Episode 06: Graded Browser Support Theory
In this episode Dustin is joined with Yahoo!’s Nate Koechley in a discussion about his recently launched graded browser support chart along with his supporting arguments via the YUIBlog. Aside from the fact that this is almost two weeks behind schedule, you will definitely enjoy this episode on the basis that Nate just really knows what he’s talking about.
Other stuff like news…
I’m afraid the stuff we talked about in the news just seems like such old news now like South by South West happening in two days, and some other css templating site… however one thing we did mention that’s still sort of new is the launch of Cameron and James’ book The JavaScript Anthology. Had I known Cameron before we recorded the podcast I would have spoken about him a bit more just to give him crap since we did indeed pose nude together claiming that we were cameron diaz.
If that photo scares you, then be assured that there is a normal photo of the two of us.
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This podcast is 36 minutes.
Download Episode 06: WSwI Podcast: Graded Browser Support Theory
March 21st, 2006 at 12:15 pm
I don’t quite understand why Safari receives an “X”, meaning that apps are not tested on this browser, nor are bugs recorded for this browser; yet Firefox on Mac (more fringe than Safari, imo) receives an “A” grade, which means this environment is tested and bugs on this browser are given a high priority.
It’s weird becase Nate says “the big 4: Opera, Safari, Gecko-based browsers and IE”, yet they put all versions of Safari in the “X” category. It’s certainly not new or fringe, imo.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:22 pm
A very interesting listen to a great organizational method for browser support.
The only thing that surprised me was the vast amount of X-Grades in the table. You’d think with a company with the reach and resources of Yahoo! that they’d lock down a solid grade for more browser combos.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Justin, the x-grades on Safari are pointed at the earlier versions. The latest versions of Safari are indeed A-Grade. The reasons we treat some as x-grade is to treat them as if they were netscape 4 - reason being is that the market percentage on those browsers are so minor (I mean really “really” minor) that we had just marked them as X.
Also, listen carefully the way Nate describes “support” as well. And one thing to keep in mind is that this is a big place, so a standard like this won’t always apply for certain projects. Indeed we can break up versions of “support” to be even more granular and reapply which browsers receive which grade.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Oh yeah, I see it now. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the end of the table. Thanks for clearing it up.
March 22nd, 2006 at 6:46 pm
[...] I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dustin Diaz for the sixth episode of his podcast series. It was my first time appearing on a podcast, though I’ve since given another interview for a second podcast (that hasn’t been published yet). [...]
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Very, very helpful. I wonder how far back to support browsers and taking the lead of a major player is a good que.
March 27th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
An interesting read, but like most things on the web, doesn’t bother to set the context within which it is most appropriate. Such a strategy requires both the large and disparate (browser/OS-wise) audience and the testing resources and budget to accomodate support of such an audience to truly make sense.
The truth is that there is simply no way to justify, in an economic sense, this level of testing for typical websites with 1/10,000 of the traffic of a Yahoo.com. Additionally, for a site with limited testing resources and budgets, treating the testing resources allocated to, say, IE6/WIN XP and Mac OSX 10.1/FF 1.07 (both “A-grade”) is fundamentally flawed. And certainly, even for a company of great resources such as Yahoo who might eventually get around to at least attempting to fix all reported bugs in “A-rated” browsers, it makes more sense to prioritize issues found in the former Browser/OS combo than the latter. I also find it rather curious that while C-browsers only warrant testing with a represenative sample, their bugs are pursued as a high priority as are A-browsers, I doubt this is the case in reality.
Testing activities, and fix efforts related to resulting bug fixes, should be risk-based, and putting a browser/OS combo with a huge market share on the same level as one with a miniscule one simply because they are both deemed “A-grade” disregards this principle.
Also, it is rather pompous to say that “in modern web development we must support all browsers. Choosing to exclude a segment of users is inappropriate”, in the reality of limited traffic, limited & specialized audience, limited budget websites and web applications there are all sorts of legitimate reasons for doing this. In other words, from a practical perspective of testing and bug fixing it’s a sliding scale of what is A-, C- or X-, and Yahoo is at one end, the very inclusive end, of the spectrum in terms of what makes sense to test and support.
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:29 am
Hi Dustin,
I was very confused between C-Grade and X-Grade support till I listened to this podcast. Thank now I am very clear about it.