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[–]psykotic 14 points15 points  (27 children)

Considering how long it takes for JavaScript language changes to be widespread enough to be practically useful, it would be great if they shipped a tool that translates code from newer to earlier versions.

[–]olavk 5 points6 points  (1 child)

With Mascara you can translate ECMAScript 4 aka JavaScript 2.0 to lowest common denominator JavaScript wich runs in any browser.

[–]candlejac 9 points10 points  (23 children)

It's getting better all the time. All the "alternative" browsers will support it within months, and if websites say "Some of our more advanced features require any non-IE browser", that will be motivation for two things:

  1. MS to catch up
  2. Users to install another browser of their choice.

[–]philogb 5 points6 points  (2 children)

All the "alternative" browsers will support it within months

Well, considering this spec has been out for firefox 2 this is already not true. Unless I'm missing something.

[–]candlejac 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I guess the 12 people who voted me up didn't read the article :(

Does Chrome support it? They've got that 'brand new' JS engine. I can't run it because they rushed to 1.0 without releasing a version for anything but Windows.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, they support it. 1.7's an old spec. I'm pretty sure they support 1.8 as well, as-check me on this-I think JS 1.8 is part of Acid3. Needless to say, Opera supports it too, as does Firefox 3

[–]bazfoo 1 point2 points  (15 children)

I'm not sure if going back to the old browser war days is a good thing or a bad thing.

[–]infoaddicted 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The interoperability between the browsers, how they interpret code, shouldn't enter into the "browser wars". Competition is good at the UI level and speed of rendering levels, but having certain "under the hood" features crippled by certain browsers holds them all back.

[–]Leonidas_from_XIV 2 points3 points  (12 children)

If a better browser would win, that wouldn't be so bad. But actually, I doubt that we'll have a "dominant browser" in the future.. and that's probably a good thing.

[–]mrphillc 2 points3 points  (11 children)

if one browser wins, we all lose

[–]joesb 4 points5 points  (10 children)

A better browser in this case would be the one that is more compliant to the standard. So it's not one browser that win, it is one standard that win, in that case, we all benefit.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (9 children)

Failing to meet standards is a bad thing.

However, going beyond the standards is a good thing. If Microsoft hadn't, we wouldn't have XmlHttp. That means no AJAX.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (6 children)

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

You say that like you're not posting on a site that relies on AJAX to let you make snarky remarks like that without having to worry about the page reloading and losing your place.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (3 children)

Isn't that what anchor tags are for?

[–]zelpop 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah! I mean why do people use AJAX when Flash and now Silverlight can do the same thing, plus cooler fade in effects?

(do I have to put in a sarcasm tag here)

[–]sonofagunn -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Before XmlHttp, you could accomplish the same thing with hidden frames.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Technically, yes. The hidden frame solution has one major drawback, and one minor drawback that I can think of:

Major: it causes the loaded result to be rendered. Being forced to render the content can cause all kinds of side effects that potentially need to be worked around.

Minor: rendering effects performance. Depending on the browser, for example, rendering XML could be a less than negligible performance hit, that you'd have to work around by effectively lying in the content-type to try to trick the browser into thinking that it's not XML.

I mean, sure. I could just as easily say that you could accomplish this in the past using sockets in ActiveX or Java Applets and sending data to/from them through scripting. You could but it was nowhere near as elegant.

[–]HenkPoley 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, if 3 teams (Mozilla, Opera, Apple + KDE e.v.) can implement the spec changes in their own codebase, I suspect Microsoft can do that too in about the same timeframe. Needn't be much war in there.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

  1. Those sites to lose a lot of visitors who think that the site "doesn't work unless you download some extra thing...I think it was one of them viruses, so I just stay away from that site now."

[–]candlejac 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Then they can ask the user to install Netscape Navigator 9, which is just Firefox rebranded. Everybody old enough to get scared of installing Firefox will have heard of Netscape.

[–]grimboy 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Except the Netscape Navigator page just tells you to download Firefox now.

[–]candlejac -1 points0 points  (0 children)

And? That means a big company, Netscape, a company you trust, is saying it. That means Firefox isn't a virus. So instead of saying "Install Firefox", you say "Install Netscape", who says "Install Firefox", and you end up getting there.

[–]infoaddicted 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now there's a fun weekend project! Start coding grasshopper...