IE9 Released, Media Has Opinions

Yesterday Microsoft released IE9 and since then we've been getting tons of submissions about it: It's hard to tell if it is a threat to web development or the fastest thing on the web or even a waste of time. You'll just have to decide for yourself... if you are one of the 9% of Slashdot readers who actually uses IE.

Comments

Re:91%

[Jugalator]

I am part of the majority. Me and 91% of the Slashdoters think that this story is irrelevant and IE is a piece of ...
Anyone else with me ? :-)

...

here we go again...

IE isn't irrelevant at all.

It's a major part of why the web works and looks like it does today, and IE affects how web sites work for you with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. You don't even have to use IE - these news still matter to you! Both as a developer, or an end-user.

The web is usually designed after the weakest link (usually IE, standards-wise), so of course this story is irrelevant.
The browser forming the weakest link is still the weakest, but today got a whole lot stronger than with IE 8.

We can finally start developing for some aspects of HTML5 without having to restort to relying on updates in some sort of cross-browser third party "compatibility library" where it's easier to just not use those features at all. So the features aren't used at all. So even if you aren't a developer, it still matters, since web sites will start working better.

Authors will now at least start being able to take the step to exploit the potential of Chrome 10 or Firefox 4 better while not having to worry about ~50% not able to be supported well.

IE 9 still has flaws, and is still not there with the competition, but it's miles ahead of IE 8.