test please delete

[NickFitz]

Something strange is happening...

I've got a little test harness for benchmarking JavaScript functions - by default it executes each function 100,000 times. Naturally, I measure the overhead of the loop and the function invocation by having a benchmark which times execution of a "do nothing" function.

On Opera and Safari it appears to work as expected. On Firefox, the "do nothing" function takes longer than the functions that do things, meaning it reports negative times when the overhead is subtracted

I'm almost at the point of firing up Windows and seeing what IE makes of it...

Hmm... IE7 is being a bit weird as well

I wonder if it's something to do with scoping of closures...

[FiveTimes]

Hmm... IE7 is being a bit weird as well

I wonder if it's something to do with scoping of closures...

IE and jscript

We have to support IE as the default browser yet all developers test with firefox. I've lost count of the number of new features that don't work with IE.

[FiveTimes]

Key stats document is up to date - a sterling effort by 5*

Thanks, its a tough job but one I'm prepared to do

[FiveTimes]

DD2 has been sick tonight, she was tucked up in bed for 6pm tonight.
Poor little sod was bunged up and not very well. She was more upset about not going to beavers tonight.
She is also worried that she might miss a dress rehearsal for the nativity on Thursday. I'm sure she will be fine for that. Especially as she has a starring role

[FiveTimes]

I'm off to bed, take care out there

[EqualOpportunities]

Evening folks

Anything exciting happening?

[NickFitz]

IE and jscript

We have to support IE as the default browser yet all developers test with firefox. I've lost count of the number of new features that don't work with IE.

There's a good reason for testing first on Firefox, if they're good developers. There's no good reason for them letting it fail in IE 6/7/8.

If it works correctly in Firefox, Opera, and Safari, then it's correct and has value. At most it takes a couple of bugfixes (which any webdev worth their salt knows) to coerce IE into working the way it would have done if it wasn't the worthless bug-ridden piece of shite that it is.

Of course there are a number of ways in which JScript exhibits epic fail when tested against the ECMAScript standard, but they're so obscure that your develpers won't be encountering them. (Although it's interesting that MS no longer make this document available for download, meaning it has to be downloaded via The Register - if you want it for future reference, save a local copy.)

Eight years ago I was willing to do stuff in a "works-in-IE4-and-that's-all-we-need-to-support" kind of way. If I encountered somebody today who claimed to be a competent webdev, yet espoused that attitude, I'd kick them down the stairs whilst shouting abuse at them for being a shoddy incompetent fool.

If you aren't going to do things properly, there's no point doing them at all. Anybody who thinks "It works in IE, that's good enough" isn't doing it properly.

Doing it properly, and then making it work in IE as well, results in hours of time saved, and maybe an hour dealing with the IE problem. Even if IE is the only browser that will ever be used to view the application, doing it right and then sucking up to IE still saves hours in the hands of a competent developer. Anybody who tells you anything else is a liar. Or incompetent.

<RANT>

At @media a couple of years ago, there was a big discussion (as a part of the conference) about the value of JS libraries, which were becoming a bit of a thing at the time. I think I'm correct in saying that every single one of us who created the Web Standards Project's DOM Scripting task force was present either in the audience or on the panel; and we were universally dismissive of such libraries - we all felt that people should take the trouble to understand the technology, and all the cross-browser grief involved.

A year later, every single one of us had changed our minds - the libraries had evolved to such a degree that, suddenly, all the pain was taken away. When the likes of Simon Willison, Stuart Langridge, ppk, and (dare I say it) myself are saying "Don't bother - just use JQuery or YUI" then you know things have changed. If your JS developers are still insisting on creating fail by writing JS that has different effects on different browsers, get rid. Even the best use JQuery (or YUI when working at Yahoo), and if your developers insist on reinventing wheels that are already nice and round, they're not doing anything useful - they're just making unnecessary work for themselves.

</RANT>

Here endeth the first lesson

[NickFitz]

Evening folks

Anything exciting happening?

Hi EO

Nice Winter Solstice banana

Dunno about exciting... I've just finished composing an epic rant about the shoddy JS developers that 5* seems to be stuck with, and am now planning to crash out, ready to deal with my own peculiar JS problem tomorrow.

I think it might reveal an obscure corner case when I get it debugged, but nothing of any value - mildly interesting in an irrelevant kind of way, at best

Did the courier get the Boney M C90 to you last night?

[EqualOpportunities]

Hi EO

Nice Winter Solstice banana

Dunno about exciting... I've just finished composing an epic rant about the shoddy JS developers that 5* seems to be stuck with, and am now planning to crash out, ready to deal with my own peculiar JS problem tomorrow.

I think it might reveal an obscure corner case when I get it debugged, but nothing of any value - mildly interesting in an irrelevant kind of way, at best

Did the courier get the Boney M C90 to you last night?

Morning Nick

Yes, the tape was put into whatever slot it needed to go into, in the end. In fact, it was about 10 minutes too late, rendering the whole thing unrecoverable... Oh well, something else to rebuild from scratch then.

I am currently doing battle with EMC TimeFinder/Snap - it is safe to say that I now know significantly more about it than I did before I read the whitepaper. Well, it's working at least...

Was there much happening around and about your area last night/this morning when you ventured out?

[BrilloPad]

DD2 has been sick tonight, she was tucked up in bed for 6pm tonight.
Poor little sod was bunged up and not very well. She was more upset about not going to beavers tonight.
She is also worried that she might miss a dress rehearsal for the nativity on Thursday. I'm sure she will be fine for that. Especially as she has a starring role

Sorry to hear that - I hope she gets better