In my last post I said that I revamped my CSS/HTML/JavaScript butdidn't care about Internet Explorer this time, so I took for granted that it was broken. Well you know... from my experience one does not simply make a site using solely Firefox and expect it to work fine in Exploror..

Well it did.

OK it's somewhat broken in IE6, but this time I decided that for my own website I would not give a f*ck a bout IE.

Considering that it's the only site I can do whatever I want, I decided that I wanted a IE hack free site and it's what I got. The only thing I could consider a hack is the CSS reset stylesheet I use, but I don't count it as a hack because it's not useful only with IE.

Like many others, I develop and test all the sites I build with Firefox, then I fix them for IE when I have to show it to clients or put them online. With time I've come to be quite good at avoiding pitfalls, but unexpected and irritating things always happens in IE.

But just to contradict me, this time it worked fine in IE... without hacks. Except for the hypem widget for which I use the fixed position, it's broken in IE<7. But it's good, and I really think more people should be doing this with their site. We've hidden IE's failures from the public eye for too long now.

The trickiest part is that we cannot just say "f*ck IE" because it still represents a large market share. Thus, if our sites fail in IE, a lot of people see it. Of course for the end user, the failure will not be IE's ineptitude to comply to established standards, it will be the webmaster's ineptitude to hack around Internet Explorer, it will be the ineptitude of the company to hire a good web firm.

Bottom line, you and your client look bad, not Microsoft.

It's really a catch 22 situation, but the good news is that we, as web developers, might be able to do something about it.

Why we should do it

The IE team has already done a great job fixing a lot of problems from IE6 to 7 and hopefully it will continue to move in that direction for future releases.

But the problem is not really the next releases of IE, it's the old ones. The ones that have been there for too long and that we fix silently until... when exactly ?

I listened to John Resisg's talk about JavaScript Library development at Google, it was really interesting. But in the end a someone in the audience asked a question that made my jaw drop.

Does your jQuery thing runs well under IE4 ? .. I have IE4 on my cellphone.

WTF!! I swear I would have paid to see John reply "I don't give a shit" or "how well google maps works on your cellphone ?"

We cannot support archaic browsers evitam eternam, still we try the best we can to do it.

The truth is that we spend a fair amount of time doing it. I don't know about other web developers, but I feel this time could be spent more efficiently.

That's why I wont fix my site for IE. It works on IE7, fine. IE will come to me, not the other way around, not on my territory.

That's also why IE<7 visitors now are greeted with a banner in the top of my site like this:

This site is optimized for modern browsers, you most likely are not seeing an optimal version of it. A browser update is advised, thank you.

the code

<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<div style="top:0;width:100%;background:#ffc;color:#333;text-align:left;padding:6px 10px;font-weight:bold;">
    This site is optimized for modern browsers, you most likely are not seeing an optimal version of it. A browser update is advised, thank you.
</div>
<![endif]-->

I even think of giving rebate to clients that will allow me to apply this concept on their site. It would be a perfect win-win solution.

• arguably, the client and I don't not look bad
• my time is better spent
• the client's money is better invested
• the client get his product faster
• the site has a better life expectancy. Hacks can breaks with new browser releases, while my site will keep looking better with time as browsers get closer to the standards

The concept could be pushed further, like providing more information on why it's a good thing to update and why they should, but most people are already bombed with update requests on a daily basis, I don't think we have to justify ourself to the end user more than the desktop applications does.

Microsoft didn't when they forced me to update my MSN messenger in order to connect on their network (It's funny, it never happened since I use Pidgin). Also, I didn't want any links in it because it would too easily pass as an advertisement.

Anyway enough ranting.. now I'd like to have some feedbacks on this :D