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Two new studies highlight the power of sequencing cancer patients' genomes as a diagnostic tool, helping doctors decide the best course of treatment and researchers identify new cancer susceptibility mutations that can be passed from parent to child.
Both studies, by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, are reported April 20 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In one case, sequencing the genome of a 39-year-old woman with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) uncovered a novel genetic mistake, leading doctors to change the course of her treatment. Instead of a stem cell transplant, which had been recommended because standard testing indicated poor survival odds, she was treated with a targeted chemotherapy regimen and is now in remission.
In another, sequencing the genome of a woman who died at age 42 after developing breast and ovarian cancer and then leukemia allowed researchers to identify a new mutation in a gene known to dramatically increase cancer risk. The patient's family members were informed of the finding, and genetic counseling and testing were recommended for the woman's three children, who have a very high risk of developing cancer at a young age if they inherited the mutation.
"These cases of personalized genomic medicine are just some of the first examples of what will likely be commonplace in the near future," write Boris Pasche, MD, PhD, of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and Devin Absher, PhD, of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Alabama, in an editorial that accompanies the papers.
"We are beginning to see how genome sequencing can make a real difference in the lives of cancer patients and their families," says senior author Richard K. Wilson, PhD, director of Washington University's Genome Institute and a leader in the field of cancer genome sequencing. "Both studies underscore the value of whole-genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool. We could not have identified these mutations using conventional tests or targeted sequencing approaches because they involved unexpected structural changes to the DNA, which can only be found by looking across the entire genome."
Advances in technology have enabled scientists to sequence the genomes of cancer patients at a cost and speed that was unimaginable even a few years ago.
But Wilson cautions that it's not yet practical to routinely sequence cancer patients' genomes because the cost is still relatively high, and scientists don't yet fully understand the breadth of genetic changes that drive cancer development. Select cases like these, however, offer a glimpse of the way personalized genome sequencing can transform the way doctors diagnose and treat cancer patients and their families.
In the first study, the patient was referred to the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine for a stem cell transplant. But doctors quickly realized her case was a diagnostic conundrum. On the one hand, many features of her leukemia cells indicated a classic case of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), a subtype of AML.
But the patient did not have a common genetic alteration associated with APL: a piece of chromosome 15 that is swapped with a piece of chromosome 17, which would have provided a definitive diagnosis. This defect creates a fusion of two genes that prevents white blood cells from maturing, and it is known to initiate APL.
Patients who have the 15;17 chromosome swap don't need a stem cell transplant because they can be effectively treated with a chemotherapy regimen that includes all-trans retinoic acid, or ATRA, which targets the genetic error.
The stem cell transplant had been recommended for this patient because a standard diagnostic test indicated her odds of long-term survival were less than 15 percent. The test showed that a number of chromosomes in her leukemia cells were missing, broken or rearranged, which is associated with a very poor prognosis.
The patient's oncologist, Peter Westervelt, MD, PhD, director of the Bone Marrow Transplant/Leukemia Section in the Division of Oncology at Washington University, suggested that sequencing her genome could resolve the diagnostic dilemma.
"We didn't want to go through with a stem cell transplant unless we were absolutely certain she needed it," he says. "It's a very rigorous therapy, with a significant risk of mortality and long-term complications. Sequencing the genome of the patient's leukemia cells offered the opportunity to resolve this dilemma in 'real time' and allowed us to make the correct call in recommending further therapy."
The researchers sequenced both the genome of the patient's cancer cells and the genome of her normal, healthy cells, taken from a skin sample. By comparing the DNA sequences side by side, they could identify changes in the leukemia cells that contributed to her cancer.
Notably, they discovered a novel genetic rearrangement: a small piece of chromosome 15 was inserted into chromosome 17, creating the same genetic defect that results from swapping pieces of the two chromosomes.
"This tiny insertion trumps everything else we see in the patient's cancer cells and told us that chemotherapy with ATRA — not a stem cell transplant — was the best treatment option for her," explains lead author John Welch, MD, PhD. "Conventional testing could not detect the insertion because it is so small, but with whole-genome sequencing we can find all the mutations that underlie a patient's cancer, even those that are unexpected and rare, like this one."
Based on the sequencing, the patient received chemotherapy with ATRA and remains in remission 15 months after her diagnosis. Patients treated with this regimen have a long-term survival rate of 70 percent.
In all, it took the researchers six weeks to complete the sequencing and validate their results, at a cost of $40,000 ($20,000 per genome). As technology improves, the time to sequence a patient's genome is expected to shorten, too.
But even a six-week time frame is reasonable for many cancers, such as breast, lung and colon, where chemotherapy often is not initiated until after the patient has recovered from surgery to remove the tumor, and for acute leukemias, where patients typically receive chemotherapy right away to induce a quick remission before doctors must decide whether additional chemotherapy or a stem cell transplant is needed to keep the leukemia at bay.
Interestingly, when the researchers examined other cases of APL, they found similar 15;17 insertions in two patients, suggesting these genetic defects are more common than they originally thought and often undiagnosed.
In the second study, researchers used whole-genome sequencing to identify a new cancer susceptibility mutation in a woman who developed breast cancer at age 37 and ovarian cancer at age 39. Despite treatment, the ovarian tumor returned at age 42 and she received additional chemotherapy. The patient died six months later, days after developing AML, a complication possibly related to the extensive chemotherapy she had received.
The patient's doctors suspected she had a genetic susceptibility that increased her risk of cancer, but her family medical history — with cancer in only one relative on her mother's side — did not suggest an inherited predisposition.
"We see cases like this all the time," says lead author and oncologist Daniel Link, MD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Medicine at Washington University. "A patient develops one or two primary cancers at a young age, and there's no significant family history of cancer. The red light goes on; we know there has to be a reason why."
In women who develop breast or ovarian cancer at a young age, physicians typically conduct commercial testing for BRCA1 and BRAC2 mutations, which are known to increase the risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, but often the results are negative.
That was the case for this patient, too.
"But this patient had three children," Link says. "If we could find the mutation that increased her cancer risk, it would be important for her family to know."
When co-senior author Elaine Mardis, PhD, co-director of the Genome Institute, and her colleagues sequenced the patient's genome using a sample of skin cells and, as a comparison, the genome of her leukemia cells, they uncovered a novel and unexpected mutation in TP53, a well-known tumor suppressor gene involved in DNA repair. In her case, a critical chunk of the gene had been deleted from the DNA in her skin cells, indicating she was born with the mutation, which likely increased her risk of developing cancer while young.
To determine whether the patient had inherited the genetic error from her mother, they obtained a blood sample and sequenced the gene but did not find the mutation. The patient's father had died but there was no history of cancer on his side of the family to suggest she may have inherited the mutation from him.
Rather, the researchers suspect the TP53 mutation arose spontaneously in the patient's genome and developed very early in life, likely at conception.
Finding the TP53 mutation has important implications for the patient's three children because they have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the genetic error. Individuals who inherit TP53 mutations have a 90 percent lifetime risk of cancer and a 50 percent chance of developing cancer before age 40.
The researchers designed the study in such a way that any relevant genetic information could be relayed to the patient's family. If genetic testing indicates any of the children inherited the TP53 mutation, they would be recommended to get regular screening for early detection of cancer.
As the cost of whole-genome sequencing continues to fall, the researchers expect that it will become the standard method by which scientists search for rare, inherited cancer mutations.
Unlike sequencing techniques that focus only on genes, which make up just 1 percent of the genome, whole-genome sequencing captures the full range of genetic alterations in DNA, including both small and large insertions, deletions and other structural variations.
"Whole-genome sequencing is the most powerful diagnostic tool we've ever had to define all the mutations in the genome of a cancer patient," says co-author Timothy Ley, MD, the Lewis T. and Rosalind B. Apple Professor of Oncology at Washington University. "We no longer have to rely on techniques where we're guessing what could be wrong. Now, we can find all the genetic mutations that contributed to a patient's cancer. As we move forward, we think this will lead to more opportunities to improve the care of patients and their families."
Wilson, Mardis and Ley and their colleagues have pioneered whole-genome sequencing of cancer patients' DNA to identify genetic mutations at the root of the disease. To date, they have sequenced the genomes of more than 300 cancer patients and their tumors.
Welch JS, Westervelt P, Mardis ER, Ley TJ, Wilson RK. Use of Whole-Genome Sequencing to Diagnose a Cryptic Fusion Oncogene. Journal of the American Medical Association, April 20, 2011.
The research was supported by the Washington University Cancer Genome Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation. Dr. Welch is a fellow of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
Link DC, Ley TJ, Zambetti GP, Wilson RK, Mardis ER. Identification of a Novel TP53 Cancer Susceptibility Mutation Through Whole-Genome Sequencing of a Patient with Therapy-Related AML. Journal of the American Medical Association, April 20, 2011.
The research was supported by the Washington University Cancer Genome Initiative, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Institutes of Health, Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation, the Pediatric Scientist Development Program and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.


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POV - Frodo
In which a new friend with an old past shows up on the doorstep.
Evening, 22 Foreyule, 1389
'I'll get it, Uncle Bilbo!'
Frodo trotted over to the front door of Bag End, curious as to who would be knocking at this hour. He had a nagging worry that it might be one of the Gamgees; Missus Gamgee had not been feeling well lately, and Bilbo had been very insistent that Hamfast send Halfred if she took a turn for the worse. Frodo grasped the door knob, opened the door, and came to a startled stop.
On the doorstep was a dwarf. His black eyes caught and reflected back the light from the candles in the wall sconces, glittering like the facets on Aunt Tulip's jet brooch. He swept back the hood on his scarlet cloak, revealing almost-golden hair in neat plaits, paler than his short, braided beard. His broad shoulders seemed to fill the door and for one fleeting moment Frodo wondered if the dwarf would get stuck in the doorway should he step in. The dwarf smiled at the young hobbit and bowed extravagantly, short beard nearly brushing the door jamb.
'Dalin Steelhand at your service!' he said in a cheerful, booming baritone voice. He stood quickly before Frodo could reply. 'Dear sir, pray tell, is this the home of Bilbo Baggins, Lord of Burglars?'
Frodo could not answer. He could only stare at this huge person standing in the doorway. In all his life, he had never seen anyone so big. The top of his own head did not reach the dwarf's shoulder. He's bigger than Mac! was all Frodo could think. The young hobbit's eyes got bigger and rounder as his gaze traveled down the visitor, taking in the enormously broad shoulders, the great barrel chest, forearms that looked as big around as an ordinary hobbit's thigh, the tree-stump legs, and then he saw the boots.
Not feet, as one should see, but boots; big, thick, leather boots. They were black and spattered with mud. They had lacings across the tops that disappeared up under the turned-down cuffs. The leather on the cuffs was tooled in strange knots and whorls, with angles and curves fitting together in an endless pattern. The dwarf's boots were bigger than the biggest hobbit foot. Frodo could not take his eyes off them.
A politely cleared throat shook Frodo out of his amazement. Blushing furiously, the young hobbit looked back up at the dwarf's face, hoping he had not done something too terribly rude. To his relief, the dwarf's face was crinkled up in amusement.
'Dalin Steelhand, at your service, young master,' the dwarf repeated in a softer tone, inclining his head in Frodo's direction. Frodo grinned back. An adventure had arrived on the doorstep!
'Frodo Baggins, at yours and your family's!' he replied properly, giving Dalin a bobbing little bow. Wait until Bilbo sees this! He could not stop grinning.
'I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Baggins,' the dwarf replied with a matching grin. 'Are you by chance a kinsman of the illustrious Mister Baggins?'
'Yes, I'm his nephew. Oh, what am I doing, keeping you standing on the doorstep?' Frodo cried, suddenly flustered, knowing he was being rude to a guest, 'Please do step inside Mister Steelhand. I shall fetch Uncle Bilbo right away!'
Even as the dwarf stepped in the round door, Frodo carefully closing it behind him, Frodo heard the soft pad of his uncle's feet in the hall. Bilbo's cheerful voice, tinged with worry, preceded him down the corridor.
'Frodo, my lad, who is it? Is it one of the Gamgees?' Bilbo came around the bend of the hall and came to an abrupt halt, delight lighting his face as brightly as one of the candles in the wall sconces.
Dalin repeated his bow even more ornately than before. 'Dalin Steelhand, at your service, Mister Baggins, Lord of Burglars!'
Bilbo mimicked the bow with remarkable flexibility, considering his ninety-nine years. 'At yours and your family's, to be sure!' he replied merrily.
Frodo stood to the side, scarce believing his good luck. Finally, a real adventure! After three months in Bag End, where the biggest adventure had been a long hike to see the Bindbole Wood clothed in its autumn finery, this was a marvelous turn of events. Bilbo hurried forward to take Dalin's bright red cloak, handing it to Frodo to hang up as he himself turned to escort the dwarf towards a parlor. Frodo struggled with the large cloak, but eventually wrestled it onto a peg.
When Frodo turned back from the peg he froze. Dalin was pulling a huge axe from a hook on his belt. The dwarf smiled as Frodo scuttled to the side, then carefully set the axe, head-down, against the wall near the cloak. Bilbo and Dalin walked to the parlor, but Frodo remained a moment, fascinated by this axe that was almost as tall as he himself. Like Dalin's boots, the axe was etched with whorls and knots, worn away in places from use.
'Frodo, lad! Where have you disappeared to?' Bilbo called. Frodo hurried to the parlor, not wanting to miss a word. I've met a dwarf at last!
Dalin had carefully set his pack down by the wall, and was warming his gigantic hands at the hearth. Bilbo poured a glass of wine for each of them. 'Here, my good fellow, is something to get the blood flowing after your tramp in the cold. Supper will be ready promptly.'
'My thanks to you, Mister Baggins,' was the gracious reply, as Dalin allowed Bilbo to seat him in the biggest chair in the room. Frodo loved to use it for reading because he could curl up completely in it. Dalin filled the chair entirely, and Frodo wondered if it would be sturdy enough to hold this boulder of a dwarf.
'Now, my dear Mister Dalin, I don't want to tax you too much before you've had a good meal and are fully rested from your travels, but may I be so bold as to inquire who recommended that you take time from your important journey to pay me a visit?' Bilbo asked. He signaled Frodo to go begin laying the table in the adjoining dining room. Frodo moved quickly to comply, but was careful to make little noise so he could hear what was said.
'Why, many people have laid this charge upon me, Mister Baggins,' Dalin rumbled pleasantly. 'But first and foremost, my own sire commanded me to present myself and be of service to you. I am Dalin, son of Dwalin, and both he and my uncle Balin send their fondest regards.'
'You're Dwalin's boy? Oh, how splendid!' Bilbo exclaimed. 'Did you hear that, Frodo? This is Dwalin's son! Come here and say hello properly, my lad.' Frodo did as he was told and quickly found his hand enveloped in Dalin's huge paw. Bilbo beamed at the two of them. 'You should know, Frodo, that Dalin's father, Dwalin, was the first dwarf I ever met! He was the first to show up that fateful day.' Frodo found himself wondering how he would extricate his hand from the grasp Dalin had on it. Dalin gave it a firm squeeze, then winked and let go. 'Finish laying the table, my boy, and let us get supper set out for our guest.'
Very quickly, Bilbo and Frodo had supper on the table. Dalin changed from wine to ale for the meal, while Bilbo stayed with the wine. A thick rabbit stew was accompanied by potatoes and warm bread and steamed greens. Mistress Rumble had sent a fine berry cobbler up the Hill that afternoon as thanks for their help with fixing her chicken coop that morning. Sweet butter, rich gravy, and cream for the cobbler finished the table off quite nicely. Aside from a few polite questions about the weather, Bilbo did not question his guest over supper.
There was plenty for all three, though there was not much left over. Dalin insisted on helping to clear the table when the meal was done, ignoring Frodo and Bilbo's protests that he was a guest and should rest. Bilbo firmly shepherded the dwarf to the parlor once the dishes were in the kitchen, then scurried back to collect something. After a few minutes, and some alarming clanging and crashing, Bilbo reappeared bearing a tray with several cups and containers and a strangely shaped pot, and sporting a triumphant grin.
'Coffee, Mister Dalin?'
'Yes! I haven't had any coffee since I left Bree,' the dwarf cheerfully replied. Frodo watched in fascination as Bilbo measured a coarsely ground brown substance into a basket in the top of the narrow pot, and set it into the hearth to warm. Soon an odd, enticing aroma filled the room. Bilbo poured a black liquid into the cups and served the beverage with sugar and cream. Dalin sipped and gave a growl of approval. Frodo took a tentative sip and realized it would be terribly rude to spit it back into the cup. He managed to choke down the mouthful of the vile concoction, then set the cup to the side. Bilbo looked at him with a merry twinkle, obviously knowing how horrible the stuff tasted. The old hobbit seemed to be enjoying it well enough.
After Dalin had finished one cup of coffee and had started on his second, Bilbo sat back in his chair and began to ask for news. 'So, Mister Dalin, what sets you on a journey at this time of the year? What have you to tell us of the wide world?'
'Well, as to why I am on the Road, I am journeying to the Blue Mountains to teach and be taught, Mister Baggins. I know something of making good steel, and I would learn more of gem crafting, so I travel. I am tramping with a group of dwarves who return to the Blue Mountains after a sojourn in Erebor to learn more about copper work. They are at the inn down on the Road. They all send their sincere regards to the Lord of Burglars.' Dalin gave a small bow from his chair, which Bilbo accepted with a gracious inclination of his head. 'As I said when I first was made welcome to your cavern, I was bid by several people to greet you and give you their fond regards.' Dalin sipped his coffee. Frodo wondered how he could swallow it without gagging.
'My sire, Dwalin of Erebor, sends you his greetings and bids you to make such use of my skills and service as you see fit. My uncle, Lord Balin, likewise presents you his loving wishes for health, wealth, and happiness in this and all years. All of the companions of your journey who dwell in Erebor or the Iron Hills offer kind felicitations. Dáin Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain, hopes that I will find you hale and well, and that I must convey to you his eternal gratitude. Ah, yes, Lord Elrond Half-Elven, Master of Rivendell, asks that I give you his most warm regard.' Frodo could hardly believe his ears at the list of people who sent greetings to Bilbo. He looked at his uncle with no small astonishment. It was not exactly that he disbelieved Bilbo's stories, but he had sometimes wondered at how many liberties his uncle had taken with them. From the sound of this list of greetings, there was not much exaggeration.
Bilbo smiled broadly and wiggled his toes. 'Well, I shall have to find a way to convey equally fond greetings back to them, now, shan't I?' Bilbo hesitated a second, then asked, 'You haven't by chance encountered the wizard, Gandalf, in your travels?'
'I have not. He was a visitor to King Dáin some eleven years ago on the occasion of Bain succeeding Bard as King of Dale, but I have not seen him in Erebor or Dale since then.'
'I had thought perhaps he might be in Rivendell,' Bilbo said, 'as he has said to me he is often a guest there, but not to worry!' Bilbo smiled cheerfully. 'Please, drink your coffee and be at peace in our home. If you have news of distant places, we would dearly love to hear it, but do not tire yourself unduly on our behalf.' Dalin bowed slightly to Bilbo again to acknowledge the courteous words of his host, and drank once more from his cup.
Frodo attempted to sip again from his own cup. The coffee was not quite so vile as the first taste, but still was not something he thought he could stomach. Hearing these greetings, sipping this strange drink, it all left him with an uncertain feeling, one that teased at the edges of his mind and sometimes jumped right into his face. Bag End was still so foreign to him. I'm a guest here, just like Dalin. The thought left him feeling a bit guilty for being ungrateful to Bilbo. It's no fault of Bilbo's, Frodo scolded himself. He has done everything he can to make you feel at home. He adopted you, Rat. What more do you want?
It had been so exciting and exhausting when he and Bilbo arrived from Buckland three months ago. Then, the adoption. In the first week or two, all he could think of was never being sent off or taken away again. He wanted to know more of his fascinating, adventurous Uncle Bilbo, and Bilbo wanted him to be at home in Bag End.
But Bag End was not home. Brandy Hall was home, and he missed it terribly. He sometimes cried at night when he thought about Uncle Rory and Gammer, Esmie, Merry and Merle. It was such a relief to be rid of Sara, and of Bargo Burrows and his nasties, of the others who were cruel and callous towards him, that Frodo could make himself believe he liked it more here at Bag End. But then he would want to go throw rocks in the River with Merry, or teach Merle her figures, or sit with Gammer and do small things for her, just to be near her.
Frodo was also finding out that Bilbo could be quite wearing when one was around him all the time. His uncle was an energetic, curious, fussy person, and Frodo was in constant terror of doing something foolish, or of making a mess of things. Everything in Bag End was just so; even the untidy stacks of books and papers that littered most every room had a rhyme and reason to them. Every inch of Bag End, except for his own room, was marked by Bilbo.
There had hardly been anything to bring with him from Brandy Hall on that wild day when he had fled with his uncle. All his treasures were in an old shed at the edge of a wood down the lane from the Hall, and they were not much to speak of. Only his mother's linens were really his, here at Bag End. Frodo was always very, very careful with them. He did not want to mar them. They were the only tangible thing he had of his mother and it would not do to damage them in any way.
Our home. Bilbo said our home, Rat. Frodo looked down into the pale brown liquid in the cup, and tried another sip. The coffee itself was nasty, but the sugar and cream were rather nice. And now you're getting to see a dwarf. This wouldn't happen at Brandy Hall. Didn't you always say you wanted to see dwarves? He took another sip of the coffee, then decided he was curious.
'Mister Steelhand?' Frodo tentatively asked. Two sharp black eyes were fixed on him over the top of the dwarf's cup. Frodo swallowed, suddenly realizing that it might be rude to ask questions over coffee. The dwarf finished his own sip and lowered his cup, looking back at Frodo with a not unfriendly expression. The young hobbit took some heart and forged ahead. 'Is coffee a special dwarven drink? I've never heard of it before.'
The dwarf chuckled a little bit. 'First, little one, I am called Dalin, not Mister Steelhand. I invite you to call me such. Coffee is a mannish drink that comes from the south, from Khand through Rhûn. Traders from these places bring us turquoise and emeralds, cloves and coffee, and we trade copper, gold, amber, and gems for their goods. Aside from The Pony in Bree and Master Elrond's Homely House, there is no place between Erebor and Belegost where it is to be found. My father was quite surprised that Mister Baggins knew of it, let alone that he could make it.' Dalin raised a quizzical eyebrow at Bilbo, whose eyes twinkled mischievously.
'Oh, I had seen it in The Green Dragon, once,' Bilbo replied in an off-hand fashion, 'when Lob's father ran the place, and it was so unusual that I had to try making some myself. But it took a visit from your father and his companions to teach me how to make and serve it properly. I don't think Lob ever got the hang of making it.' Bilbo took an appreciative sip, then cocked his head and pinned Dalin with a sharp glance. 'So, what else moves along the Road these days, Mister Dalin?'
'Dwarves, of course,' Dalin replied in good humor, 'and carts of things.' His brow wrinkled a bit and he sipped his coffee. 'Things move less easily along the Road through Mirkwood, though. The path is darkening again. You are not the only one wondering where the wizard is, Mister Baggins. King Dáin and King Bain would both like to take counsel with him over the Forest.' Dalin sighed, then his face brightened. 'Even so, Erebor flourishes and Dale grows apace! The north path around the edge of the forest is clear and well-traveled, even in the winter months, and trade along Anduin increases. My cousin, Gimli, took a trip south along the river shore, speaking to the woodsmen and Beornings but a year ago. They would like to trade for good iron and steel, and also for finished tools and weapons. A number have even asked about moving away from the River and settling the lands between Erebor and Esgaroth. There is room aplenty, and crafts to be learned and taught. The Desolation of Smaug is free, now, and ready to be settled once more.'
Bilbo began to question Dalin closely about the industries operating in the old Desolation, and Frodo quickly found himself lost in the conversation. He took another sip of the coffee and decided it was drinkable, if only just. Frodo tried to follow the rapid back and forth between Dalin and his uncle. Some of the names sounded familiar – Erebor, Esgaroth, Thranduil, High Pass, Beorn, Rivendell – things Bilbo had spoken of in his tales of adventure. Now, however, they were matters of serious discussion between hobbit and dwarf. All Frodo could really make of it was that things were getting busier and darker in those faraway places where elves and dwarves roamed about.
It intimidated Frodo a bit to see Bilbo this way. His uncle hardly seemed a hobbit, what with his emphatic speech and endless curiosity. Frodo sighed to himself and gazed into the fire, letting the conversation blur into noise. There was little halfway, here in Hobbiton. Bilbo, or the rest of the relatives. Overwhelmed, or ignored. Adored, or detested. The Sackville-Bagginses simply refused to acknowledge he was a Baggins, and persisted in calling him "that Brandybuck." Uncle Dudo and his wife, Aunt Tulip, had paid him little mind the one time he and Bilbo had gone to visit. Aunt Dora never even bothered to write him, let alone visit. This left Frodo mostly at the mercy of his uncle's insatiable curiosity and daunting erudition.
They had not visited very much, truth be told. Bilbo was not overly fond of his Baggins kin in and around the mid-Shire, and preferred to spend his time reading things in his study or else tramping about the countryside. This had been interesting, if not precisely adventurous. Frodo now knew all the hills and dells around Hobbiton and Overhill, knew how to get to Bywater and back by several routes, and thought the Bindbole Wood quite beautiful, though he was a little disappointed by it - he had hoped there might be elves there. He had quickly learned how small and inadequate the library at Brandy Hall was. Frodo was proud of the few books that Bilbo had specifically given him as his own: an elvish grammar, a collection of elvish poems that Bilbo had translated and transcribed himself, a book of delightfully silly children's stories, and a blank bound journal. Frodo had not yet dared to write in it. When he had important enough thoughts, he would write them down.
Frodo tried again to listen to the conversation, but gave the effort up as hopeless. They were discussing some point about trade, and getting lumber out of northern Mirkwood over the objections of the elves. This sounds nothing like an adventure, Frodo thought crossly to himself. He knew he should try to pay attention, as Bilbo would approve of him learning new and strange things. Frodo sipped again at the coffee, decided it was too tepid to be worth drinking, and set the cup on the hearth. He would make himself pay attention to Bilbo's discussion, even if he did not understand it. It was important that he do things to earn Bilbo's approval, things that would make Bilbo forget other things Frodo had done and which Bilbo most definitely did not wish to see repeated. The young hobbit gave his attention to the other two.
'So, we mostly let the Dalemen and the Lakemen talk to the elves,' Dalin concluded, shaking his head, 'and I don't envy them. These Wood Elves are a dishonest lot and always fingering their knives a bit much when they see a dwarf.'
'I am saddened by this, Dalin,' Bilbo replied. 'I had hoped some affection might grow up between Mountain and Forest as times grew more prosperous.'
Dalin shrugged. 'These Dark Elves have always hated dwarves. There was no love between our peoples before Smaug, so why should there be any after?'
'But you are welcome enough in the Last Homely House, are you not?' Bilbo persisted. 'You speak well of Lord Elrond, and were his guest not so long ago. Why cannot good faith exist between these other elves and Durin's folk?'
'You sound like the wizard,' Dalin half-joked, 'always nagging at King Dáin to pay court to Thranduil. Let him pay some court to us, if he would have goodwill between our folk! We have offered naught but good things to Mirkwood for fifty years. But they are petty elves, not High elves like Lord Elrond and his folk. They're scarcely above the beasts of the wood. I half expect them to twitter like birds or chitter like squirrels.'
Frodo watched Bilbo give Dalin a long, disapproving look, then laugh a bit and shake his head. 'Well, friend Dalin, the enmity of elves and dwarves confounds a poor, simple hobbit like myself. Thankfully, there is great amity between hobbits and dwarves, so I may enjoy your company in these dreary days!'
Dalin smiled in return, then slapped his forehead and bounded to his feet. 'I have forgotten the gifts! My dear Mister Baggins, please forgive my wandering thoughts. I have not only been sent with greetings and good wishes, I have been entrusted with some small gifts for you!'
The dwarf hurried over to his enormous pack and dragged it before the fire. Frodo began to feel interest return at the news of presents, and craned his neck to see into the bag. There were many things in the pack, but all were neatly and perfectly stowed. Dalin pulled a few items out and laid them near his own feet, then extracted a stiff leather tube, a small, heavy leather pouch that clinked when set down, and a small wooden box. The items he had first removed were swiftly restowed, and the pack laced shut.
'A scroll from Rivendell?' Bilbo enquired, looking hungrily at the leather tube.
'Yes, entrusted to me by Lord Elrond himself to be given to your hands,' Dalin confirmed. He handed the round case to Bilbo, who wasted no time loosening the leather cap and sliding the scroll out of the case. Frodo scrambled over to look at the parchment with his uncle.
It was, of course, in elvish, but as far beyond the simple script that Bilbo had been teaching him as a fine cake was beyond a mix of water and flour and honey. The letters were perfect, crisp and clear, with no blots or smears in evidence. The first letter of each paragraph was larger and more ornate than the others, and was in a deep purple ink touched with gold and decorated with a flower. All along the edges of the scroll were diagrams and drawings of hands, arms, feet, and legs – there was even a sketch of a cheek, jaw and eye. Frodo could see finely drawn plants as well. Some were the entire plant, while others were but a leaf, vine, or flower. Bilbo read the first part of it carefully, soundlessly mouthing a few unfamiliar words, then gave a satisfied grunt and rolled the scroll back up.
'Thank you, Dalin, for being such an excellent courier. I have been awaiting this scroll for some time.' Bilbo carefully replaced the parchment into the leather tube and set the cap in place.
'The honor is mine for being entrusted to bring it to you, Mister Baggins,' Dalin politely replied. He picked up the leather sack and held it out. 'This is a gift from King Dáin to the Lord of Burglars in honor of your great service to Durin's folk.' Dalin bowed deeply, extending his hands and holding the pouch towards Bilbo. The elder hobbit bowed deeply in return, then picked up the pouch, nearly dropping it in surprise at its weight. Bilbo sat the small bag on the end table before trying to work the drawstrings loose. Frodo saw Bilbo's eyes grow large as he looked into the bag, and watched his uncle reach in and pull out something gold. Bilbo looked at it in the palm of his hand, wonder on his face, then extended his hand out to Frodo to see.
It was a large golden disk, more than two inches across. Seven stars made an arc along one edge, and a crown sat beneath them, surmounting the hammer and anvil that was centered in the circle of gold. Frodo reached out a tentative finger and lightly touched the disc. It was cool against his fingertip, and the design was raised from the surface.
'A gold Crown of Durin,' Bilbo said in wonder, turning his palm gently so that the great coin would catch the light. Frodo just stared. Once, Uncle Rory had shown him one of the silver Crowns he had. It could not compare in size or beauty to this coin, though "coin" seemed far too modest a term for what lay in his uncle's hand. Then Bilbo turned it over and Frodo let out a cry of amazement.
On the obverse of the golden disk were images. In the upper left third was a mountain with an army arrayed before it. In the upper right third was a dwarf with a great beard lying on a stone bench, a faceted stone between his hands. In the lower third, a dragon's head looked out, and before it stood a small figure with bare feet.
'Uncle Bilbo, that's you!' Frodo exclaimed, not caring at all that his voice squeaked and broke. He held out his hands, and Bilbo carefully placed the Crown in them. The weight of the coin astounded Frodo, and he sank to sit cross-legged on the floor before the fire, supporting his hands on his legs. When he moved the gold a bit, he could almost see Smaug's head move, could imagine the figure of his uncle making a mocking bow to the creature. There were even scales to be seen on the dragon's face, and the curls on Bilbo's head were just defined enough to be felt with his thumb.
'King Dáin has ordered that all golden Crowns struck between now and the fiftieth anniversary of Smaug's death and the Reclamation of Erebor shall show the great moments of that time. The spying on Smaug, the Battle of the Five Armies, and the restoration of the Arkenstone were accounted the greatest,' Dalin said simply. Frodo looked up at Bilbo in awe. The greatest of all the feats… Bilbo himself seemed rather amused at the thought. Dalin continued, 'King Dáin selected five Crowns from those first struck and entrusted them to me to deliver to you; one Crown for every decade that we have been returned to our home.' Dalin stepped back and gave Bilbo a deep, reverential bow. 'Thank you, Bilbo Baggins, Lord of Burglars.' Bilbo returned the bow in kind, obviously affected by this tribute.
Dalin stood up, and his solemnity melted away. 'I have one last gift for you, Mister Baggins, from my Uncle Balin.' He scooped up the ornately carved wooden box and presented it with a flourish. Bilbo accepted it with an equally ostentatious bow, and lifted the lid of the box. From his place at Bilbo's feet, Frodo could see a dragon had been carved into the lid, though it was upside down from his perspective. Bilbo chuckled, then began to laugh, and ended up roaring in mirth at whatever he had found in the box. After he had gotten his humor under control, Bilbo lowered the box so that Frodo could see inside. On a velvet lining sat a handful of solid gold buttons, fourteen in all, each set with a small diamond.
'Ah, Balin, that wag,' Bilbo chuckled, 'I should have known he wouldn't forget!' Seeing Frodo's puzzled face, Bilbo explained, 'These replace the buttons I lost from my waistcoat when I escaped from the Orc den and snuck past Balin into camp.' Frodo did not see why this should be quite so funny, nor why there would be so many buttons for a single waistcoat, but Bilbo's good humor was infectious, and he grinned back in return.
'My uncle sends a message with the buttons,' interjected Dalin. 'Balin says "Take these in memory of our adventure together. I shall see you again when I have finished a certain adventure of my own. Then I shall give you buttons to match your mail. Farewell, Bilbo Baggins, until we meet again!" ' Bilbo looked up sharply at these words.
'He's off on another adventure, is he? Where is he going to?'
Dalin's face grew wary. 'I am afraid I can't really say, Mister Baggins. My uncle's business is his own.'
'Of course, of course,' Bilbo soothed. Frodo watched Bilbo's expression get faraway, his mind thinking of distant things. 'An adventure! Oh, how I should like to go on another adventure before I die.' Bilbo stared off into nothing, lost in memory and wish.
Frodo stared up at his uncle in no small consternation. Go off on an adventure? What about me? If Bilbo went off on an adventure, Frodo was certain that he would be left behind. Am I old enough yet? He won't think I'm strong enough to walk out of the Shire. This was not a good turn of events. Bilbo was his guardian now, more so than even Uncle Rory had been, for Bilbo had adopted him whereas Uncle Rory had simply kept him about. You're responsible for me now. You can't leave! Not without me! If Bilbo left, where would he go? Frodo could hardly think. Bilbo just stood there, dreaming of things that did not include a young nephew. After a minute or so, Bilbo shook himself out of his reverie and smiled at Dalin.
'Friend Dalin, you have given me a delightful gift of your company in this Yuletide, and have brought gifts and greetings from long parted and dearly missed friends. I hope you will accept the hospitality of my smial and will rest the night here.' He bowed to the dwarf, who bowed in return.
'If you are so kind as to offer me a place of rest, I shall not be so churlish as to spurn that kindness,' Dalin courteously responded.
'Excellent!' Bilbo replied, then cocked his head and pinned Dalin with a calculating gaze. 'I say, my new and dear friend, are you going to be able to travel all the way to the Blue Mountains before Yule is upon us?'
Dalin shook his head and grimaced. 'Nay, I shall be tramping upon the road and sleeping under a tree in a week's time, I fear. The journey from here to Belegost is at least another fortnight by foot. Longer, if the weather is foul.'
'Are you under any great duty to arrive there as swift as may be?' asked Bilbo. Frodo recognized that particular tone. It meant that Bilbo was planning something.
'I need only arrive sometime before spring,' Dalin cheerfully informed them, but with an inquiring look. He appeared to be aware that Bilbo had a proposition.
'Well, that raises some interesting possibilities, my dear Dalin,' Bilbo responded in his mildest, friendliest voice. Frodo knew something was going to happen. 'You see, on tomorrow morn, Frodo and I set out to Buckland so we may enjoy Yule with our kin. It saddens my heart to think that you would be cold and alone upon the Road when we are warm and gay.'
'Think not upon it, Mister Baggins,' Dalin assured him. 'I am a dwarf, and we are made for hardships! And I do have traveling companions.'
'Oh, to be sure,' agreed Bilbo, 'there are no people more sturdy than the dwarves, and none amongst them who are more enduring than Durin's folk. But still it pains my heart to see anyone bereft of shelter and mirth in the darkest part of the year. Can you be convinced, friend Dalin, to tarry on your journey and accompany us to Buckland, and there join us in celebrating the turning of winter?'
Frodo could see that Dalin was pleased by the idea of a merry Yule. He himself thought Bilbo was up to more than offering a nice place to spend the holiday.
'I think that such a celebration would be greatly welcome, Mister Baggins, but I would wonder as to whether I would be welcome at it,' Dalin hedged. 'I would not presume to impose upon your kin, and they might not be terribly pleased at a large, thumping dwarf in the midst of their Yule, generous though they undoubtedly are to any well-intentioned traveler.'
This exchange was getting more fascinating as it grew more elaborate. Bilbo beamed munificently at Dalin, who gazed back with aplomb. Frodo kept very quiet, not wanting to distract.
'I think it would be a gift to my kin should you grant them the honor of your company, my dear Dalin. The Master of Buckland, Rorimac Brandybuck, who is my first cousin and as close as a brother, is a sharp fellow who is always interested in opening up reputable trade in Buckland. While your noble father, Lord Dwalin, has bid me to make use of you as I see fit, I think that I would prefer you to speak to the Master and see what opportunities for business might lie in his holdings.'
Dalin's look sharpened, and he regarded Bilbo with an appreciative eye. 'Mister Baggins, you place a most interesting proposition before me. King Dáin has laid it upon all of his subjects who travel in the wide world to look for honorable and respectable folk with whom to do business. The Shire has always been regarded by dwarves, even before your own celebrated exploits, as a kindly place. I do believe that between the command of my King and my duty to my sire, I must halt my own eager journey and pay my regards to your kinsman, the Master of Buckland.'
'Would you? I would count it a great favor to myself and my family if you would be so kind as to accompany me and my nephew on our journey tomorrow,' Bilbo said with great cheer. 'We shall leave early and go to Whitfurrows by evening, then set out the next day for an easy stroll to Brandy Hall for Highday table. Your company upon the Road will be delightful! We shall speak of the places you have been and shall talk of adventures. Perhaps we shall plan one!'
'I look forward to being of service to you and your family, Mister Baggins,' Dalin jovially responded, and gave Bilbo another ornate bow, though rather exaggerated for humor. Bilbo laughed and responded in kind. 'I fear this means I shall have to return to my companions tonight and let them know that I shall not be going on with them.'
As the talk turned to adventures, Frodo's humor receded a bit. He really is going to plan an adventure. With Dalin, not with me. Frodo looked down at the Crown that still rested in his hands. Maybe things will be better at home. That was a cheering thought. Perhaps Bargo had found someone else to bully. Maybe Sara would not be so… Frodo cast about for a word to describe his cousin, but nothing polite came to mind. Uncle Rory may have changed his mind by now. Maybe they miss me and want me back. Frodo turned a bit and carefully laid the Crown on the table next to the bag holding the other four. Bilbo left the room with Dalin, escorting the dwarf to the front door and arranging for the time the next morning when they would meet at The Green Dragon. Maybe I can have my room back. If Bilbo goes off again, I can go home.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Good decision to drop support for old IEs. Makes it much easier now to explain to clients why our agency does not support old IEs anymore. Because it's a waste of time.
PS: I'm looking forward to this snappy new core :)
Please check out the followup post before jumping to the wrong conclusion.
As the last blog post discussed, jQuery version 1.8 is undergoing a spring cleaning to remove insecure, inefficient, ineffective, and inadvisable features. We've also begun the work to allow you to build custom versions that exclude parts of the library for even greater savings. Those efforts will make it possible for you to enjoy the jQuery API you need without carrying around the parts you don't want.
Now that we've cleaned house, it's time to take a look forward. There's just one thing interfering with our vision of the future, and that's the ghost of browsers past. Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8–collectively, oldIE–have been a thorn in the side of web developers for a decade. Collectively, these browsers of a bygone era still represent up to one-third of users visiting some sites. That is a lot of users–people who still want the information, services and products that web sites provide. For many web sites that use jQuery, it's not practical or profitable to ignore that audience.
jQuery was conceived specifically to address the differences in browsers, so we're not going to abandon the essence of our philosophy and simply disregard the millions of active Internet users who (for whatever reasons) still use oldIE. Yet we also want to move ahead and take advantage of modern browsers, especially the growing mobile market.
jQuery 1.8 should arrive within a month. Here is our thinking about the next two versions of jQuery to follow it, and when they'll arrive:
Our goal is for 1.9 and 2.0 to be interchangeable as far as the API set they support. When 2.0 comes out, your decision on which version to choose should be as simple as this: If you need IE 6/7/8 support, choose 1.9; otherwise you can use either 1.9 or 2.0.
If jQuery 1.9 and 2.0 are basically the same API, what makes 2.0 compelling? Smaller size, better performance, and the lack of problems introduced by the need for oldIE support. We expect that we can improve error handling in the $.Deferred implementation in 2.0, for example, whereas we can't do that as long as oldIE is supported.
My site still has many IE7/8 visitors but I want to use jQuery 2.0. Can I do that? If your web site needs oldIE support, and we expect most sites will need it for at least another year or two, you can use IE conditional comments to include version 1.9 only when visitors are using oldIE:
<!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="jquery-1.9.0.js"></script> <![endif]--> <!--[if gte IE 9]><!--> <script src="jquery-2.0.0.js"></script> <!--<![endif]-->
Why not make an "oldIE plugin" for jQuery 2.0? Special dispensations for oldIE are sprinkled throughout jQuery. Refactoring the code to provide enough hooks so that oldIE support could be added as a plugin would complicate the code for the modern browser case. Plus, developers supporting oldIE and using a public CDN would then need to include two files (jQuery 2.0 and the oldIE plugin) instead of one.
Once jQuery 2.0 is released, what happens to 1.9? In a departure from the past, we'll continue to fix bugs in 1.9 (as minor releases). Having just gone through a spring cleaning for 1.8 and 1.9, we don't anticipate adding a lot of new APIs in the future. Instead, we prefer to add new functionality through plugins compatible with both versions where it makes sense. So don't feel like you're being left behind when using version 1.9.
Is jQuery 2.0 basically for mobile devices? No. Although jQuery 2.0 will be a great fit for HTML mobile apps, including ones written with jQuery Mobile, it is not a Webkit-only library that targets just iOS and Android. In addition to mobile browsers, 2.0 will support (and be tested!) with modern desktop versions of Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.
How much smaller/faster will jQuery 2.0 be? We won't know until we're done, or at least close to being done. You can bet that we'll tell you more as the release date for 2.0 draws near. Better yet, you can try the beta when it is released and see for yourself!
Good decision to drop support for old IEs. Makes it much easier now to explain to clients why our agency does not support old IEs anymore. Because it's a waste of time.
PS: I'm looking forward to this snappy new core :)
It seems like the jQuery team is now driving the standards that they worked so hard to get other companies to stop doing.
I understand dropping support for IE6 and even IE7, but why IE8? IE8 is still 10% of the browser market and doesn't require half as many hacks as IE6 and IE7. Dropping IE8 is premature, IMO.
Great news!!! Adios IE6!!!
Thanks for having the balls to drop support for crappy browsers. And even so, you'll still support them for a while longer through 1.9, so even developers that still live in year 2000 are not actually left behind.
1) IE8's codebase may have a lot of similarity with IE6/7, but it had many fewer bugs and many more features. The vast majority of special cases to deal with IE6/7/8 only apply to IE6, and most of the rest to IE7. IE8 is actually pretty good in comparison. Supporting it without needing to support IE6/7 is actually a pretty benign concept.
2) I'm not looking for new "features" to be added; what I'm looking for is continued support for IE8 – ie that I can use jQuery and know that if a problem is found it will be fixed and I'll be able to use that fix. And I'm not looking at the 1.9/2.0 transitional period; I'm looking beyond that, to when 2.1 is released. Unless they plan to keep supporting 1.9 beyond that point, it will be a big problem for a lot of people.
3) I am looking at current browser stats, and yes, you're right: IE8 is on the decline. It is not, however, anywhere close to being small enough to drop support for yet, and is unlikely to get there for a few more years yet.
I cracked open my Analytics. IE(total) makes up about 12% of users on most sites I develop.
So essentially, it can take a running jump…
" If you rely on jQuery to solve browser quirks, then either you are working on some edge-case projects, or I should advise you use other methods to tackle these problems."
Really? That seems odd since one of the three primary selling points on jquery.com is "cross browser." The other two are "lightweight footprint" (ok…) and "css3 comliant."
Come on. Eliminating cross-browser problems is THE WHOLE REASON that most people started using jQuery. Do I need jQuery to wrap "querySelectorAll" in "$" for me? I think I could handle that code myself, if you only care about browsers that have a selection engine built in. If every browser returned the same value for "innerWidth" then why would I need jQuery's methods?
The value of jQuery isn't just a bunch of methods for moving nodes around, or a bunch of utility methods that are easily available in other libraries. That's nice, but it only matters if we can be assured it works everywhere. That's the whole point.
I think much of this argument is semantics and speculation. A suggestion that may help and doesn't deviate much for your current plans would be to just change the naming conventions and packaging of the versions. You have already talked about the ability to do a "Roll your Own" version of jQuery that only includes the parts you need. Don't do a version 1.9 and 2.0, just give people the ability to include the compatability layers or not. Why have the confusion of two different versions when they have effectively the same API.
I think it would be far simpler to just use the same version numbers, but add a letter designator saying it is Old IE Compatable, Version 1.9 or 1.9c. When you are packaging your own jQuery setup you could also select regular or c components for the package.
Maybe I am wrong, but I think this would reduce the confusion and uncertianty about the versions, plus help maintain a focus on OldIE compatable components.
Personally I can't wait for old IE to die and I am even considering putting links to upgrade users of old IE right on my pages. Hopefully with a little polite nudging we can get more of our users off IE6/7/8. I don't care what browser they use, just not those.
Let me stick my .02 in here too. I love jQuery! But what would REALLY be cool would be just a tiny stub that can do basic Ajax and detect if some part of jQuery is referenced in code and then lazy load it. That way, you REALLY only get the parts you need and they stay in the browser cache too. Plus, you'd always have the option to regular load the parts you want, or to utilize any plugin you wanted just by referencing it.
As has been mentioned, the reason JS libraries came into existence in the first place was cross-browser quirks. So someone just needs to write a jQueryQuery metalibrary that handles the conditional comment for you, so you don't have to. One script tag, same as it always was, and it injects the right version of jQuery based on the browser. ;)
It will be interesting if/when other libraries follow suit, since the difference will then be about what features the libraries actually provide. That's always been a difference, but it's never mattered as much as how well and how efficiently they deal with browser quirks.
if you think ie 6,7,8 will still hold major market share by mid 2013 you are deluding yourselves
Disclaimer: My corporate clients are mostly IE. IE7/8 and some 9. I have to ensure 100% compatibility on every site with those 3 browsers.
I can't understand those talking about completely dropping jQuery _now_ because jQuery 2.0, which won't be out for at least another year, will be dropping support for it.
What exactly are you developing that you must upgrade the version of jQuery the moment every new release comes out? I would assume nothing with any significant amounts of jQuery code.
After QA testing a site and launching, we generally 'freeze' a site, as updating jQuery versions can introduce bugs. We have sites that are running perfectly happily on jQuery 1.4+. If you'll note, jQuery UI even supports jQuery 1.3.x.
I will most likely be using jQuery 1.9 without the conditional when it comes out. I don't believe there will start to be majorly compelling needs to switch to 2.0 for quite a few years. In which time, worst case scenario, use the conditional.
Finally, I have been doing web design for 10+ years now (believe it or not) and this should be a pretty large nail in that complete POS's coffin.
And to all the "I still support IE6 cause my great grandmother still uses it", you have NO place in this profession, leave now.
We dropped support for IE6 a year ago. We dropped support for IE7 on 50% of our sites 6 months ago. We will completely drop support for IE7 within the month. IE8? That will be a while still, and it times perfectly with the jQuery team. If 1.9 comes out next year, we will use the conditional to select the appropriate library. So long as 1.9 gets supported and in sync with 2.0 for will likely be a year, then that's works for us.
If it gets dropped sooner than that, or if 1.9/2.0 become out of sync then we will have to freeze jQuery at that point.
It will cause some work and difficulties, but not much in comparison to the work and difficulties that IE has caused over the past 10 years.
Shame though, if a third of the world's websites became inaccessible to IE users overnight MS would probably release the real fixes for the IE problems within a week or two.
As it is they will continue to drag their feet all the way to 2022, doing just enough to avoid prosecution, and not enough to give the world the impression that standards can be set without either full MS approval, or a 20 year uphill struggle costing millions of man hours.
However it may look today, it's probably a win win for MS in the grander scheme of things.
If you drop support of IE8 you will lost all the enterprise world that have still XP desktop. As a consequence most development will stick for years to come on 1.x.
IMHO, you should support at least IE8 until XP EOD and drop it then.
What about all levels of government websites that use jQuery? Government departments are typically stuck on older versions of browsers for much, much longer than is usual. You could argue that it doesn't matter since users and the general public are unlikely to have the same restriction — but that's assuming that you don't have a public office/services on a website that need to be demonstrated in that public office.
Libraries (part of local government), for example, with public computers on older browsers, will probably have to use an older version of jQuery if they use it on their websites (so that it works with those public computers).
What about China, where 35% of the people there are still using IE6?
saadaz Says:
June 28th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Microsoft, Y U NO FORCE UPDATE to IE10 or 9?
// Because they would first have to figure out how to force XP users to update to Vista/7/8. :)
Conditional comments will not exist in IE10, so the proposed solution in the post won't work as IE10 won't load the jQuery file.
I greatly support this movement. By supporting old and very outdated browsers, you are allow you to stay in the past. By dropping the support in 2.0, we can finally move forward and optimize for current and up to date technology.
Backwards compatibility makes sense, but only till a certain degree. In time, we have to move forward in order to stay competitive. That moment in time has come and gone for the over ten year old Internet Explorer 6 and I refuse to make Internet Explorer 7 compatible as well. With IE8 getting obsolete in 2015(XP support officially dropped), the time to soley move forward with 2.0 has come.
Keep up the good work!
Dropping old IEs is going to make enough sense by 2013. People using those old browsers are probably not really anyone's target audience anyway. IMO IE6/7 are already dead. IE8 will linger until XP is obsolete (b/c it's the highest the XP can be updated to). But the people using IE8 are either brainless, corporate drones, or devs doing testing ;]
My only concern with this is that a number of our sites are used by Western Europe's largest employer (with well over 1 million employees!) who still use IE6 as that is the web browser on which all their core web-applications were developed for – and they are not compatible with other version of IE or other web-browsers…
@James: Well thats the sad fact… I just dont understand how companies can be so damned backward. But its the IT-departments, many of thoose people are for some reason afraid of changes, luckily our customers IT-department have realised that updates wont kill you.
I would think that dropping IE7 and down would be wise but IE8 should perhaps stay on supported for a while more. Cause even though statistics say that older IE is getting used less and less. Most of the Firefox and Chrome users are private persons, the big mass of customers for IT-companies are in businesses where they for the most part use IE.
not supporting these older browsers with a throw away statement of "if you use jquery for legacy browser support you're doing it wrong" is a sort of typical digital hippy decision making we see from gen-y rosey land hipsters of today.
taking this decision clearly demonstrates that you live in a world where hip new technology reigns supreme and have little to any exposure to the *real* world where corporate types just can't make whimsical decisions about the technology they support.
as abhorrent as these browsers are having a unified means of programming in them is the essence of a library like jquery. some reasons these guys can't "just upgrade" are they support internal legacy applications they don't have budget to rewrite.
YES this sucks
but it's a problem that is systemic in modern programming (COBOL anyone?) and you can't expect the rest of the world to change as rapidly as you'd like just to satisfy you utopian view of a codebase. at the end of the day you need to start asking yourself about the technological decisions you make and their real world impact in the businesses they effect, and ultimately their bottom dollar…. failure to do so will make a very UNemployable person as no manager will support losing money "just because it makes the code cleaner"…. *none will*
i for one am glad jquery supports all the features i need for the foreseeable future as i will not upgrade to 2.0 and alienate customers because of the dogmatic view of some digital hippies.
jquery will find it hard to survive long term with this kind of thinking. you guys need to take a lesson from the umbraco crowd (http://umbraco.com/follow-us/blog-archive/2012/6/13/v5-rip.aspx/).
please reconsider and realise you're not just coding to satisfy your internal geek, what you are *commendably* supporting ties together the loose ends of legacy support in quite a special and magical way!
The core point of an abstraction layer is cross-browser compatibility – this is a departure from this just because it makes life easier to brush older-but-still-popular versions of IE under the carpet.
IE9 was only released in March last year – the largest stats reporting service NetApplications measures IE8 and below usage as just shy of 35% of visitors worldwide (across 160 unique visitors, 40k websites). I know many parts of the UK Gov for example use IE7.
This decision means jQuery devs will have to serve up an old service-patches-only version (that will steadily lose support from the plugins community) to over a third of users. A poor decision.
Sweet! I can't wait until the jQuery 1.9 arrives early 2013! jQuery 1.8 is so awesome! There's just a lot of positive comments for it that I can't just express! Great job!
Dual version looks perfect for me. If you really can supply the same API for 1.9 and 2.0 we, as developers can choose, or even we can use them both. Having OldIEs to have 1.9 support, with slower jQuery, but decent browsers to have faster jQuery.
But it looks to be hard work in there. I hope you have luck.
Those versions of IE are still heavily used in many sectors. For example in the health care and factory sectors 90% of our users use IE. Of that 90% IE7 accounts for 55%.
IE may be going away for average customers but for companies not for a very long time. We still have one of the largest medical firms in the country who is on IE6 and will be till 2014.
I'm planning a building an HTML5 game and 2.0 sounds perfect for me! My other websites will probably just use 1.9. I'm not really sure why everyone's talking about 2.1. Let's just imagine that 2.1 adds support for doing something with HTML5 canvas animations. Do you really need that new feature in IE8 in the year 2014? I mean come on guys, I'm sure they'll keep supporting 1.9 as long as there are people using it. They want to add things that wouldn't make sense in IE8 anyway. They'd probably tell us about those new feature except the other libraries that only support modern browsers would be able to beat them to the punch. Just close your eyes, take jQuery by the hand and walk into the unknown. I know it's scary, but it'll all make sense a few years from now.
Since 90% of my visitors are using Chrome, Safari, and mobile, with less than 1% using old IE (and none of them buy anything, the cheapskates), I will be more than happy to see that junk go.
I see quite a few people are being huffy about it, but really – nobody is forcing them to stop using their current stuff, and why should modern users be forced to suffer just so a bunch of people can still pretend that XP is current?
I really like the concept of splitting jQuery 1.9 and 2.0. Our product specifically chose not to support older IE versions. only with IE10 will our site be fully functional on IE. It simply is not part of our target audience, for a variety of reasons which make business sense to us. It will be nice to get rid of that baggage in the version of jQuery I am using.
At the same time, I am glad that developers won't have to chose between supporting older IE and using jQuery.
Finally! About time! Users/companies should not be using computers at all if they are still on IE 6 – 8, even 9.
I have mixed feelings on this. I really like that the project is looking to the future and hasn't lost sight of the importance of being slim and modular. The mischievous side of me hopes some important sites accidentally use v2 only, causing some visitors to upgrade or switch browsers (if they can) sooner than they otherwise would.
However, I suspect it will be difficult to maintain two codebases in perfect alignment, so I would hesitate to develop using both versions with conditional comments as suggested. Any small bug or deviation would cause extra debugging headaches that can be avoided by just using one version of the library. If I need IE<9, I'll just stick with 1.9.
Still, it will be nice to have a more optimized version available for the growing number of scenarios that don't require "oldIE" support.
Thanks for all the work that everyone has put into the tool that keeps web development enjoyable!
Version 2.0 would be useless for me. I, like all other developers, can't stop supporting older versions of IE (except maybe for 6 may it rest in peace). That means that my code has to work the same in both libraries which you can guarantee that it won't. It is double the work and double the testing which they pretty admit to with the example of conditional statements for loading the libraries.
Maybe it would have been better if 2.0 supported the older browsers and they finally decided on one method of working with events (and fixing that method so that it actually works like browsers work ie in a browser click sets the checked and then fires the function, jquery have decided to do it the other way (my rant)).
They should be very careful about this as they have not been around for long and don't want to be the next myspace (superceded by facebook).
It would also be nice to see a mobile only version which would solve some of these issues as well.
@Kill IE8 With Fire
Love developers like you. Means more clients for me. If I told my clients that I am not going to support 20 to 30% of their customers, I wouldn't have much work.
Support has to be based on statistics not version release. Current global usage is about 15% for both 7 and 8 (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201109-201209) but I have clients where it is as much as 40%.
This is the real times we live in.
PS. Google Apps is dropping support not the search engine. I can't imagine what the dollar value will cost a company like Google to turn away 14% of the web market. I bet it's not a small figure.
If we could kill IE with fire, I would supply the matches.
Happy to hear news about jQuery 2.0.
# for OldIE Lover, just imagine this library is free. How many developers to built this library. If these project always look back to older IE version, how much cost for fixing bugs? It's time to move to new browser like >= IE9
Actually, MS has force updated to IE9 for everyone using vista and win7/8… I believe there was a force update to ie8 for XP for everyone that has security updates enabled.
If someone doesn't have security updates enabled, well then… i think they are asking to get their computer turned into a zombie and unintentionally contribute in a DDOS.
It is our responsibility as web developers to move the web forward. A user who is using IE6 is using it because they don't know any better or they are restricted by antiquated network security. Either way, the only way they will notice is when their services stop working.
"If I click this link, I can have my Google back in 30 seconds? I'm there!"
We all want IE dead, but we're unwilling to do anything about it… Not a great approach, in my opinion.
man does anyone read?
OMFG ie6/7/8/6/7/8/6/7/8/6/7/8/7/7/6/8/6/7/7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If jQuery 1.9 and 2.0 are basically the same API, what makes 2.0 compelling? Smaller size, better performance, and the lack of problems introduced by the need for oldIE support. We expect that we can improve error handling in the $.Deferred implementation in 2.0, for example, whereas we can't do that as long as oldIE is supported.
Im currently using jquery 1.9 but it cant read the $.browser object!
It cant retrieve any property of browser!Is this a bug or my mistake?
But curiously ,it is fixed when i switched back to 1.8!
I agree very strongly that it makes more sense with the "roll your own" customization to have the option to support various browser versions within that rather than doing a 1.9 to 2.0 switch. Every situation requires subjective implementations that depend on a variety of factors and I believe as well as others this will cause unnecessary confusion and frustration.
Dropping Support for IE 6/7/8 is the best ever new….
just wishing Microsoft drops IE as a whole…
I really hope that the 1.9 codebase is maintained for more than a "couple of years". We use jQuery for all of our corporate apps, but getting IE9+ rolled out in our standard build is just Not Possible Yet(tm) because of all the archaic apps we still have to support (think enterprisey versions of Siebel and Oracle). In a nutshell, PLEASE continue to support jQuery 1.9 for those of us that are forced to use IE8 still! Thank you :)


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American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON – U.S. defense officials expressed condolences to the families of four French soldiers -- members of the International Security Assistance Force -- killed today in eastern Afghanistan's Kapisa province.
An ISAF report said the service members were killed by an Afghan soldier and that the suspected shooter was apprehended. Several French soldiers were wounded in the attack.
"I would like to express my deepest sympathies to the families of the four brave, French soldiers killed in today's attack in Kapisa province," Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen said in a statement from Kabul. "Today we mourn with France."
The wounded soldiers and their families "are in my most fervent prayers for healing and recovery," the ISAF commander said.
ISAF is committed to continuing to work with the government of Afghanistan "to resolve this very serious issue of individuals targeting our forces," Allen said. "We will pursue a full and complete investigation and will work closely with France on the outcome."
Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters this morning that such incidents coming from Afghanistan forces are called "green on blue" incidents.
"We believe that [such incidents] do appear to be increasing in frequency in recent months. What we can't discern is a cause for that right now," Kirby said.
"We're certainly concerned about these incidents and ISAF officials are taking a look at it, but we also don't believe that this is an endemic or systemic problem," he added.
The great majority of partnered operations, and frankly most of our operations, are partnered now," Kirby said. They "are done successfully, smoothly, efficiently and with good success."
Kirby offered the Defense Department's "thoughts and prayers" to the families of the French soldiers who were killed.
"France is a great ally, great friend, and we mourn as they do for their lost soldiers," Kirby said.
He added, "Our thought and prayers also go out to the families of all those who are killed and wounded, but in particular today for those in the French military."
In his statement from Kabul, Allen joined Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in acknowledging France's assistance to the Afghan people over the years.
"I am forever grateful to these soldiers of France for their exceptional courage, dedication to duty, character and service to their homeland," Allen added. "They will always be remembered."
From Mons, Belgium, U.S. Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, supreme allied commander Europe, also offered condolences to the French families, as well as to the American families of six U.S. service members who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistanyesterday.
The cause of the crash in Helmand province is under investigation, according to an ISAF release, but initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash.


text:
M.A. Kent & Associates offers one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to obtain a will in the Ipswich area. We can assist you with:
- Drafting & updating wills;
- Applying for Probate;
- Assistance with claims against wills & estates
- Deceased estate claims / defending deceased estates
- Estate planning administration
- Letters of Administration (in the event that a will is deemed invalid);
- Supreme Court estate litigation; and
- Assistance with the Family Provision Act 1982
We always recommend keeping your will up to date as it makes distributing your estate far easier on your beneficiaries in what is already a hard enough time as it is.
In the some-what complicated event that a valid will has not been left, M.A. Kent & Associates can assist you with applying for Letters of Administration to the Supreme Court. In these circumstances, there is legislation that details how an estate may be distributed and by whom. The Supreme Court can appoint an Administrator to distribute the estate.
If you expected to be a beneficiary of a will but have not been provided for, you can make a claim against the distribution of any estate, provided you can clearly set out reasons as to why you should be considered a beneficiary of the deceased estate.
M.A. Kent & Associates can help you apply to the Supreme Court for Probate in instances where there is a valid will and you have been nominated as Executor of that will. The Supreme Court can then grant probate which authorises you to distribute the deceased estate in accordance with the provisions of the will.
Contact us to arrange a consultation with an experienced wills and probate lawyer.


text:
I would like to have a table of microscope slides, where on top of the basic id, name,date_created would each slide also have a number of editable "properties".
Imagine one slide having
- tumor_type
- dye_type
- description
- date_injected
And some other slide could have for example:
- patient_name
- treated_since
- description
I can't store all these in the slides table because I would like users to be able to chose used properties or add new ones if they wish to. Each property should also have a type, since some are integers, some text and some for example date and time and I would love to render a widget for them to simplify editing these values.
I planned to use MySQL, then I was pointed to use use PostgreSQL and its hstore, but that feels like a borderline experimental feature to me. Any suggestion how should I go about it?
This is what I came up with but it doesn't feel right to me:
Also all this will end up in Django (Python) if it makes any difference.


text:
Patrick Regan
has kindly shared the material
from his Robert Buchanan site with readers of the
Early Poems
London Poems (1866-70)
- The Starling
- Edward Crowhurst; or 'A New Poet'
- Tiger Bay
- Tom Dunstan; or The Politician
- O'Murtogh
- The Bookworm
- The Last Of The Hangmen
- London, 1864
Miscellaneous Poems (1866-1870)
North Coast, and other Poems (1867-68)
Coruisken Sonnets (1870)
The Book of Orm (1870)
Miscellaneous Poems and Ballads (1878-83)
- Granddad In The Ingle
- The Ballad of Judas Iscariot
- The Lights of Leith
- James Avery
- The Devil's Peepshow
The Devil's Case (1894)
Songs of Empire
- The Jew Passes
- Song of the Slain
- The Charter'd Companie
- Man of the Red Right Hand
- Song Of The Fur-Seal
- Patriotism
Thro' the Great City
Land and Sea Songs
Miscellaneous Poems
Buchanan, Robert. The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan. Chatto & Windus, 1901.
Last modified 26 September 2002


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If you paid any attention to free agency this year, you know that the Dolphins made their receiving corps a priority.
They re-signed wide receiver Brian Hartline before anyone else could snatch him away and then landed Mike Wallace and Brandon Gibson to go with him on the depth chart. It's a big change from what the team had on hand last season and Hartline was asked whether the Dolphins have the best receiving corps in the AFC East during an appearance on the NFL Network.
"Absolutely, I think we are," Hartline said. "Add Dustin Keller in there, Lamar Miller's a great back and Daniel Thomas is a great back out of the backfield. The whole passing game is an advantage of ours."
It's not an outlandish statement. There's not much competition from the Jets or Bills when it comes to receivers. The Patriots are still figuring things out at wide receiver, but their tight ends help make for a more difficult decision between the two teams.
Not that the winner of an offseason debate about the best receivers matters all that much. As Larry Fitzgerald would surely tell you, having the best receivers in the game doesn't mean a thing if you don't have a quarterback who can get the ball to them. We know Tom Brady can get the ball to pretty much anyone who the Patriots send out to catch passes, but Ryan Tannehill doesn't have Brady's resume.
The expectation is that Tannehill will be much improved this season and the upgrade to the receiving corps is as big a reason why as any other. Should things work out as planned, the Dolphins will be a lot closer to answering questions about the best team in the AFC East than the far less significant ones about the best position group.


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Undergraduate Student Success Center
Welcome to the Undergraduate Student Success Center (USSC) at the University of Houston!
The USSC is a coordinated network of resources focused explicitly on the goal of student success.
- Exploratory Studies is a re-envisioned preparatory major designed to provide undeclared students with resources to guide them in making confident, informed career and academic decisions. Exploratory Studies intentionally integrates academic support with career counseling toward the goal of transitioning students to a good fit major in which they will thrive and advance to graduation in a timely manner.
- LAUNCH (Learning Advancements for UNdergraduate Cougars of Houston) lets your success take off, with Peer Tutoring for almost 500 separate courses, Success Workshops, and Individual Academic Counseling.
- UH Testing Services coordinates, proctors, and assesses a variety of exams related to admission, placement, credit attainment, and licensing.
- The Challenger Program supports first generation college students through specialized programming and campus-wide resource connections.
- Advisors in TAP (Transfer Advising Program) smooth the transition to the University of Houston for prospective undergraduate transfer students.
- In addition to these separate units, the Undergraduate Student Success Center
- manages the efficient implementation of state requirements related to the Texas Success Initiative (TSI);
- offers Pre-Health Advising for students seeking careers in any health field; and
- serves as a central contact and resource for ensuring strong and consistent advising campus-wide.


text:
(visited by Rainer Mautz)
06-Oct-2006 -- This is the 17th confluence visit on a bicycle trip from China to Central Asia. The story starts at 32°N 107°E.
After a successful visit of 43°N 75°E a week earlier, we decided to hunt this confluence which is 14 km straight north of Toktogul and had not yet been successfully visited.
When we arrived in Toktogul (Токтогул) in the evening it was too late to visit the confluence itself. But there we spent some time to search for Philipp Funovits' small road which was supposed to start two kilometers east from Toktogul. Phillip was the first to attempt this confluence a month earlier. We couldn't find that road and also according to our map the topography suggested that a valley was about to start 2km west of Toktogul. Indeed, when we headed westwards, we reached a turn off.
The next morning we had an early start, since we needed all the available daylight to make it to the confluence which is located 1500m higher than Toktogul. We followed the main road 2km westwards, where we turned into the small road that we had found the previous day. We came through a village with many dead ends. But finally we made it though and kept on following a valley northwards along a rapid river. The river was too dangerous to be crossed, so we stayed on its east side, hoping that there wouldn't be any need to cross over.
The day was a sunny pleasant autumn day, optimal conditions for a hike into the mountains. Slowly but surely we left the civilization behind us. At a remaining beeline distance of 6.8 km (1196m elevation) was the very last farm house and we abandoned our bicycles there. From now on, the beautiful mountain nature surrounded us. We followed the canyon further until its direction was not beneficial for us anymore. At that time, it was 12:40 pm already and the beeline was still 3.5km at an elevation of 1380m. We figured that the big part was still ahead of us and that it could get tight with our remaining time. So we decided that I would run up to the confluence, while Elionora would stay in the valley and later meet us again at the bikes' place.
Running that steep grade was a crazy thing to do. When I reached the level of the clouds, it became foggy and wet. The slippery grass under my feet was extremely slippery and I slit down to the ground every few seconds. This way progress was slow and my hope to reach the point was soon lost. But I kept on walking until the point of latest return would have come. I still followed a side valley, but thorny bushes, steep grades, slippery grass and dense fog didn't contribute to make it a pleasant hike.
Suddenly, at a distance of 1.4km, when I reached the upper edge of the valley, the fog cleared and in front of me was an easy and level track that directly pointed to the confluence. 5 minutes later I reached the confluence which is located almost on the highest peak in the area. From a viewpoint in 90m distance I took a 360° panorama with far views in all directions. The confluence itself is located a little lower at a steep grade.
On the way back I hiked down another valley and thought this would be a smart thing to do. But it turned out that I reached a dead end with the need to cross the big river in the main valley. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it across with a non-waterproof camera and GPS device. I had to hike half way up the mountain again. From there I had some difficult climbing sections until I reached the safe path at the valley ground. At 5pm, I met Elionora again at the place where we had left the bikes. Right at dusk we were back in Toktogul and ready for a Kyrgyz dinner.
CP visit details:
Story continues at 40°N 71°E


text:
Fighting Mitt With Mitt
A sneak preview of John McCain's secret anti-Romney ad.
On Thursday, Mitt Romney put up a television ad knocking John McCain for not supporting tax cuts and offering amnesty to illegal aliens. The ad asks "John McCain, an honorable man. But is he the right Republican for the future?" Now the McCain team is thinking about using Romney's own words (and campaign aides) to respond.
Taxes and immigration have nothing to do with the future, particularly, but the framing is a not-so-subtle jab at McCain's age. In his closing-argument stump speech, Romney is trying to identify himself with the future. ''No one votes for yesterday; they vote for tomorrow,'' Romney said Thursday in New Hampshire. ''Elections are about the future, the future of our families, the future of our country.''
The McCain team's response is that Romney has to talk about the future because he's spent much of the campaign running from his past. This may become more than a quip if the campaign decides to air the following television ad, which they've had on the shelf since the spring.
The ad hangs Romney with his own words—he advocates for a woman's right to choose and gun control, gets tongue tied on his own hunting practices, and distances himself from Ronald Reagan). What makes the ad particularly powerful for the McCain team, though, is that it was produced by media wizards who now work for Romney. Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer are veterans of the Bush campaign, which so effectively used John Kerry's words against him. They moved from Bush to McCain, but left and moved to Romney after the McCain operation imploded. When they were McCain guys, though, they helped put together this ad and pushed for running it, according to McCain aides and advisers. "Russ and Stuart were very animated in several meetings about attacking Romney," says a McCain ally. (Neither could be immediately reached for comment, either directly or through the campaign.)
After internal debate in the spring, McCain and his aides decided not to complete the final cut and run the ad (which is why the video does not have the candidate's voice). Back then, Romney was behind in the polls, McCain was ahead, and his aides thought this ad would elevate the challenger. "We decided it was an inappropriate time to run it so early in the process," says a top adviser who was involved. Maybe the timing is more appropriate now, from their point of view. Or, maybe now that they've leaked the ad to Slate, the cash-strapped campaign won't have to run it at all.