Modern Web Browsers

The Myths of Modern Web Browsers, and the Real Problem with IE

Browser Logos from Paul Irish

In a recent project that I’ve been working on I was able to reach a new level of frustration and aggravation with Internet Explorer. Any front-end developer with more than a week of experience could tell you horror stories about Internet Explorer and how wonderful it is to develop in ‘modern browsers’. We mistakenly clump Chrome, FireFox, Opera, and Safari under one inaccurate label, and not bother with a label for the versions of Internet Explorer. We need to correct our way of thinking about the differences between these browsers by looking atwhy they’re different. And if we consider the real reason that they’re different, we can fix the real problem with Internet Explorer.

Modernity is a Myth

Nothing you buy is the ‘best’. You’ll never buy the best smart phone, because there’s always a better one in development. Your computer with a one-terabyte hard drive is out-of-date when it gets to your house, because the 2TB hard drive was already in development. Computers evolve too fast for consumers to ever keep up. The best we can do is fall behind at a graceful pace.

Software is no exception at all. On a daily basis my iPod Touch has new application updates of some sort, either for the apps themselves or for the OS. It’s downright frustrating that something like iTunes on my Mac has to get updated every few weeks, but what choice do I really have? If I choose not to update or upgrade, I force myself to live with bugs or to be deprived of features.

The Principles of Upgrades:

• Application changes are as drastic as the operating system (OS) will allow and as frequent as the market demands.
• The OS changes are as mild as the market will allow, but as frequent as the hardware will permit.
• The hardware changes are as drastic and as frequent as the market demands.

So we have a problem. An application can change as much as is technically possible within the limits of an OS. But the bounds of change within the OS are user-based. The market demands a usable OS first, and then demands that those changes are to the upper limits of the hardware. We want quantum computing, but first we want an OS that keeps our computer safe and stable. We’ll always demand a stable operating system before a fast one. 4GB of RAM in Windows XP is better than 8 in Vista.

This little economics lesson is important because it means that we can never be “modern”. We can only be close to it. So, if we acknowledge  that modernity is out of reach, we can move on.

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