06 March 2008

Angry thoughts about IE7 and IE8

So much has been written about how IE7 b0rked the user experience for a lot of users... and everytime I see that comment, I get pissy.

Why?

Reasons I get mad about IE7’s twitchiness

  1. If so many folks hadn't used IE6 as their dev platform and ignored everything else, these problems never would have developed.
  2. If the rest had used proper filter rules, their sites would’ve been easier to fix.
  3. If people would take the time to stay current with their skills and learn new ones, the breakage would’ve made more sense at the time (and thus caused less uproar).
  4. Did Microsoft's senior management honestly believe that the rest of the world would stand by idly while it let the Internet Explorer property go to seed? Pshaw! (Insert saltier words of one syllable here. Yes, I'm still all manner of pissed off about that.)

By my way of thinking the furore over IE7's “breakage” is from people who treat their jobs like sinecures.

…And the horse they rode in on!

My own experience

Perhaps I’m being a hardass; goodness knows that I’ve got a reputation for it. My bottom line, however, is that when IE7 came out, I probably spent 10-15 minutes per site getting things into shape. IE7 supports standards far better than its predecessor, and I was developing to standards, so I had few problems. Most of those were caused by vestigial hasLayout issues, though more recently I see that the fuzzy selector problem hasn't yet gone the way of the dodo.

If I could do it, why was it so hard for so many other people?

The answers I get to that question speak more than adequately to my anger.

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