can we stop coding for IE6 yet?

[Gman]

thats nothign only a few months back I had to make a website for someone who was a Mac Owner and apparently only use IE5 on his mac as he came from a windows background. So he got it in his head that all mac uses make use of IE5 and the website HAD to be viewable in IE5

 

[furnace]

who are we to tell the people what to use?

As far as IE vs Safari vs FF goes, we can't dictate that...

But as far as not upgrading goes - we should at least try. Backwards compatibility hinders the internet - it's like Sony making games on the PS3 but comprimising until they work on the PS2, too. You'd wonder what the point in the PS3 is, and heck, why even upgrade to the PS3 if everything works fine on the PS2 anyway?

I know everyone loves to rip metaphors apart and there are loads of ways that it is not similar to consoles. But you know what I mean - the fact is, with an "It's OK to use an old browser" attitude, we're never going to progress.

I'd only be happy if I started seeing sites force people on to IE7 - in the short term, massive inconvenience to many, in the long term, it's only forcing people to progress.

However I'm not saying "lets abandon IE6 - right here, right now". But its time will come

 

[Energize]

Google analytics, i love it, I revel in stats.

How many firefox users have noscript installed though?

 

[paulsheff]

Some of our clients are hardware and software solutions companies, and they have a mix of IE6 and IE7 on work machines and in the hubs they use for training. I have to fire up an rickety old ME machine to test their pages on IE6, but it's definitely worth it, and to be honest, it's not that difficult to make provisions for the stupidity of IE6.

I tend to make sure I use padding rather than margins for spacing as IE6 still makes it's own up for fun, and make sure the space between divs can cope with IE6 doing it's thing...

One of our clients is a UK affiliate for a big manufacturing software solutions company, and their main site is hilarious on IE6. They clearly haven't tested it properly and the columns end up all over the place, shifted down the page because they've not left room for IE6 to be dim.

It looks really unprofessional though and could be fixed pretty easily. They wanted us to adopt their template... Yeah right, methinks we'll build it properly thanks...

 

[SpicyDuck]

Well, the new version of Windows is (apparently) due in 2009, with another version of IE to worry about - and requires a meta tag for compatibility - which will then hopefully end the need to code for IE 6.0.

So, 2-3 years seems like a good time frame to me.

But many things will be a lot more difficult in the future, anyway; the need to code for mobile devices, a large range of resolutions. I think that as the Internet grows, the job of designing for it becomes a much more difficult task.

More space, more power, more demand and more possibilities. I actually quite enjoy the challenge of trying to make a site or web-app as 'elastic' as possible, though, so I don't really mind at all. Still, IE 6.0 makes me squeal like a pig.

Edit: Also, I use Blueprint, which is a CSS 'reset' package that solves all the Margin, Padding and Typography issues across all browsers, and makes them look the same.

It also saves a lot of time going over the same mundane CSS, and so gives you time to concentrate on other languages and increase your knowledge in more areas. At least for me, anyway.

 

[knowledge123]

How many firefox users have noscript installed though?

Lol, that's a good point, I have, but I allow analytics.
It's going to be a minimal hit, though.

 

[Tiger33]

i wish more people would use opera to be honest


I've stopped coding for IE6 (well my last 3 sites)

i dont care if the site breaks in IE6 anymore - i clearly mark on the website that IE7 /Opera or Firefox is needed in order to get the maximum experience from the website.


If more designers just stopped designing hacks and if redirects for IE6 then it would force visitors to switch ... (its a harsh way of doing it but life can be harsh sometimes hehe)

also i thought microsoft IE7 was part of a security update for windows so in theory shouldnt that ultimately vaze out ie6 by the end of the year?

 

[Tripnologist]

If more designers just stopped designing hacks and if redirects for IE6 then it would force visitors to switch

Yeah, if it were only that easy.

Let's say a client pays my company a nice sum to design and develop a site for him. Now, let's say I ignore any IE6 bugs that may come up and on launch, the site looks and works fine in all the main browsers except for IE6. How happy do you think the client will be once he starts getting emails from his own customers/clients/etc. about how the site is 'broken' in IE6?

Or, let's say that the client hasn't even decided on which firm he would like to have build his site. Let's say that he's reading proposals from my company and a competitor.
Most clients won't know what Opera is. Many won't even know what FF or Safari is. They'll all have heard of IE6 and 7. If I don't have both listed and our competitor does, unless there is a vast difference in price and quality of work, we're not going to get the contract.


...and no, you can still opt out of installing IE7. I'm still running IE6 on my main computer. I just told auto update not to ask me about the IE7 update anymore.

 

[Draeger]

I check my code during the dev process in IE 6.0, 7.0 and Firefox and make sure everything is sitting as it should.

IE 6.0 is as far back as I am prepared to go though, not interested in IE 5.5 or older although I do have a quick check using Multiple IE ( at least on an old laptop I have spare here running XP, my main desktop and Dell XPS lappy I use for web dev and design are both running Vista which sadly, Multiple IE will just not work under the last time I checked for an update at least!! ).

Something I always overlook is Mac's Safari and Opera.

I know I probably should check compatibility issues there, but I never do, which I admit, is probably a failing on my part.

 

[paulsheff]

Something I always overlook is Mac's Safari and Opera.

Get Safari on your PC. We've got Macs and PCs at work and pretty much every issue that appears on Safari on the Mac is replicated by Safari on the PC. Can't speak for Opera, the guys don't use it on the Mac, I probably should get them to install it on at least one for testing.