The Future of Compatibility

A List Apart has ignited a discussion around future-proofing our sites and targeting specific browser version. Read Aaron Gustafson’s Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 and Eric Meyer’s From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey to learn what has sparked the renewed discussions and arguments.

After an initial reading, I rather like the idea. If we can get Firefox, Safari and Opera to implement the same method as recommended in Aaron’s article, the Web development industry, and all those it serves (including the vast majority of business, education, government and blogging sites – i.e. the entire Web) would benefit.

Ugly sites will still exist, but they’ll at least stay the same shade of ugly as their creator intended.

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