I am sincerely sorry to say that she ain't seen nothing yet.

Take a look at countries like India or China where the test is a way of life. Not only do all educational institutions - schools, universities or otherwise - produce robots off an assembly line, such robotic behavior is praised and rewarded by the society.

I once gave a seminar at a Chinese university and these guys scared the creep out of me. They focussed me for hours without ever moving a limb.

Anyway, we should not blame the original valedictorian for her limited views. Experience comes with time and still she's right about the things she says.

Her views aren't limited, per se. She's realized there's a problem. That's good. It's just that the situation is probably much worse than she can imagine.

I just started listening to "The History of Rome" podcast, and I love it. He tells a story rather than deliver a lecture, it's great fun.

Users who use platform X and browser Y where your app doesn't work will simply switch to another app which does the same thing that was written by someone who _does_ care about all browsers.

Those users won't complain to you, they'll just switch.

Your loss.

If the effort to provide compatibility and an additional set of browser work-arounds exceeds the benefit given the insignificant share of traffic these other browsers provide then it isn't really a loss, is it?

> Those users won't complain to you, they'll just switch.

In my particular case, I only make things that don't exist already i.e. I'm not making yet another twitter-posting app or social bookmarking app. So I highly doubt my target users will switch simply because my app doesn't work nicely on a browser I don't even know about.

Also the solution to this would be to show a small notification if my app is being run in an untested environment and let the user complain with a 1-click form if they wish. I think most people who have a bad experience will let me know that is the case.

I was with you until you said 'Your loss.'

That bit of snark ignores the reality that a developer has resource constraints, and they constantly have to decide how best to deploy their time, money and energy.

Failing to address some platforms might well be a big win. Claiming it's a definite loss is absurd.

The original article's point was about progressive enhancement. If you're starting a project that requires, say canvas, it is your loss. If you start with tables and images, the site will work on a lot of browsers.

I used to use konsole, because it was default with KDE. After some time I made a conscious effort and switched to rxvt-unicode, or urxvt. It's a great terminal emulator, once you've got it configured, but that process can be tough. The documentation for the really cool stuff has also been a tad incomplete for me.