I'm not driven by ideology. And yes. I'm not a fan and I'll pay them if they provide me a service I need at a time I need it. I'm also not a fan of the government but I pay my taxes. I'm upset with Netflix for cancelling great shows but i pay my subscription fee. I despise my regular commute train line. Hate it to levels you cannot imagine - but guess from where I'm typing this? Google is scum, Facebook is scum, Twitter is scum. it's all crap. Yet still I'll use it until a credible alternative rises up.
You want to call it hypocrisy - by all means do. I wouldn't care less.
As with all things it's a cost benefit analysis. It costs money to support old browsers and a lot of money doesn't come from them do do the math.
I was trying to buy movie tickets online the other day.I tried Firefox then Firefox without ad blockers, then ie, then edge, then chrome on two different desk top machines.
Then my gf bought them on her phone browser.
Thanks mobile first development. How much money must you be costing your adherents?
One of the arguments the article makes is that it doesn't --- thanks to the backwards-compatible nature of the Web, anything that works on an older browser is likely to continue working on the newer one.
So I have to design and build for the older browser then hope that the newer browser handles it properly, whilst also constraining myself from using any newer functionality?
The article is saying that you don't "build for the older browser" --- or indeed any browser specifically, but instead start off with basic HTML and adding just enough markup and styling around the content as you desire. Maybe you'll later tweak the site to look exactly the way you want in a specific browser, but this process means that even if it doesn't look perfect, other browsers will likely be able to use the site too.
The article is wrong. It absolutely does cost money and time to test on old browsers. You need multiple computers or vms set up. You don't build websites using old computers running ie6. so you have load the site on that old browser after you write the code.
It's an obvious fact to anyone who does front end web development.
Aside: Costumers, er prospects rather, love my products until the end when they ask, "so... how many people work there?"
As though that would indicate how likely it is that the product will have a long life. They are telling me with that question they want my software for a long time. But when they hear the answer they bail.
You'll have to find some early adopters who are willing to take a risk in order to solve a critical business problem. Once you have those few reference customers, additional sales become much easier and you can afford to hire more employees.
In the short term try offering to put the source code in escrow so that if your company fails the customers can take over the product themselves. This reduces their risk a little, at least for large enterprises with competent IT departments.
My company payed once for an outlook plugin written by, near as we can figure, a single guy and has been using it for over a decade and it continues to get updates for free.
The hump you have to get over, I think, is the one where your product doesn't explode the second you disappear. That's tough with web stuff, but easy for native.
"Most companies are bloated and would require a huge staff of N to maintain this product, but I'm able to do it with N/10 because we've invested heavily in the very best intelligent automation. I've staked my entire life on this project so I cannot afford to let it fail."
I like the style of the code. Can talk about your inspiration for it? I haven't seen Javascript written in that way before. It's clean but, at least to me, unintuitive. What is your background?
Been a frontend dev for 10 years angular and react. You’re right it’s a little mix of functional state management and imperative structures for the game objects.
> I’m frequently asked about what Airbnb did right
This is the problem. They didn't do it right. They broke TOSes. They committed fraud. They misled home owners and renters. They broke hospitality laws. They broke licensing and employment laws. They evaded taxes. They bait n switched customers. They enabled more fraud from their market place participants.
I’d argue that the definition of “right” is highly subjective.
If the goal is “get big and be profitable”: they are big and profitable. Ipso facto, they did it right.
Whether of not many of the things you mentioned are right are wrong is a matter of debate. For me, I wouldn’t consider the following “wrong”:
> They broke hospitality laws.
> They broke licensing and employment laws.
Several of the other points are ambiguous to me because I’m not terribly familiar with Airbnb’s history.
More to the point... to some degree, skirting and even blatantly ignoring law and regulation is celebrated in our industry. We call it “disruption”. I’m all for that, but whether it’s right or wrong is - as I said before - a matter of perspective.
So because it's worth it to you it shouldn't be pirated? As if your opinion on what laws are worthwhile to follow are somehow better than the actual law?
The law is a sham that's routinely changed in favor of those who make the most money. Just because something's legal doesn't mean it's right. The law also applies differently based on who you are and how much justice one can afford. I also think you're exaggerating. Someone saying if content is worth something to you, you should be willing to okay for it is a far cry from them labeling themselves the arbiter of copyright like you seem to have done.
That perspective on the law is a non starter. It's just not true. Picking and choosing what is okay to infringe is by definition being an arbiter of copyright law.
