Jeff Croft brings up [version targeting][0] again, and casts it in the old “The Right Thing™” and “Worse is Better” debate.

While I still think version targeting is a stupid idea, my opinion is certainly not going to stop Microsoft from putting it in IE8. I predict that they will. But from the developer’s stand-point, the issue is still the same: do you put up with Microsoft’s bugs and broken design? Or do you code for the masses, and avoid this sort of kludgery and stick to the standards? (Because if you’re coding specifically to IE6, then you’re screwing all the Firefox and Safari users out there, and while 15%—give or take—may not sound like that much, that’s going to be about 150 million computers (assuming [an estimate of 1 billion computers by the end of 2008][1]). Most businesses would not choose to ignore this many potential customers. Hell, I’m sure even Microsoft is keeping an eye open as that number continues to creep up.) In addition, you are also screwing people using IE7 and early adopters of the erstwhile IE8.

The key question is, will Gecko and Webkit support version targeting? My suspicion is no. As far as I can tell, neither engine has ever tried to emulate the brokenness of IE6. And why would they add such cruftiness to their code base anyway?

So I actually don’t think it’s going to be that big of deal. The only people who really need it are developers too lazy to fix their sites to be standards-compliant, and who are continuing to rely on IE6’s brokenness. So basically these sites will only run on IE6 and IE8 and nothing else, not even IE7. They certainly won’t run on your Symbian-based Nokia, your Blackberry, your iPhone, or on your PSP or Nintendo DS. Ridiculous.

Face it. IE6 is going to end up on the trash heap of obsolescence just like everything else has. But as long as you’ve got access to open source code repositories and a compiler, you’re always going to be able to view a web page in Firefox 2.0. So don’t worry about document obsolescence. Backward compatibility isn’t the holy-grail everyone makes it out to be. If you’re going to upgrade, do it right, get rid of the cruft, and don’t look back! If you’re not, stick with tried-and-true technology (that doesn’t have bugs—so IE6 doesn’t count.) No one, [not even Microsoft][2], can make you upgrade.