Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
bartvanzon.com
Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
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Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#2It's not a lot of work to get a Windows/IE virtual environment up and running on a Mac, I use Virtualbox daily in combination with https://github.com/xdissent/ievms
This shell script automatically downloads Windows virtual machine images from Microsoft, so that testing can be done in IE6/7/8/9. You don't even need to use separate machines, if you get a Windows 7 virtual machine set up you can use IE Tester to run IE5.5-9 http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#3I honestly think a lot of hacker types really do live in a bubble where they think it's still 2000, Microsoft is still the same evil company they were, Apple still can do no wrong, most people now use Macs "if they know what's good for them", RoR, node.js and Python are really the only valid technologies for back end development and so forth.
Certainly plenty of folks out there using the aforementioned technologies are more worldly than my previous statement would suggest, but there are still an irritating number of developers living in the past who haven't really got a realistic view of the technology landscape as it exists today, in 2012.
I also notice this on various high profile podcasts that from time to time downplay anything from Microsoft as having any value these days, despite not really having had recent first hand experience of what's available.
I prefer Chrome myself, but supporting IE9 really isn't that hard, and suggesting otherwise is FUD.
The landscape has changed in the last five years. Hopefully over time, especially as the landscape continues to change, the antifanboys will realise this and update their views.
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#4It's not a lot of work to get a Windows/IE virtual environment up and running on a Mac, I use Virtualbox daily in combination with https://github.com/xdissent/ievms This shell script automatically downloads Windows virtual machine images from Microsoft, so that testing can be done in IE6/7/8/9. You don't even need to use separate machines, if you get a Windows 7 virtual machine set up you can use IE Tester to run IE5…
It's actually much more work to test on a Mac when developing on a Windows machine since Apple is so protective of OS X that they don't allow it to run in a vm.
Which is sad because I like to have all kinds of users but it's really really difficult to accommodate for all you guys browsing on a mac.
Please hit me with hints to make life easier for myself if you have some...
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#5I work neck deep with cross browser "stuff" frequently, frankly, IE9 is a breeze & imho Paydirt made themselves look really quite daft!
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#6I honestly think a lot of hacker types really do live in a bubble where they think it's still 2000, Microsoft is still the same evil company they were, Apple still can do no wrong, most people now use Macs "if they know what's good for them", RoR, node.js and Python are really the only valid technologies for back end development and so forth. Certainly plenty of folks out there using the aforementioned technologies a…
IE9 is not that bad. To prove to myself that it was not, I forced myself to use it as my main browser for a while.
It was not painful at all. It had reasonable speed, and although lacking some CSS3 features that are nice, it is generally a decent browser. And it runs one of my Canvas demos much more smoothly than Chrome or Firefox, since it hardware accelerates canvas rendering.
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#7In some cases, not supporting IE is like a filter, if you offer a web service that involves some web tech background from users then it will save you some support hours, people that don't understand basic stuff like what a browser is can be a pain for support or probably would never signup either.
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#8It's not a lot of work to get a Windows/IE virtual environment up and running on a Mac, I use Virtualbox daily in combination with https://github.com/xdissent/ievms This shell script automatically downloads Windows virtual machine images from Microsoft, so that testing can be done in IE6/7/8/9. You don't even need to use separate machines, if you get a Windows 7 virtual machine set up you can use IE Tester to run IE5…
It's actually much more work to test on a Mac when developing on a Windows machine since Apple is so protective of OS X that they don't allow it to run in a vm. Which is sad because I like to have all kinds of users but it's really really difficult to accommodate for all you guys browsing on a mac. Please hit me with hints to make life easier for myself if you have some...
but at least there is Safari for Windows
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#9It's not a lot of work to get a Windows/IE virtual environment up and running on a Mac, I use Virtualbox daily in combination with https://github.com/xdissent/ievms This shell script automatically downloads Windows virtual machine images from Microsoft, so that testing can be done in IE6/7/8/9. You don't even need to use separate machines, if you get a Windows 7 virtual machine set up you can use IE Tester to run IE5…
It's actually much more work to test on a Mac when developing on a Windows machine since Apple is so protective of OS X that they don't allow it to run in a vm. Which is sad because I like to have all kinds of users but it's really really difficult to accommodate for all you guys browsing on a mac. Please hit me with hints to make life easier for myself if you have some...
Agreed. Not a single person in my company (a whole five people) owns a Mac, and it leaves us with no real options on the compatibility front. I prefer to develop in Linux, but I have a Windows partition since it's easy enough to do. But none of us have the pocket change lying around to buy a redundant machine just to check up on some demonstrably minimal segment of our users who use Safari on OS X.
I'll put in the time to boot into a Windows partition and double-check IE9, but when it comes to OS X/Safari, I've got little recourse but to crossing my fingers and bank on Safari's Webkit rendering being the same as (or close enough to) Chrome in Windows and Chromium in Linux.
Safari DOES have a Windows version, but I've never seen it enter into the conversation at all. Is it guaranteed to have true rendering/display parity with the OS X variant?
Re: Supporting IE Is Too Much Work
#10As always, it depends on your audience. If 1% of your users have IE, then it may well be too much work to support it - although 8/9 are a massive improvement on 6/7.
On the other hand, if you're in my position and run a site where 100% of the users have IE installed in a corporate environment (i.e. often an old version), support is never 'too much work'.