Score a Point for Internet Explorer
As much as it surprises me to say, I’m becoming happier with the current version of Internet Explorer. One of the tougher aspects of web development is making sure the site you’re building works well on as many browsers as possible. This can be difficult, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is notorious for being the one browser that gives developers problems.
They know that over in Redmond, and they’ve taken some pretty smart steps to make things easier for developers. In Internet Explorer 8, it’s incredible easy to switch rendering engines, so you can view the site you’re developing in IE8 or IE7 as simply as clicking a button. This takes the headache out of installing multiple copies of IE on your machine or using a screenshot generating service to try and see how the site is being displayed.
As far as I’m aware of, this option doesn’t include IE6 rendering. This isn’t as much of an issue today, because an increasing majority of users are surfing on IE7 and IE8. This is great news, and it’s now becoming more justifiable to stop supporting IE6 altogether.
The bad news is that we’re not quite there yet. There is still a fraction of the populous that clings to IE6, and they should be able to at least access the site. The solution that I’m most excited about now is the idea about making the site basically functional in IE6, and leaving the polish and embellishments to the more current browsers.
I feel like Microsoft is rapidly catching up to the rest of the pack, and there is definitely some good things happening with the current iteration of IE. Although they haven’t eliminated the headaches that come with cross-bowser development, they packed their current browser with some serious medication.