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Comment by potato-peeler

8 hours ago

None of them work on older browser - https://ibb.co/album/3kJP50

Ios 13.6 in my case, which was released just 6 yrs ago, 2020. For some context, flexbox gap was added in ios14.1, released in 2021. So iOS 13.6 was still usable atleast couple of years beyond that. So such frameworks utterly failing on such browsers is hilarious, given that they market themselves as minimal.

People keep forgetting that css3 was announced in 1999. And adoption roughly started from 2010. The css3 of that time is not the same as css3 you get to see in latest browsers. These minimal css frameworks are really useless if you don’t know what css3 features you are writing and who you are targeting.

And, I Haven’t even tested those in less capable browsers like dillo or netsurf, but I doubt they will even work there.

If you start looking into browser market share, you will quickly realise that there are millions of worldwide users who can’t use the web normally.

> So such frameworks utterly failing on such browsers is hilarious, given that they market themselves as minimal.

Minimal is an entirely different property to backwards compatibility.

  • When you say something is minimal, you are implying that what little you provide will also work. Which in this case is clearly not.

    motherfuckingwebsite.com is more minimal and usable than these frameworks.

    • As you're mainly complaining about CSS layout features being used here:

      For a long time we were forced to use the ugliest hacks imaginable to get to the nice (responsive, design-minimalist(!)) layouts we wanted, because CSS layout tools were utter archaic bs, for years on end, because browsers iterated so slowly.

      Then things started speeding up, and we're getting to make better websites (and apps!) that are way easier to design (with the correct design theory equivalents), implenent (with less code) and easier to maintain (i.e., understand). And you're not missing out if you just keep your browser up to date.

      I know it sucks if you're on an unsupported device that doesn't get any updates, fair.

      But let's face it: 99% of the population is better off security-wise when we're not enabling them to run unpatched devices forever.

      4 replies →

> None of them work on older browser

There are older browsers which still get security patches?

  • They don’t unfortunately but it is a good reference for me to check how it looks on previous versions of browsers and less powerful devices. That way I know if the UI or UX needs improvement.

    ios updates unfortunately ties everything to a single batch. Unlike android. I have an older blackberry, that still gets latest app updates.

    What is even hilarious is ads render with pixel perfection on older devices. So for some reason, ad networks care about browser compatibility than devs putting the same ads on their incompatible website.

    • Exactly. Ad creators know that the purpose of what they're building is more important than their personal dev experience of using shiny new tools. It's such a shame the fashion is the other way for so many web developers, largely the younger and less experienced ones.

      And yes, it makes sense to use one particular old browser as a general proxy for older browsers in general, so people shouldn't get hung up on the particular version of Safari you happened to mention.