Yawn, “IE6 must die”, yawn…

Way back in 2010, Kyle Simpson proposed that a new version of IE should live beside an older version to allow the new IE to prosper while the old one remains stable for enterprises that require its proprietary features:

The IE (Consumer Edition) would at its heart be a very different browser than the IE (Platform Edition). Instead of releasing once every couple of years, IE-CE could release every couple of months. IE-CE could ditch all that legacy JScript extension junk (and ActiveX!) and fully conform to open web standards. They could embrace SVG, canvas, video, CSS3, and all the other amazing things that IE9 is only barely now giving us a glimpse of. Microsoft could stop being the joke of the open web community, stop playing catch up, and actually take the lead in helping innovate in the consumer browser space.

And all the while, they could keep (and from time to time, back-port to) IE-PE stable and reliable for the Platform world. IE-PE would be Microsoft’s proprietary extensions on the open-web consumer browser experience. IE-PE would serve the needs of corporations and sysadmins by giving them stability and security and not be bothered by all the “noise” of the rapidly changing consumer browser market.

I wonder if he called it. Will “Project Spartan” live alongside IE11? I guess time will tell.

PS - I love this opening rant from that post. I still feel this way, nearly five years later:

I am so entirely bored by the “IE6 must die” movement External Link. All you people out there who think you’re on some high horse of morality and rightness for the web’s future — this is a complete waste of effort. It’s useless windbaggery and nonsense. To date, I don’t think a single user has ever upgraded their IE6 simply because some douche-bag developer told them to. You live in a bubble if that’s how you think the real world works.

And while we’re at it, you sites out there who intentionally abandon IE6 support, not because it makes sense for your site (and not because you’ve provided a reasonable fallback graceful degradation for the less fortunate), but instead just because you want to flip the finger at Microsoft… well, you suck. And you know who else sucks? The sites who intentionally employ techniques they know will cause IE6 to crash External Link, as sort of a holier-than-thou “screw you” to a user who still surfs any of the web with IE6.

Then there are those who feel that we can create self-fulfilling prophecies and that will make this problem go away. Or the nagging site banners and twitter icon overlays reminding everyone just how much of a jack ass you are about IE6. Yeah right. Amusing, I guess, but not productive.

Get over yourselves, already. There, I said it. Deal with it.

I just give IE6 the mobile layout and no JS and call it a day.