Re: Navigator standard change proposal

On 12/02/2014 09:47, Predrag Stojadinovic wrote:
> I wouldn't say it encourages so much as it enables browser detection
> which is what the purpose of the Navigator object actually is.

But, as we've seen in the past, all that does is lead to sites that, 
instead of doing feature-detection or capability detection, simply do 
naive "this site only works in Chrome, so go and install that" type stuff.

> ·What is gained by not allowing web developers to detect the browser
> which their code is going to be executed in?

What is gained by allowing web developers to detect the browser? Should 
they not be coding against standards and doing feature/capability 
detection instead?

> ·Why is such detection implied to be "bad behavior"?

Because historically it has resulted in sites doing naive browser 
sniffing that made them only work in one particular browser, and 
ironically even locking out newer versions of the same browser when 
their UA string and navigator properties changes slightly.

> ·What is gained by protecting browsers that do not provide established
> standards?

This is orthogonal to the discussion. Don't conflate "browsers that 
don't want to expose their real app name, version, etc in the navigator 
object" with "browsers that don't support standards".

> oAnd why is that somehow more important than allowing developers to have
> control over the user experience?

What kind of control do you have in mind? If you feature/capability 
detect, you can still control as much as you want while remaining 
browser-agnostic.

> ·What is gained by not allowing the developers to inform their users
> that some of the state of the art features will not be available and
> that they should install another browser in order to have them?

Again, you do this by feature/capability detecting, NOT by keeping a 
list of browsers in your app (and then having to maintain that for all 
eternity).

> If IE was not subpar then it would not have been, as you put it,
> "targeted" by browser detection.
>
> I understand that You work for Microsoft and thus feel the need to
> provide special protection for IE, but I would frankly suggest that it
> would be much better if this energy was targeted towards improving IE
> rather than towards stalling development and making developers’ lives a
> living hell whenever they want their state of the art JavaScript web
> applications to also work in IE.

Oh shush. I'm surprised you didn't write it "Micro$oft".

> Please provide justification for Your claim here?

Please abstain from this sort of anachronistic mudslinging. What century 
of web development are you from?

> The Navigator object standard is, to put it mildly, a complete mess and
> really has to be fixed.

Or it has to be abandoned.

>
> For example, the appCodeName and product attributes are completely
> useless. They each have one single fixed predefined value, so what’s the
> point of even querying them?

For legacy scripts that were never updated and still check for specific 
values, and otherwise simply bring a "your browser's not supported" 
message up.


P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
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Received on Wednesday, 12 February 2014 14:49:19 UTC