“Is Supporting Internet Explorer Too Much Work?”

There is a discussion over at Hacker News about whether supporting Internet Explorer is too much work. Some argue that web designers should get over it. IE9 is fine now and it's time to move on.

But while that argument may hold some merit, the grudge web designers hold will be hard to overcome. Optimizing websites for IE has cost web designers time and money. It has cost their clients money. It was a frustrating process whereby the designers got heat from their bosses and their clients. That is something most designers will probably remember forever.

It's not the bad software that lost Microsoft so much goodwill from the designers. Software can be fixed. It was the attitude from Microsoft towards the problem. It simply took them too much time to make things better. IE9 might be a good browser now and most designers might acknowledge that. But ~10 years is way too long for a big corporation like Microsoft to make things right.