On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 4:56 PM, Max Semenik <maxsem.w...@gmail.com> wrote: > Why? Everyone who was able to upgrade already did that. The remainder are > either users with really crappy machines or corporate slaves who can't > decide anything themselves. What will you achieve by annoying them?
+2. I understand the desire of front end developers to be freed of the constraints of supporting an ancient platform, but some of us old guys figured this out back in the heyday of the first dotcom bubble. The answer is progressive enhancement. It turns out that this is good for everyone because the same techniques that allow supporting a functional but less highly interactive frontend experience for older desktop platforms led to responsive designs that support the ever expanding "mobile" platforms. The number one business of the movement is the distribution of knowledge. We should seek to reach the widest audience possible with the least restrictions on bandwidth, screen resolution and device capability. Yes, of course we should push ourselves to present the content provided by our hard working editors in a platform that is responsive and enticing to the upscale consumers of the modern internet, but we should never forget that the truly important deliverable is the content itself. Wikipedia and the sister projects should be readable and editable from a VT100 terminal connected to a packet radio network bounced off of a satellite with ridiculous latency to reach our most far flung caching center. If they can speak HTTP and somehow get a request packet to us, we must provide the knowledge the consumers seek. Bryan (not responding as an employee of the WMF, but as a geek who wants to help people who want to learn and share) -- Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation <bd...@wikimedia.org> [[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] Sr Software Engineer Boise, ID USA irc: bd808 v:415.839.6885 x6855 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
