Browser Compatibilty. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

Browser Compatibility. Or Not.

Browser Compatibility has come a long way in the past couple of years. That being said, still we find web developers hacking site code to produce acceptably similar results across the playing field.

Recently, most browsers are starting to really kick into high gear with the all new HTML5 and CSS3 support. This is a good thing. What isn’t so cool though is that once again, Internet Explorer and Microsoft in general have thrown a monkey wrench into what should have been next years end to cross-browser compatibility woe’s.

Now don’t get me wrong. Nothing will ever end the compatibility problems so long as all of these browsers do absolutely nothing to abolish their predecessors. By nature, I firmly believe that a good browser should FORCE an update after some ridiculously long time passes. Any amount of time, be it a year, or even two years; will greatly benefit the state of browser usage across the web.

So back to the main rant here. It would appear that Internet Explorer 9 is going to fall short on both HTML5 and CSS3 support. This means once again that while the other browsers are starting to be fairly compatible and standards compliant, that web designers are going to have to resort to CSS hacks, crazy javascript implementations, and lots of coffee.

Don’t take my word for it. Have a good look at CanIUse.com and see for yourself.

Internet Explorer 9 is actually going to lower standards compliance by 1%, while still not even breaking the half-way point. What’s more, the more common features of CSS3 are simply not there at all yet, despite the web actually adopting them by leaps and bounds in recent months.

Rounded Corners
Border Images
HSLA Colors (RGBa will be partially supported)
Text Shadows
CSS3 Transitions
Proper (and anti-aliased) @font-face support (not that EOT crap)

Most (and I hate to use the term) Web2.0 type sites feature lots of the above recently, the web is alive with some very good looking sites that depend less and less on Photoshop and high bandwidth content like flash.

In closing. I wish Internet Explorer 9 would have signaled a better day for web designers; however it seems it was never meant to be. Once again, Microsoft have to be different, and the rest of us suffer for it. So for the time being, I’ll be a weakling and a cheat and choose Photoshop over CSS hacks and bad coffee.