Reality Check
PZ Myers hasn’t been engaging in the ACA web site debate, and then he found out about the Cover Oregon site.
He’s annoyed that they tell people that the ‘Submit’ button won’t work unless you are using IE. That also seems a hang-up with the main Federal site, it doesn’t seem to like anything but IE.
In comments someone noted that the site was probably using javascript that only worked with IE. That is very possible, as there are a lot of tools out there that generate code designed for IE and not verified on any of the other browsers. Such sites don’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is a problem for government sites.
It was a long time before we were finally saved from the ‘BLINK’ text attribute by the HTML standards group, but some people refuse to let go and create sites that ‘sing and dance’ rather than providing you with the information you want, or allow you to fill out forms unaccompanied by back-up singers and a laser show.
Actually, I’m more annoyed by the media and Congressional reaction to problems with a web site, when compared to Defense Department disasters like the F-35 program. The problems of a web site that is a month or two behind schedule is a pittance compared to a program that cost hundreds of billions of dollars, that is constantly missing target dates, and keeps going up in price. With the rise of the drones, it isn’t even certain the things will ever be used.
How about some reasonable priorities for a change?
9 comments
Many of us wrote IE-only sites… in the year 2000 or so. My last contract, about 7 years ago, I tested in IE and Firefox, even though Firefox does AJAX differently and the specs said IE… the handwriting was on the wall by then. By now I’m scared to use IE for anything, and not only because that means borrowing Stella’s Windows computer…
To be honest, IE 10 is better than earlier versions, but there is entirely too much code generated that uses the anomalies found in the code to do things that can be done in code that all current browsers understand. Of course, the XP world is stuck at IE 8 and there is no support anymore for IE on the Mac, so IE only is a declining market.
Chrome is growing, Safari is out there, Firefox isn’t going to disappear. If you are trying to reach the ‘young invincibles’, requiring IE is a terrible idea. If that is important, they need to create some Apps for IOS and Android.
Anybody know if there is a version requirement for using IE on ACA sites? I’m one of those people still running on XP, although I almost never use IE.
Version 8 should be fine, 6 and 7 were definitely flaky, but should work without a problem. They have been upgrading it with the security upgrades to XP. I have an XP box that I keep current for compatibility with a client, and version 8 works on sites that used to freak out about version 6.
And I’ll just point out that standardizing on IE is a common ploy for web site designers who are way behind schedule. Making Javascript work on multiple browsers is *hard* and typically multi-browser validation is done only in the last few months of a project, after it’s already hit alpha stage and is being used by a few people. Note that most modern toolkits *do* generate cross-browser Javascript, but even with a modern toolkit like JQuery you can run into gotchas that end up requiring special-case coding for particular browsers.
In other words, my guess is that these sites will eventually be multi-browser compatible — after they’re out of beta test and into production in a few months. Oh wait, they were supposed to be in production last month… 😈
It’s nearly impossible to work for a client who has no understanding of the amount of work involved getting a computer to do what you want it to do. They think that they can change and edit requirements, the same way you can change and edit text in a word processor. Too many people think computers are actually intelligent because of the programs they use.
The contractors could be good or bad, but when you are altering things within 6 months of a major launch, you are asking for a disaster. Three months means these guys are good, six months means they are average, but that’s only if the client stops making changes.
BTW, IE 6 and 7 probably will *not* work with any modern web site (one designed within the past three years). Most major toolkits dropped support for those browsers because they’re so broken. I had the misfortune of having to deal with IE 6 some years back. CSS support was ridiculously busted, things showed up in weird places they shouldn’t have shown up at given the CSS standard, and we had special case code all over the place to deal with IE 6 breakage. Even IE 8 support is going to go away shortly — version 2.0 of JQuery, released back in April, doesn’t support anything earlier than IE 9. And JQuery powers about 65% of the web applications on the Internet.
M$ have, as usual, back-pedaled on releasing IE11 for Win7. IE11 supposedly has full support for HTML5 & CSS3.
One funny thing, If you have W7 and IE 9 or 10, you can upgrade to IE11 easily. If you have Win8, you must upgrade to win 8.1 first.
Micro$oft releases Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7
OT: Just far a laugh:
UK spy chiefs blast Snowden in first public appearance
The Brit’s are slow as usual. The USA made the same debunked claims months ago. Nice to see the USA is ahead of the game on something. LOL
And there’s this:
Google blocks NSA by encrypting data on fibre links
Yeah, my template on the blog is old enough that it has IE 6&7 hacks in it that I haven’t bothered to take out yet. When I first saw them I wondered what on earth was so wrong about those versions that the changes would be necessary. One of them involves moving an element so far as it should be off screen, but it was apparently necessary to get it to display on the screen. Very weird.
Yeah, Kryten, I think that encryption is going to become the rule as everyone is really getting annoyed, and to stay competitive companies are going to be forced to used it to be trusted by users. Even then, I don’t think US companies are going to be trusted by anyone.
M$ had to do something to get people to upgrade. I assume that IE 11 will show up next Wednesday, so I’ll keep the laptop at home. My new power supply arrived, so if I’m lucky I’ll be back at speed with a big screen over the weekend.