Musings on Mass Uptake of IE7

I was thinking about the impact of the delivery of IE7 via Windows Update and the fact that most people will be in possession of a good quality modern browser in the near future. I think the shortcomings of the previous version were only really so prominent due to the period of inactivity which allowed the competition to overtake.

I developed a (probably quite sad) affection for Firefox due to the advanced state of it’s rendering engine and CSS support, but I think IE7 is actually an amazing achievement. To be in a situation where a number of different browsers running on different platforms can render in a consistent way is a big milestone. I now feel like I should also have an IE7 t-shirt and wear them on alternate days (although wearing FF regalia to TVP does seems a little rebellious).

So it looks like the major pain in web development is slipping away. The fight for web standards is almost starting to seem retro, because of the prominent awareness of all the issues in the general populous. I really enjoyed going to the @Media event this year, but it seemed like the speakers were struggling to cover material that people weren’t already aware of. This was a massive difference from the same event the previous year.

I’m extremely interested to see how Firefox develops in response to the IE7 full release. I think competition is extremely healthy, and will ensure that the renewed energy in the development of IE continues in the future.

In CSS terms I think my personal favourite is proper implementation of width and height, and full support for min-width and max-width. Simple, but so welcome!