Comments on: What’s New in jQuery 2.0

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:18:44 +0000

It looks like even Microsoft with all its muscle and money can’t persuade the Die Hards to upgrade their jurassic browsers (and rid off it’s ugly history) :
technobuffalo.com/2012/12/31/ie-6-7-8-zero-day-issue/
google.com/search?q=microsoft+urges+to+upgrade+their+browsers

For the past 6 months I saved my server logs offline (3 servers, 2 portfolio and many personal sites). And ran some sed + awk + grep queries on them to check UA strings, I concluded that there were just a handful IE7 and IE8 visits (nothing below) with unique IPs. 7 to 22 total IE7+IE8 unique visits per month across all sites. The site with the worst unique visitors per month count, has 331 unique visits per month. These (IE7+IE8 visits) were also consistently ranked as the visitors with the lowest page views and shortest visit duration.

So I’m embracing jQuery 2.0. I also took the “bold” step to ditch the html5shiv in Modernizr.
Also, no JavaScript, equals no site :
In index.php and index.py load the real site index page with JavaScript and a message.
On each site page :
in html :
in css : .no-js {display: none; visibility: hidden;}

jQuery 2.0 is **THE** chance to make the dinosaurs feel the pain.
Sticking to jQuery 1.9.x will **eventually** be like making the same mistake again as we did before : supporting unsupported stuff (IE8-). Adding one more legacy liability on top of the IE8- liability pile.

What will be next? A jQuery2.0shiv for jQuery 1.9 on Github/Bitbucket?

According to Wikipedia, IE6 was introduced in August 2001, IE7 in October 2006, IE8 in March 2009, IE9 in March 2011. Djeez! We might as well go for it and support IE1 (Windows 95, remember). That’s only 6 years more back in time than IE6 (which in itself is almost 12 years back in time).
If we are willing to support 12 years old, why not go for the whole legacy?
Of the other browsers which you support, how old are they?

Even their maker, Microsoft, stopped supporting the oldest versions, years ago.
So why are **you** still supporting them?
For just another year ? : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/endofsupport.aspx

The users of these ancient browsers can still visit sites like the Wayback Machine to enjoy the Jurassic internet and stay in the past forever.

And be fair, or honest, to yourself : the majority of boxes still running XP with IE8-, won’t be able to provide the horse power to run a modern site smoothly anyway.
2 tabs, each with one video, will at least choke, and possibly kill, that PIII/PIV/Athlon running IE8-.
Even an AMD E-350 with 2-4GB RAM, Win7 and IE9+ will have more power and not choke.

Don’t deserve a webpage like this : en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Gates

Let’s break those old browsers.

P.S.
One time a client for an e-commerce site, specifically asked me to block anything older than IE8. His company had decided that people not able/willing to upgrade would also have nothing to spend.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:15:27 +0000

You’re welcome Peeter — thanks for the feedback.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:14:42 +0000

Brilliant … that’s much easier to use!

By: Erwin Heiser

Erwin Heiser — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:54:35 +0000

For those who need on online jQuery builder this http://projects.jga.me/jquery-builder/ has just been released.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:45:36 +0000

IE10 is as good — if not better — than Chrome and Firefox for core HTML5 and CSS3 technologies. IE9 was missing a few features but won’t cause problems.

The main issue is that many people are still on XP and can’t upgrade beyond IE8. Fortunately, IE8 usage is dropping reasonably quickly.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:41:53 +0000

I totally agree. At this moment, conditional loading offers no real benefit and may cause further complications. Within a year or so I’d hope you can drop IE8 support and switch to jQuery 2.0 full-time.

By: Peeter Jozaf

Peeter Jozaf — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:43:31 +0000

Thanks Craig Buckler for excellent post

By: Sheikh Heera

Sheikh Heera — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:54:45 +0000

I believe 5 percent or maybe less amount of developer will use jQuery 2.0, IE8 support is more important than 3.6kb and there is nothing so new in 2.0, so it was not necessary to stop supporting IE8 so soon, IMO.

By: Sheikh Heera

Sheikh Heera — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:43:39 +0000

I think there is no need to use conditional loading of 2.0 if someone still now needs IE8 support and yes it’s true only a JavaScript library can’t accelerate IE8′s demise but I think it’s really too early to stop supporting IE8 only for saving 3.6Kb but a lots of people are still now using IE8 because it’s the default browser in their OS and most of them are not geek.

By: Francesco

Francesco — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:52:33 +0000

I used to hate conditional comments too, mainly for reason 1, they really are browser sniffing and that’s evil.

But then I had to deal with the real world, and, I admit it, having them up there at the very beginning of the HTML5 Boilerplate html page did help me understand that there are many instances where really is is no other option but to use them. At the very least if you’re required (by customers, bosses, anyone) to try and make the sites look as similar as possible.

A very simple example: to deal with inline-block. I couldn’t use inline-block (that I use everywhere) if I couldn’t use conditional comments. (Actually I *could* use a css hack, but that’s even worse in my opinion).

And of course, even though they are browser sniffing, they don’t have one of browser sniffing’s biggest practical problems: it’s unreliable. Conditional comments are reliable (yes, even with IE10 not supporting them).

And they’re not an unruly mess, it’s just copy and paste. The same you have at the very beginning of every site you make with the HTML5 Boilerplate. And you can’t get it wrong, because the site just wouldn’t work, you’d realize in a second. (And we already copy and paste the jQuery script include every time, a line more doesn’t make any difference.)

Differences in APIs might really be a problem, though, you’re right! I’m not 100% certain they’re identical. But again, I see no problems in trying both for the time being, since I’m testing everything in every browser anyway. The first time I’ll find a problem, I’ll drop it system in a second.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:13:17 +0000

I have three problems with Conditional Comments:

1. They’re browser sniffing.
2. They’re rarely required.
3. They encourage developers to apply workarounds to problems rather than fix the problem itself.

But that’s beside the point. If you use CCs to load jQuery 1.9/2.0, you’ll see the code is an unruly mess which is easy to get wrong. It’s certainly not “safe” since you’re depending on a hack which negates the v2.0 CC in browsers which don’t support them.

As for “why not” conditionally load jQuery, as mentioned, you’re adding unnecessary complexity and the risks outweigh the benefits. Perhaps you’re 100% certain jQuery 1.9 and jQuery 2.0 have identical APIs? I’m not — and nor is the jQuery team otherwise they wouldn’t have promised to fix known differences in the next release.

By: Francesco

Francesco — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:12:13 +0000

You do have a problem with conditional comments, don’t you? :-)

They’re perfectly safe to use, and IE10 not supporting them is not a problem. Firefox or Chrome (or anyone else but IE) never did, and that never was a problem.
I can’t see the future, but there will be huge problems anyway the day they stop working… retroactively (?).

The only reason to do it, anyway, is those 3.6k. If there really is an overhead with every single conditional comment, then I agree with you, it’s useless (and maybe even harmful) to do it. But if there isn’t… why not?

At least until the two versions don’t diverge and there can actually be testing problems.

By: Ubaidullah Butt

Ubaidullah Butt — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:39:05 +0000

I don’t know why the new version won’t support IE versions. Its too bad. Please Microsoft make your browser like other ones. I think we are pushing away Microsoft’s internet explorer.

By: Craig Buckler

Craig Buckler — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:09:45 +0000

However you look at it, loading jQuery 1.9 in some browsers and jQuery 2.0 in others is an unnecessary overhead. Why are you doing it? What’s the advantage? I’m sure it’ll work fine and won’t cause any noticeable delays in most cases. However, at worst, your site will break in one version and not the other. Either way, you’ll need more stringent testing.

Remember also that IE9 and below understand Conditional Comments. IE10+ and all other browsers do not. Can you guarantee your syntax will be correctly parsed in all browsers every time?

Keep it simple:
If you need to support IE6/7/8, use jQuery 1.9
If you’re happy to support IE9+, use jQuery 2.0