I think what we're seeing is a division between those who are driven to explore the boundaries of development and those whose top priority is simply making money with their work. And don't get me wrong, I used to be one of the "cutting-edge" explorers. Not in the world of web development, but in a previous field.
Partly, this is just a sign of my growing older and having to take care of concerns such as the mortgage, kids in college, etc., as well as my realization that browsers are constantly changing and that the perfect cross-browser solution I develop today will be irrelevant tomorrow. Already there's a huge discussion about the impact on development of FF3. IE 7 has made a huge difference over IE 6. Personally, I can't wait for IE 6 to go away, if for nothing else so I can use transparent png's natively. So I've decided to just split all these concerns down the middle and be pragmatic. I'll develop for the users (not the browsers) that will be viewing my work. I'm not aware that anyone has ever even viewed one of my sites on Opera. My stats show about 98% of visitors to sites are IE users. I throw in concern for Firefox, because it is catching on with more people and shouldn't be ignored. But, it's just not worth it on a monetary level, to spend so much time trying to make everything work well for every user environment. The users have to make some compromises, too. And various browsers are becoming so cross-platform that it's much easier for users to use whatever browser they like for the OS platform. Again, my approach is simply a pragmatic one. I'll leave it up to you guys with the time, energy, and constant salary where you can afford to spend 4 days on a tiny issue with an obscure browser for the sheer pleasure of conquering the problem. That doesn't concern me... I just need to keep the work flowing and pleasing my clients. I'm self-employed, which, I think makes a big difference in perspective, too. We're all going to approach this a little (or a lot) differently depending on life circumstances and goals. Just some thoughts... no rocks, slings, or arrows. :o) Rick > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Ingo Chao > Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 3:04 AM > To: css-d@lists.css-discuss.org > Subject: Re: [css-d] How will firefox 3 affect web developers? > > Rick Faircloth wrote: > > ... > > > > Some developers are idealists who want to live in the world *they* develop > > as far > > as what browsers deserve attention and development time. The rest of us > > live in > > the real world. > > I challenge any developer to ... > > You can't expect them to explore IE only. It would be just too boring. > If there weren't those who experimented with all browsers, those who > came back with spin-off solutions for IE in their hands and cared to > share their knowledge for your daily convenience in this IE self help > group, then today you and your business would probably be left alone > with an unobstrusive script that doubles the margin of floats in > inferior browsers that aren't used very often. > > Ingo > > -- > http://www.satzansatz.de/css.html > ______________________________________________________________________ > css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d > List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ > List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html > Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
