Testing Different Browsers: It`s a Pain in the Ass

alexn.org

2 points·bad_user··3 comments

Does it matter, so long as you're writing standards compliant code?

Look how much damage was caused by people trying to support the awful IE6 for years (still doing it too!)? (By damage I mean extra time, buginess, and bandwidth for extra CSS and javascript kludges).

Why is it not viable to just say "The code is standards complaint, so any problems are at your end; use a better browser"?

Standards-compliant is what people use, not what we are saying it is a standard.

Also, the reason for why I wrote the original article for doing CORS cross-browser is that not even all recent browsers have support for CORS. For instance the version of Opera that I have (11) does not.

And the reason why I care -- I got complaints from actual programmers that visited my page and told me that it doesn't work.

I suspect the above mentioned problem is due to an old version of Flash player (used as a fallback in case the browser doesn't work with CORS), but saying that "it works on my machine" is not an acceptable answer, not even to your fellow software developers.

While I fully support standards compliancy, if I told a client to inform the customers "use a better browser" I'd be out of a job.

(That said, we've not supported IE6 for ages and I don't get why this guy is still bothering either?)

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