The Web Development Discipline

This isn't about "web development discipline," it is a rant about how people should support IE6 cheerfully, with the idea that it is normatively incorrect not to support it.<p>Whether or not to support IE6 is reasonably a business decision based on your audience and resources for implementing. That balance shifts over time (note that we are not having this discussion about IE3, 4 or 5 any more).<p>If you need to support IE6 then yes, support it from the beginning. If you don't need to, then don't.<p>There is a valid role for advocacy and social pressure here, it is not writ from God that "thou shalt support IE6 even if it be costly with little benefit."

I think the biggest understanding of what this blog post is saying comes when the developer finally says "fuck it, IE will just have square corners."

Personally speaking, I don't target IE6 for the same reason i don't target IE1,2,3,4 or 5: I don't have the capability or resources to do it.<p>I guess that must make me a bad web developer then!

I think it's less the fact that the development process is undisciplined, and more the fact that it is just a bore to recode something beautiful for people who couldn't care less about it.

This position is even worse than the junior developer's, I hate developers with a 'You're doing it wrong because even I know how to do it' attitude. This guy's an accessibility developer , it's his job to know this shit.<p>First, he's delusional if you think you can learn Html, Css or Javascript in an afternoon. HTTP? Good luck reading through and <i>understanding</i> <a href="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html</a> in an afternoon.<p>I'd happily wager money that of a cross section of people who are employed as 'web developers' only a small percentage would know what a http response even looks like.<p>But the real killer is that he may work for companies who can increase their profits sufficiently by supporting IE6 that they can pay for all the extra mental effort involved in supporting IE6, but I don't.<p>I'm not doing it wrong by writing sites that aren't IE6 compatible. I'm deliberately deciding their business isn't worth the extra engineering or testing cost.<p>In the end Html5 is coming and people are starting to stop supporting IE6. We're already beginning to see the trickle of 'we don't support IE6' of major sites before the flood hits.<p>It's not poor engineering, it's just the future. I felt sorry for the junior web dev, he should have checked, but this guy's attitude is worse imo.