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  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 7, 2025, 4:46 PM

    Did you know that this kind of thing happens all the time — Browser 1 is popular. It implements A Cool Feature a certain way. Developers think that's correct, because it's what most users have. Browser 2 follows the web standard & implements according to the agreed-upon spec. But it's different Browser 1. And web developers make their site work in Browser 1. And so it doesn't really work correctly in Browser 2. And developers get frustrated, and blame Browser 2.

    But it's Browser 1 that's wrong.

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Replies

  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 7, 2025, 4:48 PM

    The CSS Working Group is currently discussing something in CSS that's in this world.

    Often Browser 2 doesn't want to update, because they are already correctly following the web standard. So it's Browser 1 that needs to change, but websites are already depending on the behavior they have, and changing it could break websites.

    THIS is why is so very important for all browsers to implement according to a mature standard, and not rush things out the door. Or ship when there's spec disagreement.

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  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 7, 2025, 4:52 PM

    Often the only way out of this quandary is to change the spec to match Browser 1's behavior. And then Browser 2 updates to match the new spec and therefore Browser 1. That way fewer websites break.

    But then developers get even more angry at Browser 2, who "finally got it together and did it right" — but really, Browser 2 was never wrong. The whole situation was caused by Browser 1 not following the spec correctly.

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  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 7, 2025, 4:54 PM

    Also, often the spec gets worse under these conditions. The originally specified behavior was better. But there's no path forward because too many web developers only built their site to work in Browser 1.

    In the end, everyone loses.

    (This whole area of "oh no!" is called Web Compat. Or Web Compatibility. When websites don't work in browsers because they are depending on certain behavior of a single browser.)

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  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 7, 2025, 5:07 PM

    How can you, as a web developer help prevent this pain? Test your website in multiple browser engines!!!

    If it's behaving differently in different engines — (and not because of lack of support / fallbacks / progressive enhancement) — then you might have a bug / might need to write your code better to not depend on the buggy edges of the feature. Or maybe you'll have to find another way to avoid the bleeding edge. Do file issues on all the browsers, without assuming which one is correct.

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  • Marius Gundersen - mdg 🌻gundersen@mastodon.social
    May 8, 2025, 8:06 AM

    @papageier Wellakshully...

    Im fairly certain she isn't complaining about a browser that has been dead for 10 years. Pointing to someone else having done the same bad thing a quarter century ago isn't a good defense

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  • Papageierpapageier@digitalcourage.social
    May 8, 2025, 8:54 AM

    @gundersen Oh I'm not defending Google/Chrome. Just saying that they didn't invent this game. This goes all the way back to the browser wars. My point is it makes more sense to use Browser 1 and Browser 2 than just pointing at Chrome.

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  • scriptedpixelsscriptedpixels@mastodon.social
    May 8, 2025, 9:47 AM

    @jensimmons My issue with this last bit that Browser 2 (Safari) is not available on other OS's. Which makes it harder to test.

    It's my daily driver as I'm on MacOS.

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  • Eric Peacockevilpeacock@mastodon.world
    May 7, 2025, 5:21 PM

    @jensimmons I really wanted the web design and development community to learn from the original "Browser 1", AKA Internet Explorer through at least version 8; Proof that Web Compatibility issues cause lost productivity and frustration spanning decades for both users and designers.

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  • ocdtrekkieocdtrekkie@mastodon.social
    May 8, 2025, 12:50 AM

    @jensimmons I start with the condition "we will not use Chrome, period". So either it works on Firefox and Mobile Safari... or it never worked to begin with.

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  • alwillisalwillis@mastodon.social
    May 7, 2025, 10:44 PM

    @jensimmons
    I guess it depends on the feature… why can't Browser 1 just say "my bad", deprecate the old spec and switch to the agreed-upon spec?

    I recall flexbox and grid specifications changing more than once back in the day.

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  • Jen Simmonsjensimmons
    May 8, 2025, 2:12 AM

    @alwillis Sometimes this is what happens, definitely. But sometimes once a lot of sites are built assuming that’s how browsers work, it’s too late to fix the bug. And we have to standardize the bug instead.

    It’s a messy world.

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  • Danny Colindannycolin@floss.social
    May 8, 2025, 12:33 PM

    @alwillis @jensimmons in the actual context, 99% of the time it's Google at fault and they don't give a F because a) they have an almost absolute monopoly, and b) it gives them an advantage to break the web since they know developers are forced to support their non-standard implementation.

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  • a40YOStudenta40yostudent@iosdev.space
    May 8, 2025, 6:02 AM

    @jensimmons my personal solution as a user: I leave Browser 1 in the dust, use Browser 2 for 99% of all my browsing activity, and eventually rely on a privacy focused fork of Browser 3 for that government website I need to use twice a year. My personal solution for developing my own blog, my sole web dev activity, is to just use plain HTML CSS and the least amount of JS.

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  • Jim Lutherjimluther@techhub.social
    May 8, 2025, 2:00 PM

    @jensimmons @jon_alper Two decades ago, Internet Explorer was the dominate browser and website developers (who were mostly working on Windows systems) many times used IE specific features. The result was those websites did not work with Safari, Firefox, and other browsers which followed web standards.

    Apple spent a lot of engineering time bringing Safari to Windows in the hope that website developers would test against Safari if they didn’t have a Mac.

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  • ianfinitebaffle@mas.to
    May 8, 2025, 9:11 PM

    @jensimmons honestly, hands up who doesn’t hate Browser 1 because of this 🙄

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  • Jaanus Kasejaanus@iosdev.space
    May 14, 2025, 7:12 AM

    @jensimmons I thought this is not a thing any more

    The web platform and standards seem to be doing great lately

    I thought browser compatibility was more of a thing of 1990s and 2000s

    Yet I as a user still occasionally also run into sites that don’t work on some browsers

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