POLL: Would you stop developing for IE7 to 'force' others to use Firefox/Safari etc?

[wheezy]

I've been a website developer for about 18 months, 1 year of that spent at a sweatshop making 5-7 sites a week, mostly in html and tables. During that time, IE was only a bother sometimes to me, and most of the time the fixes weren't too hard to figure out.

A few months back I got a new job, and have been pretty succesful at moving over to 'Web 2.0' and using CSS to design my pages. I've now since learned that IE7 is still a bastard child of the webworld, and M$ seems to be refusing to render valid, simple CSS code to W3C standards. I built a site last week that looked perfect in Safari, Firefox, Camino, Opera... but when viewed in IE7... suddenly looked like I had no idea how to built a website.

POLL: Would you outright give up ANY IE7 code adjustments, and just let your sites look like garbage in IE to help more avg users convert to a standards browser?

I would maybe add a footer that briefly stated if it looks like garbage, to download Safari / Firefox / Opera.

[tutubibi]

Not sure that this poll makes much sense.

Web developer is in the business of pleasing its customers not the other way around. If your site does not work on IE7 its your problem, regardless of a root cause. So unfortunately you don't have much choice there

[Grimace]

I find IE7 makes huge strides over IE6. It really depends on your target audience. For a personal site, you can even install things like "explorer destroyer" which opens up a "you're using a garbage browser -- here's how to get a better one" window when IE users view it. For a site you are being paid to make, the choice isn't really there.

[SilentPanda]

It wouldn't be worth it. If your web site wasn't popular nobody would probably care and if it was a popular site you'd just get a lot of e-mail stating that the web site was messed up. So why cause the hassle?

[miniConvert]

Didn't really feel there was a suitable poll option, but...

...no, I'd never alienate users. Whatever they use, I'll try and be considerate towards.

[atszyman]

Originally Posted by tutubibi

Not sure that this poll makes much sense.

Web developer is in the business of pleasing its customers not the other way around. If your site does not work on IE7 its your problem, regardless of a root cause. So unfortunately you don't have much choice there

There is always the other option for web developers.

It'll cost $x for something that will work in all the standards compliance browsers. However since Microsoft doesn't seem to like or adhere to standards it will cost an extra $y to ensure full IE compatibility.

This now puts the choice in the customer's hands and has the added benefit of some possible corporate pressure on MS to adhere to standards so companies can save some money.

[tomoisyourgod]

i'd love to tell the world to stop using IE, unfortunatley this will never happen... (hopefully one day, but not in the near future)

it's the biggest headache when Firefox, Opera and Safari all read CSS/HTML properly then IE doesn't.

If you put an option in that poll:-
"the world would be a better place for users and developers without IE" ...

...then i'd vote

[tutubibi]

Originally Posted by atszyman

There is always the other option for web developers.

It'll cost $x for something that will work in all the standards compliance browsers. However since Microsoft doesn't seem to like or adhere to standards it will cost an extra $y to ensure full IE compatibility.

This now puts the choice in the customer's hands and has the added benefit of some possible corporate pressure on MS to adhere to standards so companies can save some money.

I used word customer more in a sense of a visitor, thinking that you have to make visitors happy. And IE is still a gorilla of browser market share so there is really no other option. In fact, when faced with $ issue, many companies will (unfortunately) just make it work in IE without regard for standards, Firefox, Safari, Opera.

[hopejr]

I voted not really, but not because I don't run into problems too often. I will still develop for IE as long as it has a significant market share. It would be suicide for a site if it didn't have IE support.

[pengu]

you need an option that says:
"i'm a professional and take my job seriously, so i make SURE that sites are valid, accessible AND work in all major browsers".

[atszyman]

Originally Posted by tutubibi

I used word customer more in a sense of a visitor, thinking that you have to make visitors happy. And IE is still a gorilla of browser market share so there is really no other option. In fact, when faced with $ issue, many companies will (unfortunately) just make it work in IE without regard for standards, Firefox, Safari, Opera.

Ahh, I was thinking customer from the eyes of a web developer as the person/entity that commissioned the site. From that perspective it could either be quoted as "Standards compliant" + "IE" cost models or just break out the cost of ensuring IE compliance in the billing (maybe even itemize each browser tested). As companies or people who pay for these websites start to see the extra cost associated with ensuring compliance on IE versus the cost of ensuring compliance with browsers that follow the standards there might be more pressure on MS from this end.

If all browsers were standards compliant then theoretically the exact same code should render the same in all of the browsers (otherwise what good are standards?). When you have to cover non-compliant browsers it requires more work/time/code in order to make sure your work looks the same in as many browsers as possible and its possible that if those paying for the websites were shown a breakdown of these costs they might put pressure on the non-compliant browser manufacturers to fix their browsers rather than the browser forcing the web to conform to it.

It would be similar to Dell announcing that they are going to use a slightly modified PCI bus interface which would force PCI card makers to do extra design and verification to make sure that their standard PCI cards have the necessary fixes to function in one of the most popular computer brands.

[wheezy]

Originally Posted by atszyman

Ahh, I was thinking customer from the eyes of a web developer as the person/entity that commissioned the site. From that perspective it could either be quoted as "Standards compliant" + "IE" cost models or just break out the cost of ensuring IE compliance in the billing (maybe even itemize each browser tested). As companies or people who pay for these websites start to see the extra cost associated with ensuring compliance on IE versus the cost of ensuring compliance with browsers that follow the standards there might be more pressure on MS from this end.

If all browsers were standards compliant then theoretically the exact same code should render the same in all of the browsers (otherwise what good are standards?). When you have to cover non-compliant browsers it requires more work/time/code in order to make sure your work looks the same in as many browsers as possible and its possible that if those paying for the websites were shown a breakdown of these costs they might put pressure on the non-compliant browser manufacturers to fix their browsers rather than the browser forcing the web to conform to it.

It would be similar to Dell announcing that they are going to use a slightly modified PCI bus interface which would force PCI card makers to do extra design and verification to make sure that their standard PCI cards have the necessary fixes to function in one of the most popular computer brands.

Thank you. That's ... kind of what I'm trying to see. How can we make Microsoft 'learn' to play by the rules. My idea is just one odd way. This is a good way as well.

If we continue to just let IE do their own thing... then IE will never change. M$ has NO motivation.

[janey]

got no choice.

*&#$ing hate testing in all the browsers I can get my hands on, but that's what Parallels and Boot Camp and my PC are for.