[thelist] Re: The need for IE-only sites?

[Diane Soini]

On Tuesday, July 6, 2004, at 01:52 PM, thelist-request at lists.evolt.org 
wrote:
> b) Any well coded site that works ok in IE6 cannot be too screwed in
> other browsers. What's the worry?

The practice of producing content only for IE6 can be defended by my 
excuse: I am forced to work on web content that only works in some IE 5 
and 6 versions because we use embedded Windows Media with scripting for 
the playlists. I would prefer we use Flash instead, or anything that 
would allow for other than IE, but that is not how the architect 
developed the application. At least we do provide a system requirements 
message that comes up for the others. We don't bother telling them to 
upgrade, we just apologize.

However, I think a "IE6 is used by most people" excuse is, uh, 
inexcusable. That may be true right now, but for how long?

Nevertheless, if it is required or desired, it may be simpler to use 
javascript to sniff for UA (and maybe toss in some sniffing for 
proprietary object models and whatever else it takes to narrow it down 
to just IE6). Then at least you can redirect most UAs, but the bots, 
who don't do javascript, can still index the page. (Of course, then 
anybody who had javascript disabled can also see the page, but who 
cares about those people, eh?)

Diane

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