Do you hate IE? Attention, web developers!
There’s no easy way to say this – if you hate or bash Internet Explorer for not showing your site correctly or breaking some functionality on your site, then I really think you should evaluate your web development skills!
I’m not saying I’m perfect – I have flaws and errors around my sites as well – but I don’t bash IE nor do I bash Chrome, Safari or Firefox – not normally that is. I bash the webdevelopers! I wanted to make this post, because it might shed some light on why you should look into your own development skills first before lashing out and complaining about the “parsing product” that your clients use.
Even this exact URL is not compliant! My excuse? I use a plugin to make my blog-posts via a pretty text-admin-page-editor. A plugin I haven’t updated for 3 years. So there might be a new version out there that cares more about conformity to standards. Lesson? Check your plugins for standards-compliance.
So – tips – BEFORE you start bashing Internet Explorer – VALIDATE your site using the W3C Validator page:
W3C Validator – HTML + CSS validation
http://validator.w3.org/unicorn – if your site doesn’t pass the validation – you are NOT allowed to bash IE for YOUR mistakes. Correct them and try again 🙂
There is also Microsofts http://modern.ie – but it’s very flashy – give it a try – you might learn something new 🙂
For the lazy devs – X-UA-Compatible metatag
<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=8,IE=9,IE=10″></meta>
If you can’t keep up with the IE release cadence, then use a meta-tag to ensure that your clients IE-browser renders your page correctly. In my opinion, this should only be used, when you’re not able to test your site in time for a new imminent release of a new version of IE.
For more info: see this TechEd New Zealand Video – I REALLY recommend it – The browser you loved to hate
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NewZealand/2013/WCL312
Update 2019-01-26
Internet Explorer is dead – move on please! But please validate and pressure your plugin/theme-designers to be compliant – I might not be anymore, since moving to WordPress though. But I will work on it.
Tags: validation, html, xhtml, ie6, ie7, ie8, ie9, ie10, ie11, hate, browserwar, crappy ie