>We noticed that you're using Internet Explorer. Polymath currently does not support this browser because compatibility issues prevent us from delivering an ideal experience. We're working on fixing these issues.
People do realise that some company networks give you no control over which browser you can use right? I can't understand what feature they would need which is missing from IE10. Why not use feature detection? We've moved on from browser detection...
I think that's just code for "we don't want to spend the time and effort to properly test and debug our application on IE at this time, and we really don't want to get barraged with IE support requests either".
Sure, I don't mind if bits don't work, if I miss out on some WebGL stuff or similar.
But to just put up a big fuck you, to what is the second most popular or most popular browser as a whole isn't helpful. It reminds me of people using Java Applets for navigation in their frames webpage.... Actually I did that once, I was however 11, and this thing had a spinny thing.
Sure, do cool stuff that requires features which some browsers miss, use feature detection to flag that.
> Sure, do cool stuff that requires features which some browsers miss, use feature detection to flag that.
To be fair, graceful degradation is still a ton of work. It's fine if you're using neat-o features for superficial things (round ALL the corners!). However when you decide to rely on newer tech for more core site features, it means you wind up having to code, and test, twice. Once for the real features in the preferred environment, and once for the degraded features in the non-preferred environment.
If you don't have the resources but you still want to use the stuff with limited support, I think it's polite to include a "hey, we don't test for your configuration so feel free to give us a try, but we apologize if things don't work correctly" banner. I think it's also polite to warn your users where you know things are just painfully broken. "The experience is bad here for users with your configuration."
> But to just put up a big fuck you, to what is the second most popular or most popular browser as a whole isn't helpful.
I'm glad you said this. I think you're stepping out from a trend/trope, which is to make fun of IE, to recognize the more nuanced reality of the situation.
Over the last few months, I've encountered some surprises. One is that although Firefox seems to be a memory hog, it's very reliable at this point. I didn't set out to like Firefox, but now I trust it as much as the old Netscape.
Another is that while I like the idea of Opera and Chrome, each has failed me now in a number of situations where we're not looking at an isolated glitch, but major performance problems. In particular, complex scripts can lock these guys up like a flash freeze, and Chrome has periodic catastrophic crashes:
This leaves me looking at Firefox and IE as the two real contenders. And while I've never wanted to be an IE fan, as only the unpopular kids on the schoolyard like IE, I think as an application, it's pretty stable. Its only real problem is security and if MS fixes that, I think it's going to be a great competitor for FF now that it's standards-based in the newest version.
Oh, I totally agree - the link was just to answer the "what doesn't IE10 support" question, which you didn't really ask ;)
Having said that, the site in question is aimed at developers and designers, most of whom [1] will be using something other than IE. So this isn't the worst example out there.
[1] Yes, of course, this is pure conjecture, and I don't have any figures to back that up. Doesn't stop it being true, though.
People do realise that some company networks give you no control over which browser you can use right? I can't understand what feature they would need which is missing from IE10. Why not use feature detection? We've moved on from browser detection...