Well guys you better didn't start me on this one. Here I respectfully
disagree with you. As bad as IE is, alternatives are even worse, at
least from my point of view as a developer. The "open source
community" keeps squabbling about whether certain things are their
bugs or "features differing them from competing platform (read - evil
Bill G. with his IE)". The fact that these things are de-facto
programming standards (not just IE but also Opera and Safari) means
nothing for them - as long as it's not spelled out in W3 standards
they feel free to do it any way they wish and strive to make it as
un-Microsoft as possible.
Well, I'm just a lousy 2-bit programmer who hesitate to even claim the
title developer. Here I respectfully disagree with you. The fact is
developing for just one single platform is inherently easier than
trying to do so for 3 platforms. Naturally if you just picked IE and
specialized in it, it's obviously "easier" than Firefox for you. Just
like my attempts usually work on Firefox, then find that I have to
waste time making it work too on IE if the client wants it.
I doubt any of us pro-OSS programmer/developer set out deliberately to
do something just to break compatibility with Microsoft's browsers.
Sorry to disappoint you but we, or maybe just me, set up to achieve
certain objectives set by the client in the easiest and cleanest way
possible for the targeted browser. It's just too bad that if the end
result doesn't work with full functionality on IE, at least we will
provide a degraded alternative. Can't say so for many of the IE-only
sites around that just plain won't work on alternatives.
Add to that that MS Visual Studio is head
and shoulders above Venkman debugger and whatever 3rd party text
editor you pick - and you got the picture.
It's entirely a matter of personal choice and preferences I believe.
No surprise then that many
sites have limited functionality, or don't even display correctly in
Firefox. It's so much easier to develop internal corporate sites for
IE only.
Ditto for the reverse. I usually only develop for internal sites. So I
get the added benefit of telling my client they can at least not worry
about IE exploits, and that they can save money on their new machines
by not paying the Microsoft Tax since FF will run on Linux. Somehow
the thought of saving some $700+ (OS + Office) on multiple machines
and not worry about the myriad worms/trojan/viruses that infect
WIndows systems, makes for a rather convincing sales pitch =P
Nor do they need to bang their heads on the table like one of my
clients did when they got Vista and found that one of their critical
apps does not work. Ironically, it was specifically IE7 that didn't
work with it
When it comes to external sites - Firefox with less than 10%
user base takes disproportionate development efforts, and still some
features have to be dropped (or, to say politely, 'left out for future
development').
As mentioned, your stats are outdated.
In other words, if Firefox disappeared overnight, very
few developers would shed a tear.
I would, it means I would have to learn to develop for TWO browsers
IE6 and IE7, instead of one, FF. Plus, I can't tell clients I'll have
to charge extra to make the site work with IE =P
And yes, it _may_ be safer - simply
because most hackers wouldn't go after roughly 10% market share,
opting instead for over 80% IE share. I bet if somebody was truly
interested in cracking Firefox defences, it would be even easier than
with IE simply because its inner workings are open to everyone to mess
with.
And any such exploit would be plugged within days, rather than the
weeks it usually takes for Microsoft.
