Like a cajun scream....

Anytime I design a website I dread... let me repeat that, DREAD looking at it in Internet Explorer. Why you ask? Simple. IE does not play well with others.

I don't know what Microsoft's problem is but I'm guessing it's that they think they are right and everyone else is crazy. There are functions and behaviors in IE that make NO sense. As an example, tonight I saw something that I have never seen before. Two DIV layers were created when there was only code for one. Why is this you ask? Because I had a "center" tag before the DIV layer. HUNH!? Exactly. Makes no sense to me either but it only took me an hour or so to figure out that little bit of lunacy.

Here is the problem: While everything works fine on every other browser I have, IE plays by it's own rules. So much so that they had to create a piece of HTML known as "If IE". What it does is tells the webpage that if you are looking at that page in IE to use a certain set of rules. The fact this piece of code even HAS to exist is insane.

IE has plagued web designers since day one. When other people looked at the shortcomings of that browser they decided to take matters into their own hands and now you have a handful of browsers to choose from. (mind you they all tend to work the same way... more or less. I'm looking at you Safari.)

I am all for having proprietary ideas. trying to standardize something with a militant fist is not the answer either (hear that W3?). However while IE was working on a way to make your text scroll and annoy people who come to your website, everyone else was trying to devise functions that were useful... ok well maybe not Netscape but I digress.

Thankfully people are wising up. The newer versions of IE have finally caught up to everyone else in some respects and are implementing CSS3 tactics... but not as many as they could. I refuse to switch because so many still have IE8 and I need to make sure stuff will work as best it can.

Except for those still using IE 6. You can suffer.