I think most good web developers know how a bad browser Internet Explorer is.
Web development has an inherent difficulty because code you write is only an outline of what you want done, an intention. Is really up to the browser what is actually going to happen.
Some browsers don’t support some features and web developers should treat this with graceful degradation. Explorer is no exception.
One of the beauties of the web is that the user is in control. Browser choice and options are there to ensure that and sites should support that.
As a web publisher one want primarily to deliver information to public, not layout. The layout is support, meant to enhance the usability of the page. Not only for eye pleasure and reinforce brand indentity.
The user should be in control
As different needs arise, the user may chose to display things in different ways and a good browser should allow them to do it.
So should the web site, this is only possible if content and presentation are well separated.
A good presentational style must, besides allowing the user to change settings on the browser, allow a page to display correctly in different browsers of different versions.
This doesn’t mean a page has to actually look and behave the same in all possible configurations, unless you really want it.
As new versions of browsers appear, improved CSS features are implemented and developers can put their hands on more tools to make better sites and a better web. In order to do that, older browsers grow obsolete.
Because a page strongly relies on the browser, it is not a good idea to build pages that only work on the state-of-the-art browsers and brake elsewhere, but because people are free to chose the browser they want, one should consider this people as public as well.
We have to move forward and use handful and beautiful resources on the web, but we can’t afford to let the site break on less capable browsers. Instead, graceful degradation should be considered, so a page can work on less capable browsers with reduced features, but without breaking.
Should the page look identical on all browser on earth?
Coke and Pepsi come in several sizes and shapes without breaking identity, why should all sites look identical in every possible browser and version.
A page will only look and behave identically in all kinds and versions of browsers if is very simple one. We really need to consider on each case if this is really necessary.
There must be a hundred lousy browsers out there that we never even hear about, and mostly, wed developers don’t care about them, because it is their responsibility to implement the right features and provide gracefull degradation for the ones they don’t.
Treating such browsers as a first class citizens and limiting work by them will only limit the growth of nice work on the web.
Furthermore, will any state-of-the-art browser development team care to implement more advanced features of CSS 2.1 and CSS 3.0 if they think nobody is going to use them? I guess they’ll turn their attention to something else.
The widespread unuse of advanced features prevents the web from advance further, even on the best browsers around.
Gracefully degrade in all cases, no exceptions
Among theses hundreds of lousy browsers there is one that is known for everyone and his brother: Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer is not only very limited in CSS features, but also, has bugs galore on the ones that are implemented.
But the real problem is that IE is used by an obscene amount of people, that are unaware of the massive amount of problems this browser causes.
If you tell unaware IE users about it, it is very likely that they say: “well, it works just fine for me!”. And it does! Because any conscious web developer knows these users can’t be ignored.
In the last years, however, microsoft has lost some strength.
Microsoft is still a massive power driving our geeky world, but Google and Apple have taken a good slice of its domain and several not-so-big projects gained notoriety among people on certain niches.
I don’t think Microsoft is going to ever get out of business, not in my lifetime anyway, but I think is time to consider IE as, just another piece of lousy software, and start to move forward faster and don’t wait microsoft blessing to use advanced CSS features.
It is still necessary to care for IE users and workarounds should be enforced.
But keeping brilliant people on the web development industry spending time to fully support IE6 (and bugs remaining in IE7, for that matter) is just a waste of precious possibilities of improovement on the web.
Treat unsupported and broken stuff with graceful degradation, instead of hacks and tricks.
It doesn’t seem that there is anything that can be done to make Microsoft work on behalf of community and stop trying to take over the world and impose their sub-optimal standards.
But I think is time to gradually move to treat IE bugs as cases for graceful degradation, and let them fall behind and live into obsolescency, just like happened with IE for MacOS, that failed miserably because very few Mac users would stick to this idea.
Perhaps the next time you tell a friend how much IE sucks, she will tell you:
You may be right, my favourite page looks gorgeous on other browsers”.
