Browser Upgrades

Dean Hachamovitch, I have a bone to pick with you.

You just wrote a (mostly hand waving) blog post on the IEBlog outlining how "the choice to upgrade belongs to the person responsible for the PC." This post was in response to a Digg.com survey regarding why people are still using IE6, a 9 year old browser that is essentially holding the entire web development community hostage.

I applaud you for approaching the topic openly and I understand that your POV is grounded in pragmatism, but I think you've missed the point.

Yes, I am an enthusiast, and enthusiasts love living on the bleeding edge. I remember dutifully installing IE 5.5 Beta 1 on my Windows 98 SE box back in 1999. In those days, I wasn't really a web developer (beyond my Geocities "personal homepage"). I don't remember noticing any differences between IE 5 and IE 5.5, aside from a few little UI tweaks and a fancy Print Preview feature. This is how non web developers perceive new web browser releases - It's just a chore; change for the sake of change. Why should I upgrade to the latest version when the version I'm on works just fine?

This is precisely why upgrading shouldn't be left up to the user or system administrator, because the status quo is perceived to be easier even if it's counter-productive to the global community. In order for the web to evolve, the lowest common denominator needs to evolve with it.

I can hear the retort now: "But we don't care about the global community. We care about the bottom line. And the bottom line means we want to keep using the same crusty Windows XP image that we created back in 2004 that we subsequently wrote tools for using non-standard IE6-specific code that we're stuck with because the tool developers have since moved on to other jobs and can't update them to work with new browsers."

Cry me a river.

I work on the IBM Rational Jazz Foundation. We upgrade our servers every 4-6 weeks to the latest code, forcing everyone to upgrade their clients on their systems. This chore has just become part of the job. I have no choice, I just have to do it. And I've become quite fond of this monthly dance. Small jumps are much less painful than big jumps.

IE6 people are going to start noticing that more and more pages are broken for them because developers can't justify supporting them any longer. If users were forced to update their browsers, the world would be a better place. It's as simple as that.

The solution to this problem doesn't need to be as draconian as I'm suggesting. Just prod the user more forcefully. Do a better job of providing incentives to upgrade. Release more incrementally. Back port new features into old browsers (instead of relying on the community to write hacky shims). Decouple IE8 from the core OS and allow two versions to coexist. Just do everything in your power to raise the bar.