[mikelat]

> Looks like the webkit prefix tags are creating the new IE6.

This bothers me. Webkit isn't some ancient browser that is has remained stagnant for years until google/apple decided to do something about it. Nobody spends hours debugging their perfect layouts in webkit. Webkit isn't holding the entire web back. It's just a poor comparison.

I browse mobile web in mostly firefox mobile, and I don't think I've ever seen a mobile site broken on FF but working on Chrome.

In fact at least Google has taken some steps to recitfy it, and they've stated they're putting experimental CSS properties behind developer flags. If we're talking about the fact that old people don't update old browsers then Microsoft is one to talk with IE7, IE8, IE9, and IE10.

[wwweston]

Most of my professional time these days is spent on mobile/tablet websites for a major automobile manufacturer. And there are days when we absolutely do obsess over layout and other issues introduced by mobile safari itself. On the release of iOS 7, we actually probably burned a month working with a bug that we never found a solution to (which, fortunately, was fixed with iOS 7.1).

That last part underscores that we're fortunate browser makers are issuing regular updates (a big difference from IE). On the other hand, with some of those updates come new bugs and (particularly on Android) fragmentation. Consider that by 2006 there were enough people/resources documenting IE6's quirks that it was pretty rare to run across a bug that someone didn't have a good idea of how to fix/workaround. In 2014 when you run across a mobile bug (particularly one from a recent release, of which there are many), it may well be that nobody knows how to solve your problem, and in some cases nobody seems to even know how to tell you to duplicate it across devices/emulators (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23142762/how-to-identify-... ).

And of course, like IE, many developers code webkit-only, even iOS only (and I know why: at the level of ambition people often have for mobile websites and with the difficulty involved in testing more than a few devices, it can sometimes seem like the only way to get things out the door).

IE6 was no picnic, but there are times I think to myself I'd rather be working on the 2006 desktop web than the 2014 mobile web....

[mikelat]

I think you forget how bad it was with 2006 desktop. So many CSS hacks. We take our div layouts for granted but if you dared venture away from the standard table layouts of the early 2000s you were in for a lot of debugging for browser quirks.

Nowadays at least I code responsive layouts to target screen resolution, and its gotten leagues better. Sure there's a few quirks in separate browsers and things aren't necessarily ideal, but it sure beats the days of "I wish I could use xxxx CSS property but I can't because only 2% of my users would be able to render it".

[untog]

The comparison is apt, just not entirely. It isn't a comparison of IE6 vs Webkit, it's of developer reactions to them.

For a long time, IE6 ruled the roost, so developers used IE6 as their development target. Browsers that moved beyond it, or implemented things differently (often correctly) were ignored.

On mobile, webkit rules the roost. Developers use it as their development target. Browsers that move beyond it or implement things differently (by using non-webkit prefixed CSS) are ignored.

[mikelat]

I mentioned in another comment that when I think of IE6, I think of the hours spent fiddling with the HTML/CSS that works in FF/Chrome but not in IE6 because of browser bugs that were never fixed and standards not followed. It's why I think it's a bad comparison.

[sp332]

No, the new IE6 :) like back when IE6 was king. Meaning that web developers make their site work only in webkit and screw the rest of us.

[mikelat]

I guess it's a matter of perspective. My experience with IE6 was mostly being a teenage hobbyist webmaster way back when FF vs IE6 was in full spin - I remember being proud of coding standards compliant websites that worked perfectly in FF just to have it completely break in IE6, then having to spend hours fiddling with the HTML/CSS to get it to the point where it worked in IE6. Frustrating times.

That's why I don't really see the comparison. When I think of IE6 I think of the hours I wasted trying to make it work right. I'm not currently coding IE mobile websites, then checking it on a webkit browser, having everything be broken and then spending hours trying to fix it.