4 ms·

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

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.

josefresco 14y ago
The problem really is that they are lumping ALL IE users into one "incompatible bucket" irregardless of the version and features supported. There's no need to get religious here, just support the browsers that have the features your web app needs.
- politician 14y ago
  You're talking about feature testing and progressive enhancement. Adopting that strategy doesn't mean that you no longer have to test every browser, it just means that you don't support a common level of functionality across browsers. Indeed, you'll still end up testing all the browsers all of the time, just with different expectations. These guys have been burned by IE to the point where they don't want to test it period. Feature testing doesn't get them there, but blacklisting does.
  - eropple 14y ago
    > These guys have been burned by IE to the point where they don't want to test it period. Alternate Character Interpretation: they want some hits from HN because "look at us, we don't support IE!!!".
- rhizome 14y ago
  Suffice it to say that Microsoft has a lot to answer for in this department.
mariusmg 14y ago
Irrelevant. Is not like that site works perfectly on initial release of chrome
- heelhook 14y ago
  Hmm, how many people are on the initial release of chrome? Apples and oranges.
dmethvin 14y ago
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.
Karunamon 14y ago
> Until Microsoft gets IE 9 and 10 adoption up 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.
- OllieJones 14y ago
  > 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 YOU tell the famous doctors in hospitals you're going to break the medical-imaging app they use that depends on IE6. I'M not telling them that. Seriously. It's not as simple as ripping off a band-aid.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    I never said it was simple. In fact, it'll be anything but. On top of that, what the hell is a life-critical app doing connected to the internet and pulling down windows updates anyways? What I would do optimally is put down a drop dead date, say two years in the future. "On this date, any computers connected to Windows Update directly will be updated to IE10. This is not optional". Vendors then have two years to get their poop in a group. If they still don't get it done, customers can complain to the vendors. What are they going to do, migrate to Linux?
darklajid 14y ago
Cool. Interesting. 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.

josefresco 14y ago

The problem really is that they are lumping ALL IE users into one "incompatible bucket" irregardless of the version and features supported. There's no need to get religious here, just support the browsers that have the features your web app needs.

politician 14y ago
You're talking about feature testing and progressive enhancement. Adopting that strategy doesn't mean that you no longer have to test every browser, it just means that you don't support a common level of functionality across browsers. Indeed, you'll still end up testing all the browsers all of the time, just with different expectations. These guys have been burned by IE to the point where they don't want to test it period. Feature testing doesn't get them there, but blacklisting does.
- eropple 14y ago
  > These guys have been burned by IE to the point where they don't want to test it period. Alternate Character Interpretation: they want some hits from HN because "look at us, we don't support IE!!!".
rhizome 14y ago
Suffice it to say that Microsoft has a lot to answer for in this department.

mariusmg 14y ago

Irrelevant. Is not like that site works perfectly on initial release of chrome

heelhook 14y ago
Hmm, how many people are on the initial release of chrome? Apples and oranges.

dmethvin 14y ago

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.

Karunamon 14y ago

> Until Microsoft gets IE 9 and 10 adoption up 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.

OllieJones 14y ago
> 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 YOU tell the famous doctors in hospitals you're going to break the medical-imaging app they use that depends on IE6. I'M not telling them that. Seriously. It's not as simple as ripping off a band-aid.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  I never said it was simple. In fact, it'll be anything but. On top of that, what the hell is a life-critical app doing connected to the internet and pulling down windows updates anyways? What I would do optimally is put down a drop dead date, say two years in the future. "On this date, any computers connected to Windows Update directly will be updated to IE10. This is not optional". Vendors then have two years to get their poop in a group. If they still don't get it done, customers can complain to the vendors. What are they going to do, migrate to Linux?

darklajid 14y ago

Cool. Interesting. 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.