If I, as a developer, decide my site supports a browser, I know I'm going to have to spend some time doing QA on that browser. Standards are cool, but I've run into enough FF and Chrome bugs that I always test.
That being said, the cost of testing in IE is waaay higher than the cost of testing in FF and Chrome. Why? Because FF and Chrome are cross-platform, I and my fellow developers can test on our OS of choice. With IE, a testing environment costs my company about $300 per developer.
Not to mention that setting up a VM for testing is the opposite of straightforward. After shaving a few yaks to convert the stupid VHD format to something VirtualBox can understand, you need to hack your local network so the VM can see its host.
Also, the developer tools are crappy. Has anyone worked on those in the last 10 years? I use Chrome for development not because of "web standards", but because the debugging tools are awesome (some people swear by Firebug, also, YMMV).
So I guess the point "support" is a little more complicated than "look, it works!".
We just keep a couple spare, old win laptops around for testing on IE. They have Win7 with IE9, plus VMs for <IE8, access over the local network. It's easy to create a bookmarklet that sends URLs over to them so you don't have to type.
Also, neither Chrome, Safari or Firefox behave exactly the same on win/mac/linux. Delicate layouts and javascript-heavy apps still have to be tested.
IE9 has a large share of the web, and is still growing. It's a perfectly ok browser (except for lack of WebGL). Not supporting it or adding a "not optimized for..." message reeks of "Optimized for 800x600" in the old days. Users shouldn't have to pay the toll.
And please, if you are going to do this, do not block browsers by UA. Show a warning, whatever, but just don't lock them out. It's annoying.
VirtualBox natively supports VHD format, so stop shaving those yaks.
Where is that $300 coming from? You run VirtualBox on your computer (free), install free VHD's (free), and free the free free with your free free (free).
> "Because FF and Chrome are cross-platform, I and my fellow developers can test on our OS of choice."
Speaking from experience, you can't always. Having done a lot of browser-testing, I've seen the same version of the same browser behave differently on the same OS. Between OS's there are more discrepancies.
Most of your users are going to be using Windows, so test on Windows first.
Aren't you creating an artificial dichotomy? The options you imply are:
1. block all IE9+
2. spend lots of time and money making the site perfect in IE9+
What about this?
3. Have a quick glance and if things look 95% ok, let people know it is not optimized for IE9+ via a subtle notification. (That actually requires no more developer resources than blocking IE9 explicitly)
Or:
4. Set up a VM (it isn't that hard, and you only have to do it once) and just fix the obvious big stuff (which it doesn't appear there are any). Again, very cheap.
I'm no fan of IE or MS in general. Frankly, I'm a shameless hater. But I'm just not following your logic here. I would totally buy "I block MS because MS is evil, has caused me pain in the past, and now I am exacting revenge on them".
This may be schadenfreude, but as someone who's been around the web a long time, it really tickles me to see Microsoft have to fake their user agent string to get around an arbitrary browser restriction. Other browsers used to fake the IE user agent string. I suppose it's full circle since IE originally had to pose as Netscape's browser (Mozilla compatible).
They were using many CSS3 features supported since IE9, like transforms & border-radius, but just not adding the –ms vendor prefix entry
They had the “-ms” prefix for CSS3 gradients which was added in IE10
They added support for -khtml-box-shadow but not -ms-box-shadow???
They didn’t support Opera either unfortunately
All this crap recently about web standards and Opera adopting the webkit prefix and how bad some people think that is for the web? Paydirt, and people who think like them, are a huge part of the problem. Please don't do stuff like this.
So, if Microsoft renamed IE10 to something entirely different, and packaged it as a standalone browser, would a site like Paydirt support it then? It seems to work fine, so why not?
This, and comments like "The site happening to work" seem to have an underlying prejudice about IE. "It was IE, so it must be fucked some way or another."
The old versions are, but try running the site on Chrome 1, or Firefox 3.6 (I believe a lot of old Ubuntu LTS releases have that). They'll be exactly the same.
>The old versions are, but try running the site on Chrome 1, or Firefox 3.6 (I believe a lot of old Ubuntu LTS releases have that). They'll be exactly the same.
You're forgetting quite how bad IE was. Having worked for a place that had to support many ancient browsers, getting IE8 working was three times as much work as FF3.2.
I hear the IE team have turned over a new leaf and are supporting all the standards, but I heard that about IE7 too.
> This, and comments like "The site happening to work" seem to have an underlying prejudice about IE. "It was IE, so it must be fucked some way or another."
If it's my comment you're referring to, I said it "happens" to work in IE because if we are to believe the team, they didn't try to make it work in IE. It just does, by coincidence, for now.
Support is a commitment, and committing to IE will mean work down the road that these people have decided not to do, because it is not valuable to them. This attitude of "Oh, it works in IE right now so they must just be pedantic asses" is short-sighted.
The problem is, IE 9 and 10 are not everywhere. I know for certain that my school (and, I'd be willing to wager, many businesses) only deploys IE 7 and 8. IE 6 still isn't dead, despite Microsoft publicly encouraging migration. Until Microsoft gets IE 9 and 10 adoption up, supporting Internet Explorer is tricky.
Well fine, then Paydirt should say "We require (and test on) IE9 or higher" and not feel bad if they have to throw IE 6/7/8 overboard. It's not any trickier than saying you support the most recent two Firefox releases and don't test on 3.6.
I'm not sure that's something Microsoft can do. See for example the amount of XP deployments out there. Tell people that it's unsupported, no security updates, whatever. Enterprise customers and home customers who are terrified of change will not do it.
Part of me wishes MS forced updates like these. Sure it would probably break a few ancient mission critical ActiveX apps, and my god the outcry would be immense and furious, but it would be better for everyone in the long run. Better for software developers who can stop coding around the foibles of ancient versions of software, better for Microsoft who can devote resources to the newest things, and better for the internet at large not being subject to Microsoft's old shitty browsers.
It's kind of like ripping off a band aid that gets stickier as time goes by. Pull the damn thing off already and get it over with.
How does that relate to user agent sniffing vs. feature detection? Just asking, because I don't think your point and the 'Yeah, I get that guy's attitude' opinion are based on the same idea of what is necessary and what is bullshit/a marketing gag among geeks/a practice from the times when GeoCities was big.
IE may be annoying, and I certainly sympathize with the Paydirt crew. But this author makes a good point: "it’s exactly this type of behavior (writing for or against specific browsers) that sets the Web back again."
Sometimes doing the right thing isn't the easiest path forward.
I can see why someone would do it. If you are on Windows, you _can_ use other browsers - every browser is available on Windows.
When I allow an IE user to use an application, I have to start testing on IE. In order to do that I'll have to make Selenium do some extra runs (IE 7, 8, 9, 10, Metro mode) under a Windows VM. I also need at least one (Win 7) Windows licenses (probably more, but I may be able to get away with permanently using it in preview) and, worst of all, when it breaks, I'll have to get the application fixed for, at least a couple versions of Firefox, Chrome and IE. And that if it breaks during testing - if it breaks with a user I'll have to start guessing what went wrong (if something did).
Nah... Windows users can use Safari, Chrome or Firefox.
edit: as pointed out by recoiledsnake, aaronbrethorst and Impossible Safari is available for Windows.
I'm a Firefox user, working exclusively on Windows (although a Linux nut by night).
If a site blocks any browser by user-agent _and I find out about that_ (as a user of FF that's not a regular case) that site is dead. I will create some childish rhymes about the creator of that thing, I'm going to compare it to acoustic couplers or pay phones and .. move on.
There are good reasons to avoid supporting every browser and the IE brand _had_ (and has) problems.
But user agent sniffing? That results in one reaction only (again, of course, limited to 'what I can notice'):
This business isn't able to provide a usable web presence. I'm going elsewhere.
Anyways, the author's beef was not that IE should be supported at any cost, but the claim that the features needed are not supported in IE and that's why it needs to be banished by User Agent(complete with a broken IE icon display).
IMO, I agree with those that say it is a publicity stunt. It costs very little to support IE9+. Even IE8 doesn't take a ton of time to make it work, although you do have to do something about the CSS3 styles (CSS3PIE, for example.) But it is really dumb to make the choice to BLOCK a browser by user agent. How about feature detection or if you must block by browser, at least do IE8 and below.
Note, I am a front-end dev, and I know the pain of developing for IE6 and IE7. But any front end dev with any professional skills can make a site that works in IE8+ without resorting to ugly hacks (I don't call polyfills hacks.) And IE9 supports a large percentage of the standards we use on a daily basis.
Sorry, dumb move by Paydirt, with no monetary payoff.
I find the style of writing of this post extremely obnoxious, was it really necessary to say the exact same thing with slightly different order in the words over and over? If your post is to be short because there's not a lot to say, don't extend it unnecessarily, get to the point, move on.
I thought that. Plus the commenter that tries to explain that Microsoft built up a good deal of "trust debt" over the IE 6-8 period for those who had to code through it, gets the same repeated in the comments.
It's all very well that it technically might work, but we're dealing with humans here, humans that have been annoyed for a long time...
You would be pissed too, if someone claimed your product that you worked hard on to work well is publicly called out to be broken when it is not and dropping support for it a user feature(indirectly suggesting others should do it too).
In my opinion this is the beginning of the end for Microsoft. People are shouting out that they're done with it, and Microsoft is trying the same trick as before: Creating unneccesary lock-in where there is absolutely no use.
Why did the first beta of IE10 work on windows 7 and now you need to download a 3.2 gb unfinished operating system? It's bullshit, It's insane, and once again the developers are being assraped by Microsofts marketeers.
You can shout from the top of the highest building that you release a new version every month, Microsoft, but you way overplayed your hands. Now there's 4 major versions to support, hundreds of bugs to test. Developer environments to setup, weird registry hacks to do to get things working, and NO FRICKING DEBUG TOOLS.
I'm one of the happy few people that are allowed to code for mostly webkit-based devices, and even though there's loads of fragmentation there, it's no were near as shitty as the experience i've had the past 8 years building IE compatibility.
Claiming they no longer support IE means they'll stop writing "hacks" for IE from now (not as in last month) onwards.. But still, silly that they simply block IE and don't just show an extra message saying use X for the "ultimate experience". Maybe they should only block IE once they have an update that really will interfere with IE users.
But on the other hand, that might piss of paying customers that actually use IE and refuse/aren't allowed to use anything else..
When I meet with investors all they talk about is traction and traffic.
If you have enough there are no more meeting, no calls, no demos.
You get funded, no questions asked.
IE is no longer 90% of the market, but it's still the biggest browser by market share. There are many early adopters, but not anywhere as much as regular users. Regular users make the bulk of any popular site/webapp's traction, and most of them use IE, period.
A few years from now when IE becomes just another competitor and not the market leader we wont need to develop for it, and that might actually make more regular users move to FF or Chrome.
Meanwhile you have to support it, because IE development will never ever be as difficult as getting enough traction.
Paydirt is within it's full rights not to support IE9 when it's customer base doesn't really use it.
The problem is that the author notices most things work (border radius) but doesn't realize that IE9 is missing stuff we expect modern browsers to be able to support. Placeholder text and simple gradients are both not supported very well and that takes time and effort to build into your product. It's not about 90%, it's about getting that last 10% to work just right so the experience is clean and smooth for everyone involved.
IE10 might be another story, but last time I checked IE10 isn't out yet. But it seems to me that Microsoft is always one step behind.
Isn't IE usually the only browser worth creating seperate stylesheets not to mention the browser who gives the most difficulty with your javascript?
If Microsoft truly cared about the web, they would adhere to strict standards support and compliance, force updates for IE9 and below, and begin auto update cycles for their browsers.
That may seem like a lot to ask, but it's the only things to me as a web developer I can see that could remedy their horrible reputation in the browser community. No one game app on their latest browser will change that.
Supporting IE has nothing to do with how well it renders a site.
Supporting IE carries massive baggage as you have to pin yourself to Microsoft's erratic, tactic based release cycles and limiting yourself with future features. Chrome and Firefox now how have rolling releases and are closely tied with the developer community, so new features and rendering uniformity is what you gain.
There's also the ethos you buy into by supporting IE: you're supporting a closed source, proprietary internet.
IE's moving to a similar "rapid release" schedule with other browsers.
Microsoft has played many sneaky pete tricks in the browser wars (such as supporting a CSS standard that couldn't be correctly implemented in Netscape's codebase) but you can't blame their release schedule entirely on that -- Windows users tend to be a conservative lot who are terrified that Microsoft will push something that will break their cheap-ass intranet that's held together with string and ear wax.
> Chrome and Firefox now how have rolling releases and are closely tied with the developer community, so new features and rendering uniformity is what you gain.
Because they employ more evangelists? The IE team has spent a tremendous amount of resources informing developers about IE 9 and 10. Many of us just don't bother paying attention to them.
> There's also the ethos you buy into by supporting IE: you're supporting a closed source, proprietary internet.
The irony here is that you're supporting a closed Internet by ignoring
browsers. What a wonderful luxury that is.
In my current project, I've decided only to support the chrome browser and all other user agents are redirected to a not supported page asking them to install chrome.
I dont see the point in sacrificing my programmer happiness.
IE9 may have caught up on some things, but there are a lot of things it doesn't do, that Safari/Chrome and Firefox (as well as Opera in most cases) do do. So even if it might not be quite as hard now to get it to layout properly (it still is not the same as Chrome/Safari/Firefox/Opera, really, things just don't behave the same unless you train yourself to avoid things that IE9 doesn't like), there are lots of other reasons to avoid IE:
■ WebGL (3D)
■ WebSockets
■ HTML5 Forms (validation mechanism, CSS3 selectors)
■ FormData
■ HTML5 multifile-upload
■ HTML5 video (only with certain file formats)
■ CSS3 Transitions (for animations)
■ CSS3 Text Shadow
■ CSS3 Gradients
■ CSS3 Border Image
■ CSS3 Flex box model
■ Application Cache (offline)
■ Web Workers (threads in JavaScript)
■ Drag’n Drop from Desktop
■ SMIL Animations (SVG animations)
■ File API
■ JavaScript Strict Mode
■ ForeignObject (embed external content in SVG)
■ ClassList APIs
■ HTML5 History API
Why are most of these features either already implemented in other browsers or available in development versions, but completely missing from Internet Explorer? Why haven't more of these features made it into the hands of Windows users? Its not because Microsoft can't figure out how to implement or deploy these features. Its because the web platform is fundamentally antagonistic to Microsoft's business model with its dominant Windows monopoly on business software, PC games and operating system deployment.
Those features which enhance the web browser to make it most competitive with the desktop MUST not be deployed to Windows users any faster than absolutely necessary. It is an absolute business imperative for Microsoft to drag its feet and disrupt the web platform as much as it possibly can, because when all web browsers have web workers, 3D WebGL, WebSockets, File API, Gradients, Drag and Drop, HTML5 forms etc., it simply won't make business sense to write applications specific to Microsoft's platform. Pretty soon after that happens, it won't make sense to continue the Windows and Office licensing lock-in.
So the relationship between a web developer (who understands the nature of the web platform) and Microsoft is fundamentally antagonistic.
Oh god, we might as well start asking why FF didn't support ellipse for what seems like decades.
Everyone has different release schedules. IE is a lot more conservative because they support enterprise who are mighty touchy.
Grow The Fuck Up Cry Baby. I'm all for IE6 and IE7 whining, they suck. I'm even for IE8 and the entire stop at XP whining. Damn MS for that.
But you just sound like a total privileged prat who doesn't have a clue what's going on when it comes to web standards. FF and Chrome have a lot more latitude. If you want to know what happens when stuff starts moving too fast keep an eye on the webkit mobile css support fiasco unfolding in front of us right now. There is such a thing as moving too fast.
most use just three or four features out of that list. And IE10 is adding support for many of them. By leaving them out you're hurting users for no reason.
drop IE6: great! kill it with fire
drop IE7: reasonable
drop IE8: risky, millions of users
drop IE9: kind of stupid. 15% of the web, soon to be 30%
[+] [-] jneen|14 years ago|reply
That being said, the cost of testing in IE is waaay higher than the cost of testing in FF and Chrome. Why? Because FF and Chrome are cross-platform, I and my fellow developers can test on our OS of choice. With IE, a testing environment costs my company about $300 per developer.
Not to mention that setting up a VM for testing is the opposite of straightforward. After shaving a few yaks to convert the stupid VHD format to something VirtualBox can understand, you need to hack your local network so the VM can see its host.
Also, the developer tools are crappy. Has anyone worked on those in the last 10 years? I use Chrome for development not because of "web standards", but because the debugging tools are awesome (some people swear by Firebug, also, YMMV).
So I guess the point "support" is a little more complicated than "look, it works!".
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
Also, neither Chrome, Safari or Firefox behave exactly the same on win/mac/linux. Delicate layouts and javascript-heavy apps still have to be tested.
IE9 has a large share of the web, and is still growing. It's a perfectly ok browser (except for lack of WebGL). Not supporting it or adding a "not optimized for..." message reeks of "Optimized for 800x600" in the old days. Users shouldn't have to pay the toll.
And please, if you are going to do this, do not block browsers by UA. Show a warning, whatever, but just don't lock them out. It's annoying.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|14 years ago|reply
I.e., miniscule relative to the cost of actually having a developer.
[+] [-] jongalloway2|14 years ago|reply
Where is that $300 coming from? You run VirtualBox on your computer (free), install free VHD's (free), and free the free free with your free free (free).
[+] [-] FuzzyDunlop|14 years ago|reply
[1] https://github.com/xdissent/ievms
[+] [-] puppybeard|14 years ago|reply
Speaking from experience, you can't always. Having done a lot of browser-testing, I've seen the same version of the same browser behave differently on the same OS. Between OS's there are more discrepancies.
Most of your users are going to be using Windows, so test on Windows first.
[+] [-] eagsalazar|14 years ago|reply
1. block all IE9+ 2. spend lots of time and money making the site perfect in IE9+
What about this?
3. Have a quick glance and if things look 95% ok, let people know it is not optimized for IE9+ via a subtle notification. (That actually requires no more developer resources than blocking IE9 explicitly)
Or:
4. Set up a VM (it isn't that hard, and you only have to do it once) and just fix the obvious big stuff (which it doesn't appear there are any). Again, very cheap.
I'm no fan of IE or MS in general. Frankly, I'm a shameless hater. But I'm just not following your logic here. I would totally buy "I block MS because MS is evil, has caused me pain in the past, and now I am exacting revenge on them".
[+] [-] brlewis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tnorthcutt|14 years ago|reply
They had the “-ms” prefix for CSS3 gradients which was added in IE10
They added support for -khtml-box-shadow but not -ms-box-shadow???
They didn’t support Opera either unfortunately
All this crap recently about web standards and Opera adopting the webkit prefix and how bad some people think that is for the web? Paydirt, and people who think like them, are a huge part of the problem. Please don't do stuff like this.
[+] [-] FuzzyDunlop|14 years ago|reply
This, and comments like "The site happening to work" seem to have an underlying prejudice about IE. "It was IE, so it must be fucked some way or another."
The old versions are, but try running the site on Chrome 1, or Firefox 3.6 (I believe a lot of old Ubuntu LTS releases have that). They'll be exactly the same.
This should not become a trend.
[+] [-] lmm|14 years ago|reply
You're forgetting quite how bad IE was. Having worked for a place that had to support many ancient browsers, getting IE8 working was three times as much work as FF3.2.
I hear the IE team have turned over a new leaf and are supporting all the standards, but I heard that about IE7 too.
[+] [-] moron|14 years ago|reply
If it's my comment you're referring to, I said it "happens" to work in IE because if we are to believe the team, they didn't try to make it work in IE. It just does, by coincidence, for now.
Support is a commitment, and committing to IE will mean work down the road that these people have decided not to do, because it is not valuable to them. This attitude of "Oh, it works in IE right now so they must just be pedantic asses" is short-sighted.
[+] [-] dpearson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|14 years ago|reply
There's no need to get religious here, just support the browsers that have the features your web app needs.
[+] [-] mariusmg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmethvin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|14 years ago|reply
Part of me wishes MS forced updates like these. Sure it would probably break a few ancient mission critical ActiveX apps, and my god the outcry would be immense and furious, but it would be better for everyone in the long run. Better for software developers who can stop coding around the foibles of ancient versions of software, better for Microsoft who can devote resources to the newest things, and better for the internet at large not being subject to Microsoft's old shitty browsers.
It's kind of like ripping off a band aid that gets stickier as time goes by. Pull the damn thing off already and get it over with.
[+] [-] darklajid|14 years ago|reply
How does that relate to user agent sniffing vs. feature detection? Just asking, because I don't think your point and the 'Yeah, I get that guy's attitude' opinion are based on the same idea of what is necessary and what is bullshit/a marketing gag among geeks/a practice from the times when GeoCities was big.
[+] [-] janlukacs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sauravc|14 years ago|reply
Sometimes doing the right thing isn't the easiest path forward.
[+] [-] rhizome|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|14 years ago|reply
When I allow an IE user to use an application, I have to start testing on IE. In order to do that I'll have to make Selenium do some extra runs (IE 7, 8, 9, 10, Metro mode) under a Windows VM. I also need at least one (Win 7) Windows licenses (probably more, but I may be able to get away with permanently using it in preview) and, worst of all, when it breaks, I'll have to get the application fixed for, at least a couple versions of Firefox, Chrome and IE. And that if it breaks during testing - if it breaks with a user I'll have to start guessing what went wrong (if something did).
Nah... Windows users can use Safari, Chrome or Firefox.
edit: as pointed out by recoiledsnake, aaronbrethorst and Impossible Safari is available for Windows.
[+] [-] darklajid|14 years ago|reply
If a site blocks any browser by user-agent _and I find out about that_ (as a user of FF that's not a regular case) that site is dead. I will create some childish rhymes about the creator of that thing, I'm going to compare it to acoustic couplers or pay phones and .. move on.
There are good reasons to avoid supporting every browser and the IE brand _had_ (and has) problems.
But user agent sniffing? That results in one reaction only (again, of course, limited to 'what I can notice'):
This business isn't able to provide a usable web presence. I'm going elsewhere.
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|14 years ago|reply
System Requirements: Any PC running Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista or Windows 7
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1070?viewlocale=en_US&loca...
[+] [-] Impossible|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recoiledsnake|14 years ago|reply
Anyways, the author's beef was not that IE should be supported at any cost, but the claim that the features needed are not supported in IE and that's why it needs to be banished by User Agent(complete with a broken IE icon display).
[+] [-] LocalPCGuy|14 years ago|reply
Note, I am a front-end dev, and I know the pain of developing for IE6 and IE7. But any front end dev with any professional skills can make a site that works in IE8+ without resorting to ugly hacks (I don't call polyfills hacks.) And IE9 supports a large percentage of the standards we use on a daily basis.
Sorry, dumb move by Paydirt, with no monetary payoff.
[+] [-] amishforkfight|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heelhook|14 years ago|reply
I find the style of writing of this post extremely obnoxious, was it really necessary to say the exact same thing with slightly different order in the words over and over? If your post is to be short because there's not a lot to say, don't extend it unnecessarily, get to the point, move on.
[+] [-] davidjgraph|14 years ago|reply
It's all very well that it technically might work, but we're dealing with humans here, humans that have been annoyed for a long time...
[+] [-] philjohn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cooldeal|14 years ago|reply
https://paydirtapp.com/assets/ie_broken-7502950b14013927bbde...
You would be pissed too, if someone claimed your product that you worked hard on to work well is publicly called out to be broken when it is not and dropping support for it a user feature(indirectly suggesting others should do it too).
[+] [-] SchizoDuckie|14 years ago|reply
Why did the first beta of IE10 work on windows 7 and now you need to download a 3.2 gb unfinished operating system? It's bullshit, It's insane, and once again the developers are being assraped by Microsofts marketeers.
You can shout from the top of the highest building that you release a new version every month, Microsoft, but you way overplayed your hands. Now there's 4 major versions to support, hundreds of bugs to test. Developer environments to setup, weird registry hacks to do to get things working, and NO FRICKING DEBUG TOOLS.
I'm one of the happy few people that are allowed to code for mostly webkit-based devices, and even though there's loads of fragmentation there, it's no were near as shitty as the experience i've had the past 8 years building IE compatibility.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] overgryphon|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dutchbrit|14 years ago|reply
But on the other hand, that might piss of paying customers that actually use IE and refuse/aren't allowed to use anything else..
[+] [-] JVIDEL|14 years ago|reply
If you have enough there are no more meeting, no calls, no demos.
You get funded, no questions asked.
IE is no longer 90% of the market, but it's still the biggest browser by market share. There are many early adopters, but not anywhere as much as regular users. Regular users make the bulk of any popular site/webapp's traction, and most of them use IE, period.
A few years from now when IE becomes just another competitor and not the market leader we wont need to develop for it, and that might actually make more regular users move to FF or Chrome.
Meanwhile you have to support it, because IE development will never ever be as difficult as getting enough traction.
[+] [-] HaloZero|14 years ago|reply
The problem is that the author notices most things work (border radius) but doesn't realize that IE9 is missing stuff we expect modern browsers to be able to support. Placeholder text and simple gradients are both not supported very well and that takes time and effort to build into your product. It's not about 90%, it's about getting that last 10% to work just right so the experience is clean and smooth for everyone involved.
IE10 might be another story, but last time I checked IE10 isn't out yet. But it seems to me that Microsoft is always one step behind.
[+] [-] underwater|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenizer|14 years ago|reply
If Microsoft truly cared about the web, they would adhere to strict standards support and compliance, force updates for IE9 and below, and begin auto update cycles for their browsers.
That may seem like a lot to ask, but it's the only things to me as a web developer I can see that could remedy their horrible reputation in the browser community. No one game app on their latest browser will change that.
[+] [-] pippy|14 years ago|reply
Supporting IE carries massive baggage as you have to pin yourself to Microsoft's erratic, tactic based release cycles and limiting yourself with future features. Chrome and Firefox now how have rolling releases and are closely tied with the developer community, so new features and rendering uniformity is what you gain.
There's also the ethos you buy into by supporting IE: you're supporting a closed source, proprietary internet.
[+] [-] gregschlom|14 years ago|reply
By your reasoning, nobody would write an iPhone app either, or anything targeted for a platform other than GNU/Linux.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|14 years ago|reply
Microsoft has played many sneaky pete tricks in the browser wars (such as supporting a CSS standard that couldn't be correctly implemented in Netscape's codebase) but you can't blame their release schedule entirely on that -- Windows users tend to be a conservative lot who are terrified that Microsoft will push something that will break their cheap-ass intranet that's held together with string and ear wax.
[+] [-] mkmcdonald|14 years ago|reply
Because they employ more evangelists? The IE team has spent a tremendous amount of resources informing developers about IE 9 and 10. Many of us just don't bother paying attention to them.
> There's also the ethos you buy into by supporting IE: you're supporting a closed source, proprietary internet.
The irony here is that you're supporting a closed Internet by ignoring browsers. What a wonderful luxury that is.
[+] [-] drsim|14 years ago|reply
Either that or Paydirt's prejudice against IE. But I believe they're smarter than that.
[+] [-] andrew_wc_brown|14 years ago|reply
I dont see the point in sacrificing my programmer happiness.
[+] [-] ilaksh|14 years ago|reply
■ WebGL (3D) ■ WebSockets ■ HTML5 Forms (validation mechanism, CSS3 selectors) ■ FormData ■ HTML5 multifile-upload ■ HTML5 video (only with certain file formats) ■ CSS3 Transitions (for animations) ■ CSS3 Text Shadow ■ CSS3 Gradients ■ CSS3 Border Image ■ CSS3 Flex box model ■ Application Cache (offline) ■ Web Workers (threads in JavaScript) ■ Drag’n Drop from Desktop ■ SMIL Animations (SVG animations) ■ File API ■ JavaScript Strict Mode ■ ForeignObject (embed external content in SVG) ■ ClassList APIs ■ HTML5 History API
Why are most of these features either already implemented in other browsers or available in development versions, but completely missing from Internet Explorer? Why haven't more of these features made it into the hands of Windows users? Its not because Microsoft can't figure out how to implement or deploy these features. Its because the web platform is fundamentally antagonistic to Microsoft's business model with its dominant Windows monopoly on business software, PC games and operating system deployment.
Those features which enhance the web browser to make it most competitive with the desktop MUST not be deployed to Windows users any faster than absolutely necessary. It is an absolute business imperative for Microsoft to drag its feet and disrupt the web platform as much as it possibly can, because when all web browsers have web workers, 3D WebGL, WebSockets, File API, Gradients, Drag and Drop, HTML5 forms etc., it simply won't make business sense to write applications specific to Microsoft's platform. Pretty soon after that happens, it won't make sense to continue the Windows and Office licensing lock-in.
So the relationship between a web developer (who understands the nature of the web platform) and Microsoft is fundamentally antagonistic.
[+] [-] mattmanser|14 years ago|reply
Everyone has different release schedules. IE is a lot more conservative because they support enterprise who are mighty touchy.
Grow The Fuck Up Cry Baby. I'm all for IE6 and IE7 whining, they suck. I'm even for IE8 and the entire stop at XP whining. Damn MS for that.
But you just sound like a total privileged prat who doesn't have a clue what's going on when it comes to web standards. FF and Chrome have a lot more latitude. If you want to know what happens when stuff starts moving too fast keep an eye on the webkit mobile css support fiasco unfolding in front of us right now. There is such a thing as moving too fast.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply