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Comment by dgesang | Hacker News Reader

After reading some comments here I come to the conclusion that (too) many web developers are just a bunch of opportunistic ignorant hypocrites. On the one hand they repeatedly state that constantly expanding variety of HTML9 technologies[1] is THE best thing that could have ever happen to the Internet and that there is nothing worse than mono culture. On the other hand they do not seem to be willing to even consider testing their webapps with a browser with a market share below 10%, because it's just not that important, and embrace the overall greatness of Chrome/Webkit and that it should be the only browser we should develop for/with.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5206211

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Yup! After all, web developers are individual people with their own opinions, not a monoculture. It's not hypocritical when different members of a group hold contradictory opinions.

But if you open your mind a little, you'll also see that the two opinions can also be totally compatible, just dependent on the context. For example, expanding "HTML9" (ha!) can be great for exploring, prototyping, experimenting, where a monoculture is bad and harms innovation. While only >10%-share browsers can be worth commercially developing for, because of resource constraints.

In other words, ideally, there would be a "polyculture" in innovation and experimentation, that would constantly funnel into a "monoculture" in actual final standards. Of course, that's hard to establish and maintain in practice, but you can see how they're just different perspectives.

    While only >10%-share browsers can be worth commercially developing for

That's one problem: many web developers program for browsers, not standards.

    In other words, ideally, there would be a "polyculture" in innovation and experimentation,
    that would constantly funnel into a "monoculture" in actual final standards.

Yes, and IMHO that is what happens to browser rendering engines atm. Everyone agrees/complies to one technology and by doing so it becomes a de facto standard. Then new approaches for new problems can be taken from there, without reinventing the wheel. But this also creates room for alternatives to rise, so we are back to multiculturism. :)

E.g. replacing JS with some other language would be such a new alternative. Open-Source-Lua-Presto, imagine that! ;)

You seriously underestimate the development time it takes to pull off such a thing.

Hm, I didn't say a word about time.

Developers did not drive this, users did. I don't develop off what I like but what my analytics tell me.

IMHO that would only be true if you consider 'web developers' as 'users' of technologies. Actual 'end-users' usually don't care what technology was used, as long as they can use the website/tool without any hassle.

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