Link tags: compatibility

How do build tools break backwards compatibility? | Go Make Things

If you have a project that uses just plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can just open up the files and start working on them at any time. A project from 20 years ago will still work just fine, and can be easily modified.

Projects that use build tools? Well… to work with them, you need your build tools to actually build. And that’s not always guaranteed.

Also, it me:

One of my least favorite things as a developer is wanting to do a quick patch fix on an older project—I’m talking a simple one-line of CSS kind of fix—but first having to spend 30 minutes patching my build tools to get them running again.

Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React - Josh Collinsworth blog

I don’t think most people using React on a regular basis realize quite how much it’s fallen behind.

Following on from Josh’s earlier post where he said “React isn’t great at anything except being popular”, here are the details.

Every decision React’s made since its inception circa 2013 is another layer of tech debt—one that its newer contemporaries aren’t constrained by.

This is particularly damning:

No other modern frontend framework is as stubbornly incompatible with the platform as React is.

The good news:

React is a bit like a git branch that’s fallen well behind main. You might not realize it, if React is the star your galaxy orbits around, but…well, frontend has moved on. The ecosystem has taken those ideas and run with them to make things that are even better.

Body Margin 8px | Miriam Eric Suzanne

I love this kind of spelunking into the history of why things are they way they are on the web!

Here, Detective Chief Inspector Suzanne tries to get to the bottom of why every browser has eight pixels of margin applied to the body element in the user-agent stylesheet.

web-platform-tests dashboard

It’s great to see browsers working together to collectively implement a range of much-needed features.

These scores represent how browser engines are doing in 15 focus areas and 3 joint investigation efforts.

Chromium Blog: Increasing HTTPS adoption

At some point, you won’t be able to visit the first web page ever published without first clicking through a full-page warning injected by your web browser:

Chrome will offer HTTPS-First Mode, which will attempt to upgrade all page loads to HTTPS and display a full-page warning before loading sites that don’t support it. Based on ecosystem feedback, we’ll explore making HTTPS-First mode the default for all users in the future.

Compat2021: Eliminating five top compatibility pain points on the web

Good to see Google, Mozilla, and Apple collaborating on fixing cross-browser CSS compatability issues:

1. flexbox
2. grid
3. position: sticky
4. aspect-ratio
5. transforms

You can track progress here.

Careful Now | CSS-Tricks

Even more concerning than browser-specific websites is seeing browsers ship non-standardized features just because they want them, not behind any vendor prefix or flag. There was a time when web developers would have got out the pitchforks if a browser was doing this, but I sense some complacency seeping in.

WebPlatform.org — Your Web, documented

A one-stop-shop for browser-compatibility information. This is MDN, HTML5 Rocks, and Quirksmode all rolled into one.

Mobile HTML5 - compatibility tables for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, iPad and other mobile devices

This just launched at the Breaking Development conference: another site that uses the term HTML5 to include CSS and Ajax. Still, despite its inaccurate nomenclature, it’s a useful compatibility table of device support in mobile browsers.

Surfin’ Safari - Blog Archive » The HTML5 Parsing Algorithm

The latest Webkit nightly includes the HTML5 parsing algorithm. Now it's a race between Firefox, Safari and Chrome to see which will be first (non-beta) browser to ship with the new parser.

isolani - Web Standards: IE8 Blacklist: forcing standards rendering opt-in

Bend over 'cause Microsoft is about to stick it to us standards-savvy developers. Again.

Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise | The Register

Håkon is not happy with the default settings in IE8. Deep in the preferences, "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View" is checked.

CSS Compatibility and Internet Explorer

A very handy table of CSS support for versions of Internet Explorer from 5 to 8. Note that IE8 Beta 1 is listed separately to IE8.0.

IEBlog : Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone

Great news from Redmond: IE8 passes the Acid2 test.

W3C DOM Compatibility - HTML

PPK has once again been doing sterling work. He's updated the DOM compatibility chart and things are actually looking pretty good.