In the English language, the word "first" is the ordinal form of the number one. The word "second" is the ordinal form of the number two, etc. So no, "first" is not magically linked with one, it's linguistically linked. Therefore, "the first version" is version 1. Version 0 would be "the zeroth version". Yes, zero has an ordinal form also (you can use naughth if you prefer), but we don't use that, do we? We use first to describe the beginning in a series. So I don't understand why developers want to use 0 instead of 1, other than because they might think that all sequences should start with 0 because that's how memory addressing in arrays works. Historically people have always begun a series with the number 1, not 0. I don't see a reason why that should change just because we're dealing with software. I've got an application I designed, developed, put into use, tested, got feedback from, etc, rewrote, fixed bugs, made changes, and the first "finished" version was version 2. Version 1 was the version everyone was testing, before the redesign. It's not like that introduced a problem that could have been solved if I had called the testing version 0 and the "finished" version 1. The version that people are using is in fact "the second version", so it makes sense to call that version 2 instead of version 1.
That would create confusion if I was on the phone and someone was reporting problems with "the first version" and I have to ask "is that version 0 or version 1?" Well, it's version 1. Isn't that the first version? No, version 1 is the second version. Oh. Makes a lot of sense.
There was a link in this thread somewhere where a guy posted a link to an Australian gov. site. They list the requirements there as "IE6 or lower" on one area, and on the requirements page list IE5 or above. So apparently they support IE5 or IE6, and that's it. But hey, at least they also listed IE5.1 for Mac, so I guess they're branching out. Spacktards indeed.
I guess you're right, it's obvious that any given application will perform identically on a "bargain" machine running an $85 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 1GB of RAM and a single 7,200 RPM hard drive, as well as a premium machine running a $1000+ Intel Core i7 965 Extreme with 8GB of high-speed multi-channel RAM and a striped array of WD VelociRaptor drives.
Hadlock has the scoop guys, we can stop upgrading our computers now. Software will never be more complex than the programs we're running today, and all current hardware is capable of running all current software identically. The bottleneck we need to focus on is screen refresh rate, so upgrade your monitor for better application performance. Also, if you upgrade your printer, then your word processor will be much faster. Memory throughput, disk I/O, and cycles per second have been maxed out. You heard it here first.
I like those services, but usually they aren't enough. Typically I want to test how IE uses the site, not just renders it. I want to be able to click around and things like that, and typically I'm trying to test various Javascript-related things in addition to just standard rendering.
Modern computers are just way too fast for software to be "slow" anymore.
That statement is ridiculous on several levels. Are you implying that it's not possible to write a piece of software sufficiently complex to use all of a system's resources? If your desktop is so badass, then why are we still developing supercomputers?
Youtube is a website, with an embedded flash object, that plays a movie. Youtube doesn't even need javascript at all (if you know the urls to the embedded flash).
Really, that's all it is? How do all of these movies get there, do they just magically appear? I was under the impression that people created accounts, managed their accounts, logged in to upload movies, commented on other people's movies, etc etc etc. There's also a link that says "Customize this homepage", I'm not sure what that's all about, some more magic involved, no doubt. Many boxes also seem to have tools indicating you can move, resize or close the boxes on the pages. Some more arcane trickery there, you can be sure. Then there seem to be some clickable ratings, favorites, sharing with others, playlists.. I don't understand any of that, but I'm having several 14 year olds look over it and get back to me.
This seems like a bit more than a page with an embedded Flash object, unless you're suggesting that the entire Youtube UI be implemented as a single Flash movie.
Version 0.5 is 50% towards being fully functional.
Define "fully functional". You're trying to measure an abstract and relative concept, and possibly even a moving target (requirements creep), with a quantifiable number. That's like starting out on a road trip where you don't know where you're going, but claiming that you're halfway there. It's easy to say you've gone 100 miles, now you've gone 200, now you're at 300, but trying to express that as a percentage of your total trip before you finish is futile. How many complex applications have you developed that ended up, feature-for-feature, exactly as they were first defined? If you have managed to do that, you're either the world's greatest planner or the world's most stubborn developer.
That's not true at all, considering their high Google placement on all web-related terms, their browser stats are a good indication of what web developers are using. I haven't seen traffic numbers but I imagine that their site sees an excessive amount of traffic, mostly driven by search engine placement. The majority of their tutorials are crap, and their references are incomplete, but that doesn't mean the site doesn't contain interesting data. A lot of people use the site to help learn web development though, which is good in that it helps other people learn new skills, and bad in that it encourages undereducated people to make web sites.
Indeed, it does say that. However, I wouldn't refer to 9.45% as "well down in the single digits". I'm wondering how they collect data though, if you zoom in to a 30-day view the graphs are sort of all over the place. That might be a weekly trend where IE usage falls on the weekends.
You're right. Unless you work at a company that uses IE6-only intranet software. Or unless another application you run requires IE6. Or unless a website you need to use requires IE6. Or unless you're a web developer who needs to support customers using IE6, for whatever reason. But other than that, you're right.
At my office we don't require any specific software other than the email client, as long as you can interact with customers, but we do have at least 3 people (out of ~16) still using IE6 because our deficient email client that uses IE as the rendering engine won't render calendar invitations correctly unless it's using IE6. So we don't require it, and I don't see people using it on a daily basis, but I know it's just around the corner, just waiting to crap on someone's day.
Maybe just a time saving thing...you're already in a browser window, why switch just to look something up?
Because you want to leave your test browser open to your test page, and because you already have the reference loaded in a tab in another browser, which you also want to leave open.
If nothing else, it's going to make the VPs and PHBs running the company aware that their IE6-only software is relying on technology that is, at the very least, out of date. The people signing the checks (stereotypically) don't understand the technology involved and don't see a compelling reason to fund an upgrade to their software. This will help point out to those people that IE6 is obsolete technology and should be migrated away from. They can have IT create reports about it until they're blue in the face, but for some people it doesn't sink in until they're no longer able to log on and watch videos online in between meetings and telling other people to get to work.
Moreover, if IT wants to stop people from going to Youtube, the solution there is to block access to youtube.com, not enforce usage of an obsolete browser that Youtube doesn't support.
Even better, a more significant impact of Youtube dropping IE6 support is that other websites will feel more confident to also drop IE6 support. Youtube might not affect a lot of people, but if your boss can't log into his bank because his browser is obsolete, he's going to have IT on the phone pretty quick.
Testing what? Testing the w3schools site? Wouldn't you want to have your main browser open for references and things even though you might have another test browser open? Hell, I usually develop with 3 browsers open (Firefox, to use Firebug for debugging my Javascript stuff, Chrome to show the Javascript-heavy API docs, and Opera for everything else).
IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.
IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.
Huh? So aside from arguably two of the most important pieces of a browser, it was a decent browser? Are you just talking about the sparse UI? A UI doesn't make otherwise shitty software somehow good (and, if you want to talk about IE's user interface, make sure to mention the giant checkbox list under Internet Options). IE7 was an incremental improvement over IE6, and IE8 was a major improvement over both versions.
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Exactly which assertions did he make that you're expecting evidence to support?
Just answering the question Cpt. Coward, didn't mean to offend.
It sounds like they haven't produced the numbers, only a motion saying they shouldn't have to produce the numbers.
In the English language, the word "first" is the ordinal form of the number one. The word "second" is the ordinal form of the number two, etc. So no, "first" is not magically linked with one, it's linguistically linked. Therefore, "the first version" is version 1. Version 0 would be "the zeroth version". Yes, zero has an ordinal form also (you can use naughth if you prefer), but we don't use that, do we? We use first to describe the beginning in a series. So I don't understand why developers want to use 0 instead of 1, other than because they might think that all sequences should start with 0 because that's how memory addressing in arrays works. Historically people have always begun a series with the number 1, not 0. I don't see a reason why that should change just because we're dealing with software. I've got an application I designed, developed, put into use, tested, got feedback from, etc, rewrote, fixed bugs, made changes, and the first "finished" version was version 2. Version 1 was the version everyone was testing, before the redesign. It's not like that introduced a problem that could have been solved if I had called the testing version 0 and the "finished" version 1. The version that people are using is in fact "the second version", so it makes sense to call that version 2 instead of version 1.
That would create confusion if I was on the phone and someone was reporting problems with "the first version" and I have to ask "is that version 0 or version 1?" Well, it's version 1. Isn't that the first version? No, version 1 is the second version. Oh. Makes a lot of sense.
That's not irony, that's exactly what the study says:
E-mail addresses in comments posted to a website had a high probability of getting spammed
It probably doesn't help that your email address is sitting there in plain text with no obfuscation.
Myself, on the other hand, I've never received spam from having my email harvested on Slashdot. Why do you think that is?
There was a link in this thread somewhere where a guy posted a link to an Australian gov. site. They list the requirements there as "IE6 or lower" on one area, and on the requirements page list IE5 or above. So apparently they support IE5 or IE6, and that's it. But hey, at least they also listed IE5.1 for Mac, so I guess they're branching out. Spacktards indeed.
I guess you're right, it's obvious that any given application will perform identically on a "bargain" machine running an $85 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 1GB of RAM and a single 7,200 RPM hard drive, as well as a premium machine running a $1000+ Intel Core i7 965 Extreme with 8GB of high-speed multi-channel RAM and a striped array of WD VelociRaptor drives.
Hadlock has the scoop guys, we can stop upgrading our computers now. Software will never be more complex than the programs we're running today, and all current hardware is capable of running all current software identically. The bottleneck we need to focus on is screen refresh rate, so upgrade your monitor for better application performance. Also, if you upgrade your printer, then your word processor will be much faster. Memory throughput, disk I/O, and cycles per second have been maxed out. You heard it here first.
I like those services, but usually they aren't enough. Typically I want to test how IE uses the site, not just renders it. I want to be able to click around and things like that, and typically I'm trying to test various Javascript-related things in addition to just standard rendering.
Modern computers are just way too fast for software to be "slow" anymore.
That statement is ridiculous on several levels. Are you implying that it's not possible to write a piece of software sufficiently complex to use all of a system's resources? If your desktop is so badass, then why are we still developing supercomputers?
No mod points, but that genuinely made me laugh. Well done, sir.
Youtube is a website, with an embedded flash object, that plays a movie. Youtube doesn't even need javascript at all (if you know the urls to the embedded flash).
Really, that's all it is? How do all of these movies get there, do they just magically appear? I was under the impression that people created accounts, managed their accounts, logged in to upload movies, commented on other people's movies, etc etc etc. There's also a link that says "Customize this homepage", I'm not sure what that's all about, some more magic involved, no doubt. Many boxes also seem to have tools indicating you can move, resize or close the boxes on the pages. Some more arcane trickery there, you can be sure. Then there seem to be some clickable ratings, favorites, sharing with others, playlists.. I don't understand any of that, but I'm having several 14 year olds look over it and get back to me.
This seems like a bit more than a page with an embedded Flash object, unless you're suggesting that the entire Youtube UI be implemented as a single Flash movie.
Sorry, was there a poorly-stated joke in there? Replying with "whoosh" is no excuse for not being able to craft a joke that's actually funny.
I have IE6 on my computer at work. I COULD change it, but I have better things to do than upgrade my browser.
Right, because the 5-10 minutes spent doing that is better spent posting comments on Slashdot.
Version 0.5 is 50% towards being fully functional.
Define "fully functional". You're trying to measure an abstract and relative concept, and possibly even a moving target (requirements creep), with a quantifiable number. That's like starting out on a road trip where you don't know where you're going, but claiming that you're halfway there. It's easy to say you've gone 100 miles, now you've gone 200, now you're at 300, but trying to express that as a percentage of your total trip before you finish is futile. How many complex applications have you developed that ended up, feature-for-feature, exactly as they were first defined? If you have managed to do that, you're either the world's greatest planner or the world's most stubborn developer.
That's not true at all, considering their high Google placement on all web-related terms, their browser stats are a good indication of what web developers are using. I haven't seen traffic numbers but I imagine that their site sees an excessive amount of traffic, mostly driven by search engine placement. The majority of their tutorials are crap, and their references are incomplete, but that doesn't mean the site doesn't contain interesting data. A lot of people use the site to help learn web development though, which is good in that it helps other people learn new skills, and bad in that it encourages undereducated people to make web sites.
Indeed, it does say that. However, I wouldn't refer to 9.45% as "well down in the single digits". I'm wondering how they collect data though, if you zoom in to a 30-day view the graphs are sort of all over the place. That might be a weekly trend where IE usage falls on the weekends.
You're right. Unless you work at a company that uses IE6-only intranet software. Or unless another application you run requires IE6. Or unless a website you need to use requires IE6. Or unless you're a web developer who needs to support customers using IE6, for whatever reason. But other than that, you're right.
At my office we don't require any specific software other than the email client, as long as you can interact with customers, but we do have at least 3 people (out of ~16) still using IE6 because our deficient email client that uses IE as the rendering engine won't render calendar invitations correctly unless it's using IE6. So we don't require it, and I don't see people using it on a daily basis, but I know it's just around the corner, just waiting to crap on someone's day.
That's what network access policies are for, relying on obsolete software is not a replacement for a decent network access policy.
Maybe just a time saving thing...you're already in a browser window, why switch just to look something up?
Because you want to leave your test browser open to your test page, and because you already have the reference loaded in a tab in another browser, which you also want to leave open.
If nothing else, it's going to make the VPs and PHBs running the company aware that their IE6-only software is relying on technology that is, at the very least, out of date. The people signing the checks (stereotypically) don't understand the technology involved and don't see a compelling reason to fund an upgrade to their software. This will help point out to those people that IE6 is obsolete technology and should be migrated away from. They can have IT create reports about it until they're blue in the face, but for some people it doesn't sink in until they're no longer able to log on and watch videos online in between meetings and telling other people to get to work.
Moreover, if IT wants to stop people from going to Youtube, the solution there is to block access to youtube.com, not enforce usage of an obsolete browser that Youtube doesn't support.
Even better, a more significant impact of Youtube dropping IE6 support is that other websites will feel more confident to also drop IE6 support. Youtube might not affect a lot of people, but if your boss can't log into his bank because his browser is obsolete, he's going to have IT on the phone pretty quick.
Definitely. Like I said below, IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.
w3schools doesn't do validation, that's the W3C.
Testing what? Testing the w3schools site? Wouldn't you want to have your main browser open for references and things even though you might have another test browser open? Hell, I usually develop with 3 browsers open (Firefox, to use Firebug for debugging my Javascript stuff, Chrome to show the Javascript-heavy API docs, and Opera for everything else).
IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.
IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.
Huh? So aside from arguably two of the most important pieces of a browser, it was a decent browser? Are you just talking about the sparse UI? A UI doesn't make otherwise shitty software somehow good (and, if you want to talk about IE's user interface, make sure to mention the giant checkbox list under Internet Options). IE7 was an incremental improvement over IE6, and IE8 was a major improvement over both versions.