Thread

With the almost ‘cult’ approach to using Mac over PC .. (not only with EE, but with so many other ‘designers’ and ‘developers’), perhaps the following statistics might be of interest ...

the trend in OS statistics (Mac has 4% of the usage; XP 73.4%)

Statistics and trends in Browser Usage (IE6 still has 33% of the stats)

and the display resolution statistics are interesting

I know that these figures are pretty accurate when I look at my own site statistics - so can we really dictate .. or go against the usage trends.

Yes, there IS an active hard core Apple Community ... but it seems that as far as usage is concerned, they are in the minority ..

As the developer of 3 personal sites, I’m using a PC .. I can’t afford to change 3 of them and their software to Apple ..

.. but then .. what are most of the end users (readers) of my sites going to be using?

.. and, a question for the EE community .. how many of the users of EE (site owners) are really using PC’s with Windows and IE6; maybe its not the ‘bleeding edge’ but not all of us have all our teeth to take a bite out of an apple!

Call me thick, but I don’t get it… is your post meant to be a question? or some heads-up on statistics?

Call me thick, but I don’t get it… is your post meant to be a question? or some heads-up on statistics?

yes

Call me thick, but I don’t get it… is your post meant to be a question? or some heads-up on statistics?

yes

So, um… what’s the question?

I think everyone is pretty well aware that windows has most of the market share and that IE is still the dominant browser; and a responsible developer is certainly going to ensure that the sites they build work across all major operating systems and browsers. But there’s nothing Mac-specific about EE, and most of the discussion here in the forums applies to both platforms, so I think I’m missing the point of your post.

Maybe Cocoaholic is confused because we don’t really understand the question.  What additional work do you have to do or hardware do you have to buy to target Apple users for your sites?  And how is the computer you as a developer use factor into any of that?

So did a question become apparent?

My personal opinion on web statistics, at least in terms of users versus developers, is: web statistics showcase user-level detail, that says nothing about development. There are a number of communities where development is mostly done on the Mac to support a world of PC users. Mac developers are often insanely great at creating websites that PC users love to visit, and will never contemplate that the site is developed and possibly maintain by a Mac. Most developers who support standards, may have their preference for Mac or PC, but their code will work well in a number of browsers, so no biggie. But quite a few PC website developers, who don’t adhere to web standards create a plethora of sites that break in any browser that isn’t IE (and often even in specific versions of IE).

It really doesn’t matter which OS you code on, so long as you code well. But on the other hand, if your talking about all the cool tools to make coding more streamline and pleasant, well then yes, lots of them exist just for the Mac. That’s not to say solutions for the PC aren’t out there. I’m sure there are thousands of them, which is probably the real problem. Who wants to wade through hundreds or thousands of crap applications just to find one or two that are well designed, easy to use, can be integrated with other tools, and that actually make your life easier.

Hell, I’m still trying to find a great Windows-based FTP/sFTP application. Something on par with Transmit for a number of our clients. All of what I would consider the top five PC FTP contenders—SmartFTP, CuteFTP, WS_FTP, Voyager, and Deluxe FTP—all suffer from adherence to the Windows Explorer Interface. From my perspective that’s an understandable mistake, but still a mistake. The problem is most PC users have never really learned how to use Windows Explorer, and tossing it at them in an application, just makes the application as confusing as when they see and run from the Windows Explorer paned view. There’s a reason why list view or icon view tend to dominate so many users desktop interface.

If you can’t find a powerhouse FTP program that has a stellar, easy-to-use interface, then what should you expect when you extend that to text editor, css editor, color schemers, graphics editors, etc.

I don’t think anyone has ever argued that a web developer/designer should create websites that ignore Internet Explorer in favor of Safari support, which seems to be what you’re getting at. The opposite has been the case for a very long time, and those statistics you showed indicate that the time when you could happily ignore all other browsers in favor of Internet Explorer are over.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by moving your sites to Apple. There’s no reason a properly designed site can’t work in Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc. There are no proprietary tags that only work in Safari, encouraging the browser lock-in of the bad old days of IE. You don’t have to develop your sites on a mac, though it would be nice if you dropped by an Apple store and opened your site to make sure it works correctly in mac browsers. ;P

in this thread,Paul Burdick (Ellis Lab CTO) writes

A bit of research indicates that IE (6 and 7) has a bit of an odd way of doing eval() in JavaScript that causes problems.  Just one more thing it does wrong.  And so, as we really cannot spend time building work arounds for buggy browsers, this extension is more or less just an example of how such a thing could be done.

tulkul, he’s talking specifically about that extension that he wrote as a proof of concept for a specific task - not web development in general.  Is that statement what you’re basing this entire topic on?

That’s for an optional add-on that was released as “more or less just an example of how such a thing could be done.” I, for one, would much rather Paul and crew work on EE 2.0 than the form tag encoder extension. 😛

Personally, I don’t really believe Paul’s statement needs any defense. It DOES NOT argue that people should move their sites from one browser to another or even one OS to another. It just accurately states, that in Internet Explorer does not properly handle a specific Javascript issue, and since the solution provided was an example, the individual who needs the solution will then be in-charge of deciding how to handle the bugs in Internet Explorer. In truth, there are way too many versions of Internet Explorer all harboring different bugs and quirks to accommodate all of them. Personally, I select one that I’ll create quirk styles, etc. for, and leave the rest alone.

tulkul, he’s talking specifically about that extension that he wrote as a proof of concept for a specific task - not web development in general.  Is that statement what you’re basing this entire topic on?

No, Derek .. its not ..

I came across that quote just a minute ago when I was searching for something else.

The thing that started this thread in my mind was (as someone else commented) that there is a whole lot of stuff specifically designed for Apple users and, for a PC, its always a work-around (as far as development tools is concerned) ..

And .. the other thing that I keep reading (and not just here) is that EE is a crappy browser, just ignore it.

Sure, if I had the money, I could buy Apple and then get all of the software that people here write about and then I could follow and understand what people are talking about in their development experiences ..

but, for me, that would also require a whole new learning curve and, at my age, I have enough trouble coming to terms with Dreamweaver .. and, EE. Its a whole language on its own ..

Yes, I’m probably a bit jealous of the generation that is able to grasp the cutting edge of new technology, but, when I did my Masters, we were building computers out of transistors (does anyone here remember what writing the code was like?)

.. and, I’ve done a lot of things that were not electronic related in the last 40 years ..

I’ve also got a gripe about stuff that is supposed to be designed for people with disabilities .. but, that’s another story .. especially prominent in my life now as my wife tries to write her MS blog as her own condition deteriorates .. (just 4 years ago, she was a research librarian) ..

—even the development of “desktop bloggers” seems to have a Apple Flavor .. 

and anyway .. this is “The Lounge” isn’t it?

Christopher Wynter

I’ll agree, this is one unfortunate aspect of computer technology, and it applies perhaps even to a greater extent with web technology.  If you were an automobile enthusiast in the 50’s and 60’s but then suddenly stopped, and did not follow the industry or regain interest until this decade, you wouldn’t lose much.  You could very quickly bring yourself up to speed and outside of a few minutes to realize that modern cars don’t have carburetors, if you were a gear head in the 50s, it will be easy to be a gear head in 2008.  This could not be further from the truth in computer technology and more specifically web development.  There are only a few skills it seems that carry forward to or can even inform your new skills for emerging technology.

And as you point out, the increasing trend is that people interested in and in control of these technologies have little interest in developing products and tools for the Windows platform.  Some of that may be political but it has much more to do with the fact that the modern Apple computer beginning with OS X uses at its core the same OS that web technologies came to birth and continue to be created on: *nix.

and anyway .. this is “The Lounge” isn’t it?

Yep.  For my part, I just didn’t know what you were trying to say.

I designed and build race cars based on the humble VW in the 60’s and 70’s (as a bit of a hobby) .. even restored an old ‘split window’ type ..

I now drive a Subaru .. and can maintain it, just like I did the VW—except when it comes to the computerised engine management stuff <g> .. turbo’s have also come a long way ..

I had to laugh at his reaction when an enthusiastic young salesman tried to sell me the benefits of the “boxer engine” and I told him it was just a more advanced water-cooled VW engine .. his boss (my generation) had to pull him into line!

The trouble even on Windows is once you’ve upgraded to IE7 there’s no reliable & easy way to debug for the IE6 browser.
That said, I have the standalone version of IE6 to test in but it doesn’t act as IE6 does on a machine without IE7, bugs appear that are not really there.
The standalone version does not recognize the CSS hacks that it should in the normal IE6, so it’s almost pointless.

Statistics wise right here in hometown USA we have about an even split between IE users on version 6 and 7.
15% are firefox users and that’s probably just me and my bud M in the next cubicle doing development work on the system, lol.
Firefox has an amazing and almost endless list of developer extensions, more all the time.
As far as Safari, they might sometimes have to voice their concerns because, a windows user has no idea, unless they’ve installed safari, and then there would be the same issues as to version number?