Earlier this year Chrome developers decided that the browser should no longer support JavaScript dialogs and alert windows when they're called by third-party iframes. //

When the web developer community finds out Google is going to break a ton of websites through a tweet, you know communication has failed. But there was a follow-up tweet that's actually far more disturbing than the news of alert() disappearing.

The tweet comes from Chrome software engineer and manager Emily Stark, who is of course speaking for herself, not Chrome, but it seems safe to assume that this thinking is prevalent at Google. She writes: "Breaking changes happen often on the web, and as a developer it's good practice to test against early release channels of major browsers to learn about any compatibility issues upfront." //

First, she is flat out wrong – breaking changes happen very rarely on the web and, as noted, there is a process for making sure they go smoothly and are worth the "cost" of breaking things. But second, and far more disturbing, is the notion that web developers should be continually testing their websites against early releases of major browsers. //

Web developer and advocate Jeremy Keith points out something else that's wrong with this idea. "There was an unspoken assumption that the web is built by professional web developers," he writes. "That gave me a cold chill."

What's chilling about the assumption is just that, it's assumed. The idea that there might be someone sitting right now writing their first tentative lines of HTML so that they can launch a webpage dedicated to ostriches is not even considered.

What we are forced to assume in turn is that Chrome is built by the professional developers working for an ad agency with the primary goal of building a web browser that serves the needs of other professional developers working for the ad agency's prospective clients. //

As Keith points out, this assumption that everyone is a professional fits the currently popular narrative of web development, which is that "web development has become more complex; so complex, in fact, that only an elite priesthood are capable of making websites today."

That is, as Keith puts it, "absolute bollocks."