious honor of being big enough to be known, and small enough to be ignored due to compatibility issues. (There probably wasn't a check for Konqueror or IceWeasel). Opera could have used this as a chance to improve their market share and image (so less admins get the impression that Opera is an also-ran browser that nobody needs to support). But losing the contract, especially for an outsourced component, makes them appear petty.

Keyframe 17y ago

I've done a site about a year or two ago - I don't make websites, but I was pushed into it. So, client wants modern, slick design, some JS functionality etc... and in the end I've received an email with a question why doesn't it work on their windows '95 IE5 computer. I've politely forwarded links to microsoft site where it states '95 and IE5 are not supported anymore, so why should I support it then? By that logic I should support commodore 64 browsing the site. However, if you are doing an application and you have time/resources/will to test and develop on one or two browsers, then state it obviously on the application gateway. This was just a lazy forwarding to error page. MobileMe does a nice, polite notice if you are there with unsupported browser, check it out.

codyrobbins 17y ago

From an objective point of view, why should this matter to Opera when they were trying to evaluating the best hardware for the large amount of money they were spending? It's an emotional reason rather than a rational one, which doesn't seem like a very good way to make a decision when spending gobs of money. Also, is Opera unable to recognize that the vendor has limited engineering and support resources, and that supporting a browser with limited market share has ramifications for both those things? Wikipedia says Opera has less than 1% of browser market share. I have nothing against Opera, but from a neutral point of view, can they really say it makes sense for the vendor to spend time and money testing and supporting a platform that barely anyone uses? I feel like Opera should be asking why the vendor feels the need to do this, rather than getting self-righteous about it.

callahad 17y ago
can they really say it makes sense for the vendor to spend time and money testing and supporting a platform that barely anyone uses? There's a huge gulf between "we don't support Opera" and "no version of Opera is allowed to even try to render our pages."
- codyrobbins 17y ago
  I agree. However, that's the point. Completely barring Opera means they're certain they won't receive any support requests from people using Opera. Doing otherwise means opening their support apparatus to people using Opera, who might find all sorts of things wrong with the software and not realize it's because the software isn't tested with it. Of course, given the small number of people using Opera, the question is whether there would really be much of a burden on their resources.
ubernostrum 17y ago
If Opera were significantly and wildly incompatible with other "popular" browsers like Firefox and Safari, you might have a point, but not much of one. But the plain fact is that, these days, the only browser which incurs support costs high enough to consider cutting out is Internet Explorer. Stuff that works in any of the other browsers will, almost always, work in all of them.

limmeau 17y ago

The article links to http://www.digi.no/504306/her-kjores-egentlig-opera-mini&bid=6 http://www.digi.no/504306/her-kjores-egentlig-opera-mini&#38... for pictures of the blade server. But that page also reports that they're driving Opera Mini with... Pike! I thought I'd never hear of Pike again. (insert Kirk joke if applicable).

mieses 17y ago

is a significant percentage of Opera users non-Swedish?