As read on Alex Russell’s Infrequently Noted:
The single most frustrating thing for me as a web developer is the incredible disconnect between day-to-day development and the shiny, shiny stuff showing up in HTML5 and modern browsers. (…) How bad is it? The next time you read some tech journalist write about how some new browser version is just around the corner and how it’ll make everything better, remember that:
- 50+% of Windows users are on XP a year after Windows 7 shipped and 3.5 years since Vista shipped
- Windows XP will be supported until 2014, giving organizations on XP extra breathing room to limp along on IE 6-8
- There will be no IE 9 for Windows XP
- After something like 4 years of MSFT urging customers in the strongest possible language to get off of IE 6, it still has 16% of the market, and it’s not falling nearly fast enough. At the current 0.75%/month dropoff, we’re looking at 20+ more months of IE 6.
- At this rate, kids born today will be walking and maybe even talking by the time we can write IE 6 into the history books.
And you know what? Most of these helpful developers for plan B actually work in the Montreal Google office!
I think it would make a great post on NextMontreal, guys get in touch with Patrick so he can write a bit about this (yeah we know, you have NDAs up the wazoo at Google, but there is a lot of public stuff you can talk about too).
A Frog in the Valley 