undefined | Better HN

0 points3149y ago0 comments

I maintain a web-application by myself: I choose the platform and exactly which bits I wrote myself, and whre I pulled things in from other sources.

It still sucks. The target environment is undefined. In most programming problems we start with with a well defined target environment (or at least the language semantics are well defined and we quickly learn where the platform-specific hacks are).

In web programming each of the browsers is slightly different in about a hundred different ways. The main goal of using the web (presenting a platform independent UI without needing to download native code) is not entirely achievable. Instead, each year we apply slightly different hacks to go around in circles.

0 points3149y ago0 comments

I maintain a web-application by myself: I choose the platform and exactly which bits I wrote myself, and whre I pulled things in from other sources.

0 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

kowdermeister9y ago· 2 in thread

> The target environment is undefined.

Nope, that target environment is a responsive, standards compliant software. Code for the standards and the displaying devices will catch up.

Nadya9y ago

Something largely only possible in hobby projects unfortunately.

On hobby projects I support only standards. Your browser not to spec? Not my problem. Well, it would be my problem, due to less traffic from people with broken browsers, but I don't monetize or track my traffic.

Professionally, I'm over here supporting IE8 and Safari 5 (the last version available to Windows) still. Next year we'll finally be dropping IE (all versions) so only a few more months to go.

Unfortunately if something is broken in Chrome or Firefox - I get to fix it. Then when the browser finally fixes it - I get to go fix it by removing the old fix which now breaks things. Really unproductive but I can't argue against it.

fauigerzigerk9y ago

All true, but imagine you didn't have these browsers sitting between your code and the native OS. Would that be any cleaner?

At least browser vendors do try to conform to some common specs and any deviation from the spec can be bridged using JavaScript libraries.

Without browsers as a target you might find yourself supporting ancient Android versions and Windows XP.

ng129y ago

> In web programming each of the browsers is slightly different in about a hundred different way

Is this actually true? There are stable, well-tested shims for just about everything out there. CSS strikes me as the only tricky bit, but generally if IE8 users don't get to see an animation I don't really care.

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