Upon reading this charming post on the IEBlog (a clueless attempt at self-deprecatory humor concerning IE8), I am urged to quote from this old chestnut (links & emphases added, with apologies to Zeldman):
Old software does not support standards. […] It would be swell if we could have backward compatibility and pure standards compliance. But we can’t. We have to choose. […]
For years, we’ve been taught to be good little web designers, building sites that work in browsers that don’t. Each site we build the old-fashioned way becomes one more dung heap of bad code, one more web destination that will eventually stop working as browsers and standards evolve.
The longer we do it, the more doomed sites proliferate. […]
Enough already. We finally have good browsers. Let’s use them.
I am sick unto death of dragging IE kicking and screaming into the 21st century. For personal projects, I no longer give a damn about how it looks/behaves in IE. Professionally, I will continue to utilize the concept of progressive enhancement (with a much sharper edge), longing for the day when we can all kick IE to the curb.
I will shortly be adding this snippet in a strategic location in my blog template:
<!--[if IE]>
<h1>
Page look weird?
<a href="http://getfirefox.com">Get a real browser.</a>
</h1>
<![endif]-->
I really don’t care whom I offend, thanks to the example set by the IE team.
You couldn’t pay me enough to be in the position Dean Hachamovitch is in right now. It’s unwinnable, and his silence up until now was probably the only thing he felt he could have done safely. It was still a bad move. And so was that blog post. Yuck.
That said, I’d reconsider placing that source code on your page. The IE’s still make up some 58% of the browser landscape, and while I know you know that already, and have already factored that into your decision, I just want you to give it another thought. Is exclusion the first impression you want to give?
I just noticed that you already did it. I don’t know when that happened - before or after my comment, but I see it’s there.
It’s not nearly as bad as I thought - I had imagined it as an if-else where you’d only see the “get a real browser” text and couldn’t navigate the site at all unless you got not-IE.
I guess I could have intimated that from the code - you know, by just reading the code instead of assuming you were going to take the most exclusionist of policies - but I went and assumed. My bad, dude. Sorry about that.
I was definitely flushed when writing this, originally. I don’t envy the IE team, bearing the brunt of reactions like mine. It’s hard to explain how I don’t conflate Microsoft the corporation with Microsoft the people (you of all people should have an inkling of this), and perhaps the post itself could use an edit or three.
This is actually the only place I feel remotely comfortable with actually using the conditional comment block, and it’s not as if I pretend that I can get paid for stuff that does.
I wasn’t offended by your first comment (I was actually forced to re-read my post, after the dust settled, and found myself sounding shrill–a valuable perspective gained), but I do appreciate your efforts to clarify. I do hope the IE team succeeds in whatever goals they have set, because quite frankly the goals set by the community are nigh astronomical.
I should integrate some blurb in the comment area about Markdown syntax… Oh, and preview… gah… (edited your comments to incorporate the link)