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Comment by VeejayRampay | Hacker News Reader

Much faster if you are willing to punish your users for using subpar browsers that don't keep up with current technologies and standards.

A bullet I retrospectively think we should have bit a long time ago. It would have sent a strong message that you either make sure that your browser is top notch or it will be left behind to bite the dust of the power horses.

Now that Microsoft is feeling the heat under its ass (from FF, Chrome and Safari), they're making sure IE is not ridiculously worse than the competition, that it auto-updates, they're engaging the community, creating libraries, etc.

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>Much faster if you are willing to punish your users for using subpar browsers that don't keep up with current technologies and standards.

Actually Chrome is a complete mess ES6 compatibility wise.

Most of the interesting stuff is unimplemented still, and what is there is hidden in options the user has to specifically enable.

Sure, the standard is (now) only due for 2015, but Chrome dragging its feet is also one of the reasons for that. And it's not like FF waited for the standard to be stamped and released to have the implementations according to the standard already working.

I can't even think about blaming my Clients for not using the latest IE because I want to use some syntax sugar for things that I can already do with ECMA 5.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about 5 years ago when IE7/IE8 were lagging behind by a HUGE margin and it was another world trying to make things compatible. It was not a matter of using the last version, it was a matter of Microsoft not paying attention or not wanting to make its flagship browser better. Not just some developer throwing a fit because he needed "sugar".

Also, and that's only personal opinion, but there's a limit to the customer is always right. What if we create a new super highway one day with flying cars, are we going to punt on moving on because some people like their combustion engine pieces of junk? It's also our jobs to make people understand that jumping on the latest technology is in their best interest. Leveling the field to the lowest common denominator brings everyone down in the end and really hampers creation and innovation.

And that is the reason why Javascript is so far behind modern languages in so many areas.

I rather have money on my pocket than angry customers.

What you seem to be missing is that having to develop for old browsers also costs money.

At some point, it's no longer worth the business of the small number of e.g. IE6 users to put the extra effort in creating a site that can work in it.

You are missing the amount of zeros before the comma (or decimal point).

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