Hacker News Reader

> By now most developers are in the mindset that it's okay to let a page differ in some browsers as long as the difference is only minor/aesthetic and not a functional handicap.

Well, if they're writing standards compliant code it's fine if the page is different in different browsers, but I take your point that developers are happy to write non-standards compliant code to provide extra functionality for a few users.

> in the meantime developers need incentives to only use prefixed properties on test sites,

Maybe search engines need to provide boosts for standards-compliance and drops for standards-ignorance.

I agree.

There're some prefixed properties which work on all major browser since forever (on a web scale)... but there're still a draft. Reading the minutes of the CSS group is enlightening : everything is really really slow.

Moreover, lots of non-defined prefixed properties don't break pages at all. Rounded corners per exemple are nice, but not displaying them is not a deal breaker. Same thing for transitions : site using them often provide a javascript fallback for non webkit browser.

If Opera wants to support webkit properties, they have to spoof their UA : lots of mobile website are designed for iPhone and Androïd (yes, that's not ideal, but it's a fact). It's the 00's mess again...

So you want to hold the development of the web back, by giving developers incentives (really making them look like fools) to slow the progress of the web.

The only thing the prefix system threatens is a few unimportant browsers that arguably shouldn't even be around anymore and the pride of the w3c.

And you want to save them, by throwing the future of the web under a bus?

No, don't get me wrong. I don't want to hold the development back. Websites, design wants to evolve fast, faster than anything ever before. I think vendors get this on some level, that's why they let us use these properties, but they need to do a better job as a collective: the working groups that draft the standards. If they standardize faster, there won't be any change in your ability to use brand new technology at the current rate.

For example: webkit devs think of a new property. They build it, they like it, they make it publicly available. Chrome guys enable using this in the dev and beta channel. In a couple weeks they have feedback on performance and stuff. Whatwg convenes, they finalize the details, webkit guys make a few adjustments (and it's fine because there's only 2 webpages on the entire internet that's been using it for a month tops) and then soon it hits the stable channel. This is what we need. Fast updating browsers could rape the benefits of such a system very nicely, fast updating is what we need to let the web evolve fast enough anyway. Slow updating browsers can go die in a fire, they are just as slow with supporting everything else.

Also, not to nitpick, but opera on the mobile front isn't unimportant. It's the only alternative to webkit, it's nearly ubiquitous and not a bad experience on mobile.