Google is considering removing alert()

https://twitter.com/Rich_Harris/status/1422930436850860033

by joshdance • 5 years ago

43 39 5 years ago

trangus_19854• 5 years ago

Good. Alert is an archaic mechanism with tons of useful alternatives that don't involve blocking the DOM. For example, console log for debugging/demoing.

On the other hand, I'm seriously worried that Google is using its position to force large changes to the web.

phpnode7• 5 years ago

it's not good, this change will break huge swathes of the web if it goes ahead as planned, lots of older websites just won't work any more and many newer ones will also be affected.

trangus_19854• 5 years ago

There is no place for an out of dom signalling mechanism like alert() on the modern web. I would hope to see a multi-year phase out of something this integral. I can't remember the last time I saw it used for something useful.

brundolf• 5 years ago

A good compromise could be to have it trigger a non-blocking pop-up notification within the page, since the blocking is the main issue

Heck, if they did that it might come back into style. Pop-up notifications are a pain to implement from scratch

rasz• 5 years ago

Alert is an archaic mechanism with tons of useful alternatives that don't involve blocking the DOM.

event loop, but the _whole point_ of Alert is being MODAL and BLOCKING. If I didnt care about that I would just pop fixed position div. Its meant to pause whole page, thats its designed role.

I seem to remember browsers (Netscape or Opera?) around 1999 having "Never show this dialog again" checkboxes meant to prevent alert() spam.

zaksingh• 5 years ago

I've rarely seen alert() used in the past few years outside of as a means of harassing users on malware sites (have you ever accidentally clicked on a malicious ad on a mobile phone and struggled to escape the site due to alert() spam blocking interaction? It's terrifying as an end-user). This seems like a more than reasonable decision given an adequate phase-out period.

nonbirithm• 5 years ago

And what happens when Google makes an unreasonable decision about what should be a part of the web standards and what should not? Who even has the capability of making them reverse course at this point?

saulr• 5 years ago

I believe this tweet has been twisted from the original tweet, which is that _cross origin_ alert (e.g. from an iframe) is the thing being removed. Using alert etc from the main frame will continue to work.

phpnode7• 5 years ago

They are planning to deprecate them from the platform entirely, this is the first step

torstenvl3• 5 years ago

Please provide a link, or stop passing speculation off as truth.

floatingatoll• 5 years ago

We tried this topic yesterday on the FP with a link to a bug tracker, and it went quite badly. I wish someone would write and post to HN a serious full-length discussion about what's going on, with clearly separated "Google's stated intentions as of today" from "Reading the tea leaves" from "This is outrageous".

I still don't even fully understand the problem, because everyone just defaults to linking a bug tracker that's of lower quality than a Reddit discussion, and I can't trust HN comments to explain it because of all the outrage and assumption-by-framing. Ugh.

Minor49er• 5 years ago

They're talking about removing alert(), but there's no mention of confirm()?

torstenvl3• 5 years ago

No. They are not. They are considering disabling it for cross-origin alerts from iframes.

https://twitter.com/estark37/status/1422694845076762629?s=21

Everything else is speculation. It may even be likely speculation! But it is speculation nonetheless.

ohgodplsno2• 5 years ago

Yes they are, and within a few months, Google will continue fucking over the web. They are explicitly saying there will be breakage because "wah wah it's on the main thread".

https://twitter.com/estark37/status/1422694855390629893

danShumway2• 5 years ago

It would be speculation to say "Google is removing alert()"

It is not speculation to say "Google is considering removing alert()". Multiple engineers from Chrome have confirmed on Twitter that they have an eventual goal of removing alert() at some point in the future (or making it non-blocking and removing prompt/confirm, which is the same thing). See https://twitr.gq/domenic/status/1422647331804037120 as one example.

Maybe it won't happen! There's a lot of time for feedback. But it is accurate to say that Google is considering it.

Also as a small sidenote, they are not considering removing alert() for cross-origin iframes. They are removing it for cross-origin iframes and have very temporarily walked the changes back in order to give devs more time to prepare. Short of some kind of massive blowback that forces the devs to change their mind, Chrome's decision to remove alert() from cross-origin iframes has already been finalized.

JohnCurran• 5 years ago

https://twitter.com/estark37/status/1422694856544059396

as a developer it's good practice to test against early release channels of major browsers to learn about any compatibility issues upfront

This is a rather alarming viewpoint which I think highlights Chrome's quest to become the One True Implementation of web standards. In addition to the major browser vendors I'm now supposed to be testing against beta and nightly builds in order to ensure that my website is not going to break because Google decided to eliminate something? Yikes.

victorvation• 5 years ago

Contrary to what seems to be Google's belief, most websites are _not_ continuously deployed SPAs with a team of engineers who work on each release. The indifference shown to actual developers here is staggering.

fleddr2• 5 years ago

Well said. It's stunning how ignorant Google is about the web. The vast majority of the web is old and poorly maintained or not maintained at all. It relies on things not breaking, web tech being backwards compatible.

This assumption that behind every website is a team of developers maintaining it for its entire lifecycle is a stubborn and elitist Google fantasy.

Zababa• 5 years ago

Isn't "don't break the web" supposed to be the most important priority?

nunez• 5 years ago

From cross origin iframes. This is a good thing IMO.

asddubs• 5 years ago

there doesn't seem to be a way to opt back into it though. At the very least they should do that

Google is considering removing alert()

Related Stories