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Why IE9 is a Web Designer’s Nightmare

40 points by rodh257 16y ago

CJefferson 16y ago
I stopped reading this as soon as I got to the "negative point" that Microsoft thanked JQuery for supporting IE9. Libraries such as JQuery of course have to support major versions of all browsers. In particular in this case much of the work was disabling workarounds required in earlier versions of IE!
- barnaby 16y ago
  Mozilla actually run the unit tests of most major libraries as part of their regular test suite to make sure that the Internet will by-and-large still work on any new release. So I think the author has a valid point here, new browsers shouldn't break existing libraries this badly.
  - paulirish 16y ago
    Webkit (recently) and Opera (last year) also incorporated jQuery's test suite into their own.
  - jstedfast 16y ago
    Perhaps, but as the parent post had stated: the changes to JQuery were to get rid of workarounds for past versions of IE. If Microsoft kept bug-for-bug compatible with older versions of IE, they'd be lambasted for that. Now you're lambasting them for actually fixing things. Rock, meet hard place.
quotemstr 16y ago
This article is trash. In one breath, the writer lambasts IE9 for supporting a compatibility mode (while not mentioning that other browsers also have a quirks mode) --- and then goes on to criticize the decision not to support XP, the most insecure operating system on earth. The article is a classic example of what results when you start with a conclusion and work back to the evidence.
- shin_lao 16y ago
  Windows XP is certainly not the most insecure operating system on Earth.
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    …still in mainstream use.
  - roryokane 16y ago
    That would probably be Damn Vulnerable Linux (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=dvl http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=dvl).
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >lambasts IE9 for supporting a compatibility mode (while not mentioning that other browsers also have a quirks mode) I thought that quirks mode was to accommodate non-standards compliant markup. Also, isn't compatibility mode to fudge things to work by accommodating errors in the rendering engine?
- bad_user 16y ago
  You comment is also trash. I have a Win XP desktop (besides my Ubuntu one, on which I spend most of my time lately). It's legit (paid money for it), all the software I care about runs on it and I never have had it infected with a virus (in 3 years since I bought it). So tell me, why the hell should I upgrade from the most popular OS on this planet and PAY for that upgrade? Because it doesn't conform to the perfect world you want? And if IExplorer 9 won't run on it, that's fine. There's always Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. And about compatibility-mode, having that mode in IExplorer 9, but disregarding compatibility for Windows XP is inconsistent. Not to mention their competition is doing the exact opposite.
- isleyaardvark 16y ago
  While I don't particularly agree with him on the compatibility mode, I don't see the contradiction. His argument is that getting rid of compatibility mode provides an incentive for innovation and eliminating old unsupported code from the web. The more people that use IE9 (without a compatibility mode) would put pressure on site owners to make sure their code met current standards. Supporting IE9 on XP would increase that number.
forgotAgain 16y ago
A very forceful title that is unfortunately backed up by very little in the article content. The article made one valid observation: the historically extended update cycle for Internet Explorer could be a problem when combined with the incomplete implementations of CSS3 and HTML5.
- thedeuce 16y ago
  as is most of ycombinator these days.
- cooldeal 16y ago
  Anything bad in the title or comments about Microsoft or IE results in automatic upvotes regardless of content.
  - bediger 16y ago
    Do you have a reason for that observation? I agree with it, but I don't have a good reason. People of pro-microsoft opinion often cite the relatively tiny numbers of Mac, Linux, etc users all the time, especially when giving rationale for staying on Windows, or giving a reason for why Windows attracts the most malware. But you can't have it both ways: if there's only a tiny minority of non-Windows people, they won't have the juice to generally influence Microsoft-related article's ratings. It you want to have it both ways (Windows dominates to the exclusion of everything else AND those pesky Linux/Mac/whatever users are everywhere, upvoting critical articles), you've got a world view with a very basic contradiction at its core. So: are there more Mac/Linux/Minix/LoseThos users, or do even the Windows users generally dislike Microsoft?
    - jstedfast 16y ago
      Just because there are far more Windows users than Linux users (not that that has ANYTHING to do with this, lots of Windows users use Firefox for example) doesn't mean the minority group won't be able to massively upvote something out of control. It's not like everyone votes, only a small minority vote - and guess who are more likely to vote? People who feel strongly (for or against). So if there are more haters than there are people who care to fight the haters, guess who "wins" the vote?
rumpelstiltskin 16y ago
Anyone know a good IE 9 emulator?
- mediacrisis 16y ago
  Keep an eye on IETester: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage Right now they just have IE9 beta, but I'd imagine they'll have full IE9 support soon.
- ck2 16y ago
  I run XP on my machines, so here's what I did: I downloaded the free (and legal) Microsoft Windows 7 enterprise trial ISO: http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/release/Win7/3/b/a/3bac7d87-8ad2-4b7a-87b3-def36aee35fa/7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_enterprise_en-us_EVAL_Eval_Enterprise-GRMCENEVAL_EN_DVD.iso http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/release/Win7/3... I installed the free VMWare Player (actually I already had it but needed to update to support Windows 7 more natively) http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmplayer/VMware-player-2.5.5-328052.exe http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmplayer/VMware-player-... ( or http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html ) I used one of the free vmx generator tools to make an image ready for Windows 7 and set the ISO as the CD drive http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml Installed in less than 30 minutes (including VMWare stuff) and then I can test in a pure Windows 7 default environment. The great thing about the Enterprise trial is it lasts for 60 days, then you can "rearm" (google it) for a couple more times, but even when it's expired, you can use it for an hour before auto-shutdown which is plenty of time to test pages.
wbond 16y ago
If you disable JS in all browsers, IE9, Firefox, Chrome and Opera render the page the same. This leads me to believe the web designer is writing brittle javascript somewhere. If you look at the JS, is uses conditional comments based on the version of JS, so I would probably start looking there. In the end I don't think we can expect to push the web development field and browsers forward without dropping old cruft. From using IE9, it seems they've made a big jump with this version. Unfortunately some old code may no longer work the same, and for that there is the X-UA-Compatible meta tag.
- barnaby 16y ago
  Let me answer this as someone who writes non-brittle Javascript code on a 1 year old web app (e.g. I have more unit tests per LOC in my Javascript than most of the Java code that's in the underlying app. AND I run my test suite on all major browsers regularly). Even if you write solid code, using good architecture, and thorough testing you will find that if it passes on FF then there's a 98% chance it also passes on Chrome and Opera... but maybe a 60% chance that it passes on IE8 (requiring HOURS of work to investigate and fix), and there's some abysmally low rate of success on IE9 from having run these tests against the Beta earlier (we don't plan to announce IE9 support for a while). So while you are correct old cruft will have to go, brand new solid code shouldn't have to go as well... and that's unfortunately the consequence of IE9. :'-(
bron 16y ago
I am not a fan of IE (6 in particular) but all these bashing of the latest IE 9 seems to not have valid arguments. Modern browsers by whose standards?
sukuriant 16y ago
There has been a notable amount of hate on IE9's lack of XP support, so I thought I'd ask. Has anyone happened to read ~why~ IE 9 isn't supported in Windows XP? People continue to be angry that it's not, but has anyone actually checked why it's not supported?
- jstedfast 16y ago
  Don't quote me on this, but I thought it was because IE9 made heavy use of Direct2D from DirectX10 or 11 or some such which XP doesn't have access to. Firefox 4 uses the same Direct2D stuff but has a software fallback. It could be argued that IE9 should also have a software fallback, but they don't.
  - pilif 16y ago
    There must be some kind of fallback because IE9 runs fine inside a virtual machine with disabled graphics acceleration.
  - zaatar 16y ago
    IE9 does indeed have software fallback. You can toggle the setting from inetcpl.cpl -> advanced to disable hardware acceleration if you wish.
zaatar 16y ago
If someone has a TLDR version of this article, sharing that is much appreciated. I tried reading this twice, but I am failing to understand the author's point(s) ... What exactly are the problems with IE9?
DjDarkman 16y ago
The single paragraph that's actually worth reading from this article: > I quickly downloaded it and began the installation process. That went well. I then performed the obligatory Microsoft reboot — it’s 2011 and the software still needs a computer restart, but whatever, I’ll live — and then I opened up the browser.

40 points by rodh257 16y ago

I stopped reading this as soon as I got to the "negative point" that Microsoft thanked JQuery for supporting IE9. Libraries such as JQuery of course have to support major versions of all browsers. In particular in this case much of the work was disabling workarounds required in earlier versions of IE!

barnaby 16y ago
Mozilla actually run the unit tests of most major libraries as part of their regular test suite to make sure that the Internet will by-and-large still work on any new release. So I think the author has a valid point here, new browsers shouldn't break existing libraries this badly.
- paulirish 16y ago
  Webkit (recently) and Opera (last year) also incorporated jQuery's test suite into their own.
- jstedfast 16y ago
  Perhaps, but as the parent post had stated: the changes to JQuery were to get rid of workarounds for past versions of IE. If Microsoft kept bug-for-bug compatible with older versions of IE, they'd be lambasted for that. Now you're lambasting them for actually fixing things. Rock, meet hard place.

quotemstr 16y ago

This article is trash. In one breath, the writer lambasts IE9 for supporting a compatibility mode (while not mentioning that other browsers also have a quirks mode) --- and then goes on to criticize the decision not to support XP, the most insecure operating system on earth. The article is a classic example of what results when you start with a conclusion and work back to the evidence.

shin_lao 16y ago
Windows XP is certainly not the most insecure operating system on Earth.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  …still in mainstream use.
- roryokane 16y ago
  That would probably be Damn Vulnerable Linux (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=dvl http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=dvl).
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>lambasts IE9 for supporting a compatibility mode (while not mentioning that other browsers also have a quirks mode) I thought that quirks mode was to accommodate non-standards compliant markup. Also, isn't compatibility mode to fudge things to work by accommodating errors in the rendering engine?
bad_user 16y ago
You comment is also trash. I have a Win XP desktop (besides my Ubuntu one, on which I spend most of my time lately). It's legit (paid money for it), all the software I care about runs on it and I never have had it infected with a virus (in 3 years since I bought it). So tell me, why the hell should I upgrade from the most popular OS on this planet and PAY for that upgrade? Because it doesn't conform to the perfect world you want? And if IExplorer 9 won't run on it, that's fine. There's always Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. And about compatibility-mode, having that mode in IExplorer 9, but disregarding compatibility for Windows XP is inconsistent. Not to mention their competition is doing the exact opposite.
isleyaardvark 16y ago
While I don't particularly agree with him on the compatibility mode, I don't see the contradiction. His argument is that getting rid of compatibility mode provides an incentive for innovation and eliminating old unsupported code from the web. The more people that use IE9 (without a compatibility mode) would put pressure on site owners to make sure their code met current standards. Supporting IE9 on XP would increase that number.

forgotAgain 16y ago

A very forceful title that is unfortunately backed up by very little in the article content. The article made one valid observation: the historically extended update cycle for Internet Explorer could be a problem when combined with the incomplete implementations of CSS3 and HTML5.

thedeuce 16y ago
as is most of ycombinator these days.
cooldeal 16y ago
Anything bad in the title or comments about Microsoft or IE results in automatic upvotes regardless of content.
- bediger 16y ago
  Do you have a reason for that observation? I agree with it, but I don't have a good reason. People of pro-microsoft opinion often cite the relatively tiny numbers of Mac, Linux, etc users all the time, especially when giving rationale for staying on Windows, or giving a reason for why Windows attracts the most malware. But you can't have it both ways: if there's only a tiny minority of non-Windows people, they won't have the juice to generally influence Microsoft-related article's ratings. It you want to have it both ways (Windows dominates to the exclusion of everything else AND those pesky Linux/Mac/whatever users are everywhere, upvoting critical articles), you've got a world view with a very basic contradiction at its core. So: are there more Mac/Linux/Minix/LoseThos users, or do even the Windows users generally dislike Microsoft?
  - jstedfast 16y ago
    Just because there are far more Windows users than Linux users (not that that has ANYTHING to do with this, lots of Windows users use Firefox for example) doesn't mean the minority group won't be able to massively upvote something out of control. It's not like everyone votes, only a small minority vote - and guess who are more likely to vote? People who feel strongly (for or against). So if there are more haters than there are people who care to fight the haters, guess who "wins" the vote?

rumpelstiltskin 16y ago

Anyone know a good IE 9 emulator?

mediacrisis 16y ago
Keep an eye on IETester: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage Right now they just have IE9 beta, but I'd imagine they'll have full IE9 support soon.
ck2 16y ago
I run XP on my machines, so here's what I did: I downloaded the free (and legal) Microsoft Windows 7 enterprise trial ISO: http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/release/Win7/3/b/a/3bac7d87-8ad2-4b7a-87b3-def36aee35fa/7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_enterprise_en-us_EVAL_Eval_Enterprise-GRMCENEVAL_EN_DVD.iso http://wb.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/release/Win7/3... I installed the free VMWare Player (actually I already had it but needed to update to support Windows 7 more natively) http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmplayer/VMware-player-2.5.5-328052.exe http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmplayer/VMware-player-... ( or http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html ) I used one of the free vmx generator tools to make an image ready for Windows 7 and set the ISO as the CD drive http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml Installed in less than 30 minutes (including VMWare stuff) and then I can test in a pure Windows 7 default environment. The great thing about the Enterprise trial is it lasts for 60 days, then you can "rearm" (google it) for a couple more times, but even when it's expired, you can use it for an hour before auto-shutdown which is plenty of time to test pages.

wbond 16y ago

If you disable JS in all browsers, IE9, Firefox, Chrome and Opera render the page the same. This leads me to believe the web designer is writing brittle javascript somewhere. If you look at the JS, is uses conditional comments based on the version of JS, so I would probably start looking there. In the end I don't think we can expect to push the web development field and browsers forward without dropping old cruft. From using IE9, it seems they've made a big jump with this version. Unfortunately some old code may no longer work the same, and for that there is the X-UA-Compatible meta tag.

barnaby 16y ago
Let me answer this as someone who writes non-brittle Javascript code on a 1 year old web app (e.g. I have more unit tests per LOC in my Javascript than most of the Java code that's in the underlying app. AND I run my test suite on all major browsers regularly). Even if you write solid code, using good architecture, and thorough testing you will find that if it passes on FF then there's a 98% chance it also passes on Chrome and Opera... but maybe a 60% chance that it passes on IE8 (requiring HOURS of work to investigate and fix), and there's some abysmally low rate of success on IE9 from having run these tests against the Beta earlier (we don't plan to announce IE9 support for a while). So while you are correct old cruft will have to go, brand new solid code shouldn't have to go as well... and that's unfortunately the consequence of IE9. :'-(

bron 16y ago

I am not a fan of IE (6 in particular) but all these bashing of the latest IE 9 seems to not have valid arguments. Modern browsers by whose standards?

sukuriant 16y ago

There has been a notable amount of hate on IE9's lack of XP support, so I thought I'd ask. Has anyone happened to read ~why~ IE 9 isn't supported in Windows XP? People continue to be angry that it's not, but has anyone actually checked why it's not supported?

jstedfast 16y ago
Don't quote me on this, but I thought it was because IE9 made heavy use of Direct2D from DirectX10 or 11 or some such which XP doesn't have access to. Firefox 4 uses the same Direct2D stuff but has a software fallback. It could be argued that IE9 should also have a software fallback, but they don't.
- pilif 16y ago
  There must be some kind of fallback because IE9 runs fine inside a virtual machine with disabled graphics acceleration.
- zaatar 16y ago
  IE9 does indeed have software fallback. You can toggle the setting from inetcpl.cpl -> advanced to disable hardware acceleration if you wish.

zaatar 16y ago

If someone has a TLDR version of this article, sharing that is much appreciated. I tried reading this twice, but I am failing to understand the author's point(s) ... What exactly are the problems with IE9?

DjDarkman 16y ago

The single paragraph that's actually worth reading from this article: > I quickly downloaded it and began the installation process. That went well. I then performed the obligatory Microsoft reboot — it’s 2011 and the software still needs a computer restart, but whatever, I’ll live — and then I opened up the browser.