I'm okay with newer pages not being viewable by browsers more than 10 years old. Upgrading your browser every half decade or so seems eminently reasonably, if only to ensure you get all of the security patches that are no longer being backported to EOL browsers. Of course, with browsers like chrome, they are auto-updating all the time anyways - so it's not like you have much of a choice.

What is more important to me is that older web sites continue to be browseable (to some degree, bit perfect rendering isn't essential) 20 years from now.

You like sites designed for IE6, but don't like vendor-specific code? Does not compute.

Perhaps because I didn't say nor mean both those things. Perhaps also because your parser mistranslates "sites designed for IE6" as "sites using MS-specific code".

The burden of IE6 support is less anything vendor-specific and more that the CSS standards are implemented in a buggy fashion.

You seem to be saying "simple sites are better and will continue to work longer." That may be true.

Sites built for IE6 aren't necessarily that, though. They may be using ActiveX for "cool" functionality that stopped being cool years ago.

In short: non-fancy may be better, in some ways, than fancy. Outdated fancy is surely not better than current fancy.

>I don't like how inaccessible HTML5 and CSS3 techniques are to older browsers.

Because these technologies came into existence after these browsers were made. Such is progress.

>I like how we try to make sites accessible for the blind

This is a law, and being blind is rarely a choice.

>sites that were build to render on IE6, will continue to render just fine

Because they were built with two codebases, one for regular browsers, one for IE6. Double the work for that 1%.

>experimental browser vendor-specific code

Browser specific code? Yes, if that code doesn't become standard. But IE6 required a lot of browser-specific code. The hopes are that the browser specific code gets the recognition for its usefulness and becomes part of the still-in-progress standard.

>Is that progress?

Yes.

>> Because these technologies came into existence after these browsers were made. Such is progress.

An example: the "about page" for Google Music. You need to download the newest Chrome to view it. I don't call it progress if accessibility and backwards compatibility get the shaft.

>>This is a law, and being blind is rarely a choice.

Two things: I hope you make sites accessible for the blind, not because it is law, but simply because you want the blind to access your content. Put another way: If it wasn't for the law, we could forget about the blind too? Accessibility needs a law for front-end engineers to take note?

Being on IE6 is rarely a choice too, especially in a corporate environment.

>>Because they were built with two codebases, one for regular browsers, one for IE6. Double the work for that 1%.

You don't need exceptions to make sites render on IE6. You only need exceptions if you start implementation in a modern browser, and make IE6 a minute after-thought.

>> But IE6 required a lot of browser-specific code.

Only if _you_ required hacks to make a design work.

>>Is that progress? Yes.

I don't think that was the progress that Tim Berners Lee had in mind. A progress where HTML documents from the HTML5 era become inaccessible to later generations.

Disclaimer: I am able to build sites that render in IE6, without much hacks or troubles or extra work, but I don't like working around its quirks. I don't have a strong opinion on why and when IE6 should die, and I certainly don't want to play that judge with my clients websites. I want maximum accessibility, and that includes IE6 in my opinion.

>You don't need exceptions to make sites render on IE6.

I disagree. IE6 doesn't support a lot of standards that other browsers supported, mainly due to not keeping up with changing standards.

>If it wasn't for the law, we could forget about the blind too?

Note that I said "being blind is rarely a choice", implying that we should code for the blind because they did not choose their limitations. If you're forced to use IE6 in a corporate environment, it's because the designer of a web app wrote it for IE6, not for "the internet Tim Berners Lee had in mind". No one is forcing you to use entertainment-based web apps at work, in fact your management might discourage it.

>I don't think that was the progress that Tim Berners Lee had in mind. A progress where HTML documents from the HTML5 era become inaccessible to later generations.

And you think that the designers of floppy disks intended for them to be thrown out when USB drives came into existence? THIS IS PROGRESS This is what progress does. Technology changes. Don't code for current technology, code for maintainability. If your code works on IE6 but is broken in newer browsers, your code is broken by design. There is a standard, and code that follows it will work in browsers that respect it. IE6 does neither.

You honestly seem to be arguing that IE6 was a perfectly compatible browser and was the pinnacle of browser design. I think you'll find a lot of disagreement, even from Microsoft themselves. We know enough about security these days to know that not upgrading is a bad idea.

>> You honestly seem to be arguing that IE6 was a perfectly compatible browser and was the pinnacle of browser design. I think you'll find a lot of disagreement, even from Microsoft themselves. We know enough about security these days to know that not upgrading is a bad idea.

If I honestly seem to be arguing that, I apologize. It also means this discussion is fruitless, because counterarguments are based on a perception that no one here holds. If anything I view IE6 as an accessibility issue.

> You don't need exceptions to make sites render on IE6. >> I disagree.

Hackernews renders on IE6 and it doesn't need exceptions. You don't need exceptions to make sites render on IE6. You might need a work-around or two (for example: opting for padding, instead of margin). You can still both code to standards and have it render without exceptions on IE6.

>>implying that we should code for the blind because they did not choose their limitations.

I disagree. User choice or forced, disability or no: accessibility is for everyone. Wether people choose to turn off javascript or their browser forces them shouldn't make a difference. Choice is no pre-requisite for accessibility, unless you make that choice for your users.

>> THIS IS PROGRESS This is what progress does.

In your analogy, at least you still have access to the data on the floppies. And if our current progress destroys the initial ideas for progress from authorities like TBL, doesn't that give reason to pause and reconsider the way we are heading?

No offense to TBL, but the Internet is not what he designed anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. He created an idea, and others took that idea and ran with it. To your point, yes sites render in IE6. Hacker News also looks like shit and was poorly put together.

There's something to be said about backwards compatibility. It doesn't exist, it shouldn't exist, and clinging to it holds back progress. Well designed code should just work, full-stop. Look at the jumble that is Windows, or Linux. Mac OSX is highly regarded, it's fast, its stable, and it "just works" so they say. It also has no backwards compatibility to worry about. How many lines of code are in Windows or Linux solely to make antique software work because the designer used unportable code?[1]

Design your production sites to the standard and they will last forever, regardless of what browser you use. Design them for IE6 and they will forever be broken.

Regardless, neither you nor I can change the course of the Internet. All we can do it sit back, enjoy the ride, and write code that works.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html (search for SimCity)

"I don't think that was the progress that Tim Berners Lee had in mind."

I don't think he had IE6's non-standard quirks in mind, either. Had they not come up with their own standard, the concept of graceful degradation would certainly have been easier.