Originally posted by NickFitz
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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>
Here endeth the first lesson
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>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.
Here endeth the first lesson
Gosh - sounds jolly aggresive!
I look forward to lesson 2.......
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