[thelist] Cross-OS testing for front-end work

[Barney Carroll]

Hello list,

6+ months into my job, I have been told that it has always been absolutely
crucial to test all front-end work on Mac (default OS at work is Windows).
Our obligatory support list goes IE6-8, FF, and latest versions of Safari
and Chrome.

As far as I have been aware, since Safari 3 this is no longer necessary
since all the relevant aspects of the browsers in question, including
rendering engines, are identical. Anti-aliasing methods vary, but the net
impact of this from my angle is making sure your chosen font is legible at
the given sizes on Win with ClearType off (some Lucida variants being a
great overlooked example). So from where I stand, it's unnecessary to test
front-end work on a Mac if you're already testing on a PC.

Is this common practice? Does anyone know of any authoritative analyses of
the issue?

Regards,
Barney Carroll

barney.carroll at gmail.com
07594 506 381