Not sure what you’re saying here but what does firebug have that the developer toolbar in Safari (webkit) doesn’t? I never touch firefox.

So we all know your a big lover of Mootools. Have you looked at YUI 3? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.

Love the blog by the way :)

Let’s face it though, we all know that IE6 compatibility is usually a trivial matter and we should do it automatically. Still, I sometimes like to remind my site users that they are not seeing the web in all its splendour if they’re using IE6, and that they should upgrade or switch their browser. There’s nothing wrong with educating our users, and leading them in the direction of open standards as a counterweight to some corporations that have historically led them in the opposite direction. We are stewards of our medium and should use our influence to support the health of the web’s ecosystem.

In all my past professional projects for a big gaming/internet company, I never had much of an issue with IE6 – the occasional double margin bug occured, yes, but nevertheless most things where fixed by half a page of CSS included via a conditional comment.

Concerning 24bit PNGs – where it’s not essential, use 8bit-gifs instead (again, “overwriting” the same background-definitions via a conditional comment and extra CSS), especially on clickable elements, as the htc-fix doesn’t like those. For background and their like, the htc-fix does the work as intended.

Nevertheless, there are still things that can’t really be fixed, like the IE not being able to give input-values a negative text-indent, so image replacement for buttons doesn’t really work – either use image-inputs or use JS to remove the value-property. I’m using a FancyForm-Class which does form checking, noticing the user about unfilled or invalid input contents and if the browser is in fact using the Trident-engine, removing certain problems with IE in this case.

“Not supporting IE6″ does not mean every IE6 user out there is going to come to your client’s site, see some overflowing divs, non-transparent images, etc. and freak out and hit the eject button.

While it will definitely make for a less appealing experience for them, if you design your site well structurally, it should not be unusable in IE6, and should not cost your client much (if any) business. Ugly maybe, but not unusable.

Some current clients I am working, GE and Toyota, corporate policy is still set on IE6, but the portal applications are targeted for ‘modern’ browsers, yet still degrade nicely for IE6. This is also true of some education clients I support, where one cannot eliminate access to constituents simply because of a design preference, laziness or arrogance (take your pick)

Based on your logic, if applied to vehicles, we should not have any cars that are out of warranty on the road. While that may be a little bit of a stretch, it just goes to show that we cannot always be on the edge of technology, and even if we are, we need to make the best decisions for our clients.

As professionals it is our duty to provide the best support to our clients, guide them, educate them, and work with them – after all, they are writing the checks…

(MS Lifecycle info: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps/#Internet_Explorer)

Supporting IE6 is a drain on developers chargeable time, so we usually end up billing more for that work. Some developers might argue that if a client asks for it, and is prepared to pay for that extra work, then that’s just fine for everyone, but if we are honest we know that the client is going to see very little return on the substantial investment of time spent polishing the turd that is IE6.

That cost and effort would almost certainly be better spent on developing improved features that add value for the overwhelming majority of their paying customers.

It’s part of our job as developers to inform and advise our clients about all aspects of the investment they are making when developing a website, including helping them to see when the numbers don’t actually stack up.

We are their to share our expertise and domain knowledge to help them achieve their ultimate goals, not just to maximise our profits by executing work of dubious value to both them and their users.