Can SaveTheDevelopers save the developers?
29.03.08Filed Under: General
Recently I stumbled upon an interesting campaign website called SaveTheDevelopers.org. The aim of this website is to tell everyone in this world upgrade or change the web browsers to the latest version and dumb that evil Internet Explorer 6! So to make the campaign works, a small JS file can be installed in any website so that a message will prompt out for those who still using that evil browser “Upgrade or switch your browser now!”
Every web developers and designers knew that IE 6 is a nightmare browser, because a well coded website using standard CSS will turns out ugly in IE 6. So a lot of precious time and energy was spent just to make things right in that browser. Why care about the outdated browser? This is because there is still a lot of people using it. So born this website aimed to save the developer. But will this campaign successful?
Personally I’m not a developer but web designer and I do learn and code the web using standard CSS. I love Firefox, because it renders the way it should be, but when I force myself to test the website in IE 6, the whole website turns out broken and ugly! I’m not expert, so it took me several days to figure and solve it out, and still looks ugly but slightly better. Maybe because the website using heavy transparent PNG which is not supported by IE 6. I was totally exhausted and start to blame IE 6.
So when I saw SaveTheDevelopers, I was relieve because finally some one has stepped up and voice it out. But I do have a mix feeling on it because we have no right to tell people “hey you should change this, because this thing make me sick”. Plus, there is tonnes of non tech savvy people and they simply don’t care about software upgrades. Another thing is there is still a lot of PC using outdated Windows so IE 7 is not supported. And who cares about developers? JunJun from Sitepoint forum pointed it out very well “If it was ’savetheuser’ I’d be all for it, but who the heck cares about the developers?”
Will I join this campaign? Maybe not, because only 17% users of this blog is using IE 6 (47% using Firefox, hurray jay-han.com users!), and it can be annoying too. SaveTheDeveloper is a nice move, but it sounds more like a developer’s rant. But I think it’s a good move to educate people that there are other alternative browsers which is good to use too. But if is me, i will spread Firefox.
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Yes, I do agree IE6 really “spoil” a lot of good-looking, css heavy, png heavy sites. Take my blog for example, the gradient effect for the blog title looks totally terrible in IE6.
Currently, I’m trying Firefox 3 beta..well, some features are quite nice, but there’s still bugs.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pmya, the gradient effect using transparent PNG right, you need png hack to solve that.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:20 pmI agree that developing to support IE6 is a pain. I shared the same attitude a year ago, but I’ve realized that it’s something that can’t be ignored and at some point you’ll just have to learn to deal with it especially if your designing/developing a website for a client.
The unfortunate fact is that the majority of IE6 “users” are employees working an office job on a computer that is restricted to the software installed on it by the company IT department. Although we may be quick to put the blame on the IT department for not knowing better, the truth is that a lot of web-based software solutions custom developed for the companies rely on IE6.
However, I’m hoping this can change too. When IE8 comes out (it’s apparently fully standards compliant this time around), hopefully those IT departments will update the company boxes to the newer browser and that they are no longer tied down to web-based software essential to their workflow designed only for IE6.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:57 pmSam, you say it right. Companies computers are not very up to date, thus the high percentage numbers of IE 6 users. Plus many people are so get used to IE 6 and don’t care about software upgrades.
Well, for me, I will code for Firefox first, then test it out in IE 7 and Safari. If these three gets all right, then I will test using IE 6.
Btw, i found a great resource:
http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/
IE7 is a JavaScript library to make Microsoft Internet Explorer behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many HTML and CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6.
Sounds good!
March 30th, 2008 at 4:22 pmJay, this is a very informative post. I didn’t such website exists. Well, just like what you felt the first time, I’m relief to hear about this. I care much about webstandards. Even all the websites or Wordpress themes coded by me must undergo validity test. LOLs.
Most of my blog visitors use IE6 (highest percentage) and I’m about to tell the readers someday to change. If you notice, the header image is a PNG image. I have to find JS to make it displayed beautifully in IE6.
You’re right, trying to make our website looks nice in IE6 (when it’s already good in Firefox) is very tiring. I have to make another CSS file which is iehack.css in most of my themes.
Lastly, Firefox rocks!
April 1st, 2008 at 2:34 pmAt least they change to IE7 or IE8 if they hate Firefox that much. But who hates Firefox? LOLs.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:36 pmI hate Firefox. lol, not really, it just takes too much of my ram.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pmI use Maxthon (on IE6) and Opera as a user
I use Firefox in my developer mode