Why Internet Explorer Sucks
My CSE 190 M course is devoted to teaching proper web site development. The fundamental design of HTML and the World Wide Web is written with detailed standards, and if a web site developer obeys these standards, his/her pages should look the same in every browser on every computer. But Internet Explorer and Microsoft have spent years going out of their way to make their browser behave in ways that are contrary to these standards. This makes it much more difficult to develop web sites that will work properly on every machine. Many web developers have been forced to make the difficult choice: Should I make a site that looks/behaves right in IE, which has long had the majority market share, and looks wrong for everybody else? Or should I follow the web standards so that it will look right everywhere but IE, thus losing the largest potential market of visitors?
The reason Microsoft has been able to get away with this horrible, monopolistic, bullyish behavior is because web developers have not taken a stand. No one has been willing to simply say, “IE, if you don’t play by the rules, you’re not welcome here.” As an educator, I don’t want to teach my students a bunch of hacks and workarounds so that their pages work in a web browser that willingly goes out of its way to break things for everybody else.
There are other major problems with IE, such as its chronic security holes that make your computer vulnerable to all kinds of malicious software. Many of the large “bot nets” of “zombie” computers that have been infected by viruses and malware are due to flaws in Internet Explorer that have been exploited.
Therefore, I block my course web site from being viewed in Internet Explorer; its users are not welcome. If a person would like to visit my course web sites, they must do so with another browser. Sorry for the inconvenience. (Not to get too preachy, but if you tried another browser, you might actually find that they all have more features and work better than IE does. I’m just saying.)
P.S. Don’t take my word for it. Visit these fine sites to learn more about why IE sucks:
I agree that IE sucks and developers should develop for other browsers. But I wonder if your students are being served by this approach, considering in the wide world many of them will be expected to develop for IE as well as other browsers. Are your students going to be less employable because of your approach? I don’t mean to be harsh, but the reality is that web developers don’t get to live in a perfect world when they are in the real world.
I was looking at your course website and notice you focus a lot on Firefox, which I liked for a long time, but sort of sucks now too. What about Chrome? I’ve been using it exclusively and I really like it.
We don’t focus on Firefox. We focus on web standards. If you code for Firefox, your app will already work in Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc. There are two worlds on the web: The IE (broken) world, and the web standards (everybody else) world. If you code for IE, your app will work only in IE, blocking out every single other browser and device. This includes iPhones/iPads, Macs, Linux boxes, Firefox users, Chrome users, etc.
The right way to do things is to code to standards, not hack for IE. If people do this consistently, Microsoft will be the one left behind and will be forced to play by the rules.
Besides, I’m not telling anyone they can’t tailor their web site to look nice in IE. I’m just saying that I refuse to teach that in my 190M course, since it’s a waste of time IMO; and that if they want to learn this, they’ll have to learn it themselves. I do provide links to learn such things in my 190M materials.
I understand, and I don’t disagree with your perspective. But I do think in some areas (enterprise applications especially) the majority of applications are written to comply with IE and nothing else. I don’t think this is a good way to develop either, but I do think some of your students will be looking for jobs in those areas. Perhaps you are trying to start some kind of revolution but from my non-academic perspective, revolutions are useless when you are trying to make rent.
I got my info about the browser from your syllabus. “The recommended software for the course is the Firefox web browser (with Firebug add-on), and the TextPad (Windows) or Smultron (Mac) text editor. The course web site has links to download this software.” But I don’t think Firefox is so great any more.
Keep fighting the good fight, though.
That’s fine that you don’t like using Firefox any more. But this has little to do with what browser is most pleasant to use for daily web surfing. The fact is that Firefox is an excellent web development platform because it has a number of sophisticated tools, features, add-ons, etc. specifically made to help with web development. Chrome and the others are still far behind in this area and need to catch up. Feel free to play in Chrome all you like; but for web development with JavaScript, PHP, Ajax, etc., it stinks.
Point taken. I haven’t tried to do much fancy development in Chrome. In fact I don’t even have the skill set to do anything too fancy (which is why I was looking at your website — I was thinking about taking this class, but it didn’t work with my schedule this time).
It’s true that I was looking at this discussion more from the end user perspective, and I do think that’s relevant, because your students’ future clients could be IE users either by their own laziness or by force from a corporate IT department. Alternate browser use is growing, but my stats show that on the site I support, the top browser used is still IE. And with so many enterprise applications making the jump to being web-based, seems to me like that’s a lot of jobs.
But maybe I read this post wrong. I originally interpreted as you saying that you would not teach your students to develop so that sites work in IE. But now I see: “As an educator, I don’t want to teach my students a bunch of hacks and workarounds so that their pages work in a web browser that willingly goes out of its way to break things for everybody else.” So you don’t WANT to, or you don’t? I am not sure.
“Perhaps you are trying to start some kind of revolution but from my non-academic perspective, revolutions are useless when you are trying to make rent.”
Unfortunately, this has the potential to be a very incorrect statement. The more you do things with the aim of making money (I know, everyone needs rent) the more unsuccessful you will prove to be at it. Trust me, I’ve been there and I’ve seen other’s go there.
Marty’s passion and resultant focus is what makes him so successful. Marty is young (sorry Marty, I’m not sure how much you like or dislike your age being pointed out like that). We are very nearly the same age, and he is MY professor which, for me, is both embarassing and inspiring.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s taken more than one class with him. He’s damned effective and I can’t see his success coming to an end any time soon.
I don’t think he got to where he is today by following the herd. To the contrary, he 1)is educated about what he’s talking about and 2)acts on what he recognizes as needing positive change. If he’s willing to share that model of success with you – a model that brings positive change to your industry and doesn’t leave you stranded at the behest of a bully making all the rules – I think it could quite possibly be one of the best business decisions you’ve ever made (and make you a whole lot more than just rent).
I say ‘you,’ because, well, CS is not my industry. I chose to leave the world of technology to pursue another passion… I’ll be reading books for a living… we’ll see how much rent that makes me
PS: incase this post is construed as ass-kissing for a grade-raise, you will see I have not used my real name, nor my school email address XD
also, posted using IE! HAHA!