"Back in January we added the ability to report usage of different features and preferences so we could learn more about how the browser is used in general. First we invited you, our weekly users to help us and in 9.2 we started asking one in 100 users if they want to participate. We would like to share some of our findings with you."
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Member since:2005-11-10
Excuse me? F--k me did you say? There's a reason I opt-in to Javascript.
* Intellitext. Ruining the whole concept of hyperlinks
* Slide in DHTML ads that cover the content.
* A million flash objects loading into the page locking your machine up
* Popups that manage to now and again get around the popup blocker
It's web developers who should not be wasting my time with their obtrusive natty scripts. I remember the web before Javascript. It was pretty good for the time.
Website designers who cannot create a site that can gracefully degrade, are just bad programmers, enough said. As well as techites like me, there's also disabled persons who may be browsing the web with browsers that either do not support javascript, or have limited support - and it's against the law to prevent them suitable access to e-commerce sites.
Member since:2005-07-06
Website designers who cannot create a site that can gracefully degrade, are just bad programmers, enough said.
Or the very small percentage of people that don't have JS enable are not worth the extra resources it might take to work around lack of javascript. Some things are not so easy to degrace gracefully. Trust me, I have to deal with that at work.
Member since:2005-07-10
This is one of the reasons I love Opera. I disable features such as cookies, plugins, and javascript by default, and add the features back on a need and trust basis using the "Edit site preferences" option on the right-click menu. Not only does that make the browser snappier, but one can avoid all of those annoyances in your list. Also, I'll have to say it's surprisingly rare that I actually need to use that menu.
PS. Can't wait for Kestrel! 
Member since:2005-07-24
"""
Website designers who cannot create a site that can gracefully degrade, are just bad programmers, enough said.
"""
To put it bluntly, that's just stupid. Increasing the complexity of a program by doing everything 2 ways, first the convoluted way for people who refuse to use modern technology, and then the simpler and cleaner way using the capabilities of the browser that 99% of people have turned on (according to the article) and leaving both code paths in is *not* good programming practice. (Unless you get paid by the hour, of course.)
If it means that assistive technologies need to get smarter and deal with the fact that browsers are smart clients and not dumb terminals then so be it.
P.S. I would hardly call the programmers behind Google Docs and Spreadsheets "bad programmers".
Edited 2007-07-07 01:13
Member since:2007-03-04
Now this is ridiculous. If you ban Javascript, you left the webapps bandwagon. 99% of web applications these days use Ajax (javascript), here's what you can't use: Gmail (fast version), Google Docs, Zimbra, Yahoo!Mail (Beta version), and the fast-increasing number of web sites that use Ajax. At one point there will be so many web sites that will be broken on your computer that you may end up giving up. Javascript is basically Ecmascript, which is a web standard (http://www.w3.org/DOM/).
This remembers geeks in the 90's who said they would ban CSS because it didn't add to the web. They all use CSS these days and they don't complain anymore. If the owners of the web sites you visit use Javascript to display ads, they probably have good reasons, they need to make money. You also probably whine at TV commercial like I do, but we end up watching TV (well I don't very often!). If bloggers couldn't place ads with Javascript, they would use plain XHTML coding and it would be no better for you. And to go back to web applications, if there wasn't Javascript, web applications would turn server applications, where everything is run on the server. These days, half of the cde of webapps are run on the client desktop and with Ajax they are less sluggish than they used to be. You should be thankful.
Edited 2007-07-07 09:59
Member since:2005-07-06
Wow. Features most requested by users are not necessarily used, once actually provided. Now *that* is an issue worth looking into, and of significance to other projects, as well.
Heh. Now there's a link to save for the next time someone pops into a Haiku comment thread to steadfastly insist that "Haiku must include ______ feature/functionality or it will never succeed!!!"
That situation probably wouldn't exist if javascript wasn't mis-used so frequently. I constantly see things done with javascript that could easily be done with straight (X)HTML, or should be done with a server-side scripting language. With the web development work I've personally done, JS has been largely a "last resort" that's only used if I can't find a way to do something with XHTML or PHP/ASP.
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Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Member since:
2005-07-24
# A preference we added by popular request, the ability to turn on Fit to Width by default is used by 0.0%
Wow. Features most requested by users are not necessarily used, once actually provided. Now *that* is an issue worth looking into, and of significance to other projects, as well.
# You're not left-handed p: Well... the option to flip the buttons for mouse gestures is used by only 1% of those who enabled mouse gestures, which possibly indicates that many left-handed users prefer a right-handed mouse setup.
As a "left-handed" person, I would point out that few people are truly left handed. Most left handed people write with their left hands (which is pretty much the definition) and use whatever hand is convenient for most other things. When I was in elementary school, my mother used to insist upon getting me those damned "lefty" scisors for art class. Never could cut a thing with them and I often ended up borrowing someone else's normal scissors.
# JavaScript and Plugins are both used by more than 99% by default
As an advocate of web applications, I'm glad to see this. f--k people who turn javascript off. They should *expect* the modern web to be broken for them. Web developers should not waste valuable time and energy catering to them.