Letting Go of Legacy Code

Taking my own advice, I’ve updated my “crappy browser” messages to include Internet Explorer 5.5. IE 5.5 is now 5 years old (1999), and it’s time to encourage more and more people to move up.

Since IE6 supports the correct CSS box model (in “almost standards” mode), I’m not going to bother with the CSS box model hack in the new design. This is 2004 people… get with the program. If users insist on hanging on to outdated technology, then they need to understand that at some point they’re going to be left behind.

Microsoft has left behind Windows 95/98/Me, Apple has let go of anything prior to Mac OS X 10.1.5 (pretty much), and I’ve let go of IE prior to 6.0. At some point, you just need to bite the bullet and let the legacy code go. That’s where I’m at.

If you’re a die-hard Internet Explorer 5.0 user, sorry. If your company still hasn’t upgraded their systems with IE6, either find a new one that’s on-the-ball, or create a fuss to get IE6 installed (if not a better browser like Firefox).

Discussion

Darice

July 24, 2004

Just today I was trying out an alert message for IE browsers. I tried using a hidden div and
some css hack to show to IE only. But it messed up my layout even more under IE. My website is very anti-IE so using Firefox, Mozilla or Safari is a must to enjoy it. In the newest Opera there is a bug with my navigation, no idea how to solve that. Never liked Opera, it has some problems with positionings.

OracleGuy

July 26, 2004

I agree; and of course there are the obvious security reasons that make it unwise to keep using anything below IE6. Of course the argument that people aren’t smart enough to upgrade their browser, they might not even realize there are other browsers in existance, the only way they’ll realize that they need to upgrade is when they start getting warnings saying the browser they are using is out of date.

In a sense, supporting IE at all is being generous. I mean IE6 is three years old, that’s ancient technology, practically. And the supposed IE updates promised in SP2 of XP aren’t exactly around the corner.

Flailing Wildly
Too much straw, not enough camel.