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“But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

smashingmagazine.com

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Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#51

Post by sampo »

tomgallard wrote: post #38
mattmanser wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large car rental companies are not exactly cutting edge on IT. They tend to have a lot of small locations that's not exactly easy to start upgrading because of the cost of sending people out to do it all. My local branches look like they had their last refurb in the late 90s for example. One example does not a sample make.

It is not just car rental companies. Most of the UK's major banks use IE6 still. This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6, and they have the size to demand that their supplies support IE6 too. Corporate IT policy won't allow browsers apart from IE. If only Microsoft allowed side-by-side installs of IE6 and a IE8 it might be a bit more bearable (given that IE9 is not available on XP)

> This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6

How did it ever happen that IE6 ended up in such a long lasting and dominating position? Was it (I am just guessing here) the coincidence of tho things: (1) IE6 just happened to be the most recent Microsoft browser around the time when most of bigcorps initially build their inter/intranet apps, and (2) because this was the first wave of building such things, the web coders did not bother to think about a future when IE6 is no longer a modern browser?

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#53

Post by chc »

simonsarris wrote: post #3

Perhaps I am naive but this conversation seems easy to resolve with just a few words. Can anyone tell me how a client would respond to this: You can have a site with newer, nicer features, or you can have a site that supports older browsers. If you want both then you are commissioning two distinct websites. If you want usage statistics for old browsers I have them, and if you want to be economical I can produce the s…

If they want fancy new features, just use Modernizr with a polyfill. That generally seems like a better solution for the dwindling population of legacy browser users than creating a completely different codebase.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#54

Post by snorkel »

IE6 support can be made reasonable for most apps as long the client understands that the IE6 support will be usable, decent looking, but not 100% the same look and experience as with more modern browsers. You just need to explain to the client that they don't want to blow their budget wrestling with nit picky white space inconsistencies.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#55

Post by danso »

gte910h wrote: post #49
seabee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had genderless pronouns we wouldn't have to care about details like that which don't materially affect the article or its criticisms. Having said that, fields with a more even gender ratio have had to deal with this for a while - what do they do?

English does have a genderless singular pronoun: They Just because a book said it was preferred in 1848 to use he when sex is indeterminate (then went on to use both singular he and singular they) doesn't mean that's true today. The language always used both. Why stop today? Might feel a bit odd at first if you're not used to it, but it's not a bit different than how singular "you" is used ("You are coming today?" us…

Thank you for this. I had always (only slightly, though, in a grammar nazi way) looked down on people who used "they" for a singular pronoun because I thought that many do so just out of carelessness. But glad there is a formalized reasoning for it.

I've always used "he/she". But that's not quite accurate (or elegant) either.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#56

Post by hasslblad »

sampo wrote: post #51
tomgallard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just car rental companies. Most of the UK's major banks use IE6 still. This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6, and they have the size to demand that their supplies support IE6 too. Corporate IT policy won't allow browsers apart from IE. If only Microsoft allowed side-by-side installs of IE6 and a IE8 it might be a bit more bearable (given that IE9 is not available on XP)

> This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6 How did it ever happen that IE6 ended up in such a long lasting and dominating position? Was it (I am just guessing here) the coincidence of tho things: (1) IE6 just happened to be the most recent Microsoft browser around the time when most of bigcorps initially build their inter/intranet apps, and (2) because this was the first wave of building such…

I think it's because IE6 is the default browser for Windows XP Installs. I think even with the later Windows XP Service Packs, they still baselined to IE6.

That and there was a big gap in time between IE6 and IE7. Didn't Microsoft once announce that IE6 would be their last browser, as that's all the world needs?

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#57

Post by elektronaut »

TamDenholm wrote: post #6

I'm a web developer, whenever a client asks me about IE6 support, i enthusiastically tell them i'll happily support it. I then show them usage statistics for IE6 and tell them IE6 support costs a flat fee of £10,000 and let them think about it. No client has ever taken very long to decide its not worth it and none have ever taken me up on it, although i'm sure 1 or 2 have asked a different developer to make them an I…

I haven't had a request for IE6 support in years, but if I got one I would say something like:

"No, I will not do IE6 support for you. You've trusted me to solve your problem in the best and most efficient way, and supporting IE6 would be a waste of your money (and my time)."

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#58

Post by IsaacL »

sampo wrote: post #51
tomgallard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just car rental companies. Most of the UK's major banks use IE6 still. This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6, and they have the size to demand that their supplies support IE6 too. Corporate IT policy won't allow browsers apart from IE. If only Microsoft allowed side-by-side installs of IE6 and a IE8 it might be a bit more bearable (given that IE9 is not available on XP)

> This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6 How did it ever happen that IE6 ended up in such a long lasting and dominating position? Was it (I am just guessing here) the coincidence of tho things: (1) IE6 just happened to be the most recent Microsoft browser around the time when most of bigcorps initially build their inter/intranet apps, and (2) because this was the first wave of building such…

It's because IE6 was the last IE release before the end of the first browser war. Previously, Microsoft had been releasing browsers every year, but they stopped after Netscape died. It wasn't until Firefox started to gain market share, almost 5 years later, that IE7 came out. In the intervening years, IE6 had the chance to gain about 99% of the market.

(Not sure if all my figures are accurate, but that's the gist of things).

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#59

Post by nemeth »

tomgallard wrote: post #33
mattmanser wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me that's lying to them. While supporting IE6 is onerous extra work, it's still work that can be done and has little impact on the final product. Take the other position, that 'Not supporting IE6 will mean I'll charge you 70% of my original quote, only x% of people use it in your target market' or better add it as an extra in the quote in the first place as the article suggests. Then it's up to them, it's a risk a…

I think the article is realistic in terms of IE6 support costs if you're not just building a simple website. Trying to build a responsive, dynamic webapp, that is identical in IE6 to a modern browser can easily add a lot of time. Just as an example, producing all the graphics for rounded corners, rather than being able to do them in CSS.

That's not just an IE6 problem. IE8 has full CSS 2.1 support but can't do css3 rounded corners, opacity, or shadows. You can sometimes fake it with -ms-filter and CSS expressions (htc files) but those work just as well on 6 and 7.

That said, I'm happy to drop IE 6 where not required by the client - 8 may not have html5 or CSS 3 features, but at least it's relatively bug free.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#60

Post by tikhonj »

libria wrote: post #34

It's interesting that despite all the investment that Google is making in Plus and their desire for a foothold in this market, they flat out refuse IE6: http://i.imgur.com/ONRK4.png

I love how it says "Google+ no longer supports your browser" when (as far as I know) it never supported it.
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