Startup Skips IE Support, Claims $100,000 Savings 273
darthcamaro writes "Guess what — you don't have to support Microsoft's IE web browser any more to build a successful website. In fact, you might just be able to save yourself a pile of cash if you avoid IE altogether." (Here's the story, from a few days back, in Canada's National Post, about the frugal financing of social startup Huddlers.) Evidently, no one complained about the lack of IE support either. I'd like to read more details about what $100,000 worth of IE-specific development would buy, though; not being dependent on IE sounds great, but loses some sparkle if it means requiring Chrome or Firefox.
Useless (Score:4, Informative)
I'd like to read more details about what $100,000 worth of IE-specific development would buy, though
Boring pixel perfect rendering to make the artists happy. Blah. At least I know they're putting most of their effort into how it looks; I will have no use for it, and can avoid it.
Re:Useless (Score:5, Informative)
Webkit (Score:4, Informative)
I would target the latest version of webkit.
IE:
1) Developer tools
2) Server software
3) Desktop Software
4) Virus Checking your updates from Microsoft/MSDN
5) Specific time for setup, maintain IE development environment. (Server, Desktop, Tools)
6) Debug time for IE specific stuff and Development
And of course all the licensing BS costs.
I can see lots of reason to dump IE altogether and just target webkit.
-Hack
Re:imho (Score:2, Informative)
Did you know that really.__anything__() can be written as anything(really) ?
It's shennanigans (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, the summary has it wrong. The company is 4ormat, not Huddles. And read this article [techcrunch.com] for an explanation of how this claim is just a publicity stunt. It works just fine in IE (ironically, the only browser it doesn't work in is Opera).
Re:They skipped IE support on their ADMIN pages (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, modern IE isn't exactly that difficult to support. Most browsers are much more forgiving and less picky than they were just a couple of years ago so if it displays right in Chrome/Firefox, chances are it does actually work just as well in say, IE7+ anyway.
I wish this lie would simply go away. There is something fundamentally broken when your web browser requires non-standard markup in order to display standards-based markup.
IE 9+ maybe.... pre 9 I no longer bother for flashiness unless someone wants to pay. But, even then, since we're doing truly standards based development or utilizing supported toolsets on 99% of our websites anyways, we have very good odds of a large percentage of the website working all the way back to IE7, and the important workflows, i.e., ordering and purchasing, are tested thoroughly. That image flyover on hover, not so much.
Re:They skipped IE support on their ADMIN pages (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is that is you get IE out of the game, anything working in a browser either works in others of degrades gracefully.
It you get IE in the game, you have to test and develop whole chunks of your website twice.
Re:They skipped IE support on their ADMIN pages (Score:5, Informative)
You're kidding, right? IE8 lacks: Rounded corners, SVG anything, more robust font support, most HTML5 goodies (enhanced form support for things like validations and placeholders), text on canvas, CSS media queries, javascript optimizations like nested arrays and getElementsByClassName. IE8 is definitely a primitive browser.
IE9 is much closer, but it's still pretty bad. AFAIK it still doesn't support rounded borders + gradients and it has a number of problems with its SVG support. Others have linked to caniuse.com, but I'll point you in the direction of D3's issue tracker [github.com]>.
If you're doing a dead simple site, sure IE8 not too bad. If you're trying to take advantage of "new" features, you're pretty much SOL (even with IE9).