If you have been in the web development industry for a few years, chances are you have heard about, got mad at (read "utterly angry"), and fought against browser compatibility issues in Internet Explorer 6. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say anything bad about it (meaning I'm just glad since I don't have to work with it anymore), but this post was inspired by Chris Heilmann's article HTML5 for XP now! and particularly by a link in it: Internet Explorer 6 Countdown.
After checking it out, I must admit I found it a bit odd for Microsoft to "bury" its own baby. I mean, they could have left it silently slip out of the web scene. However, since it reigned for so long, in order to make it go extinct, they actually had to step up and do something about it themselves, rather then just let people upgrade or switch browsers. So, in my opinion that's just like saying "yeah, we made a mistake...".
So, if you haven't ever been forced to resort to hacks, IE-specific stylesheets etc. you can call yourself a lucky web developer. I am curious if there are such developers today, because sometimes I still hear "cross-browser", or "IE issues" and after I don't feel chills running down my spine anymore, the first thing I feel like saying is "Oh, that takes me back...". A few years from now I'm sure people will still remember the name of IE6 (and fear it) even though it will be long gone, and a few years later still my kids will ask "Dad, have you ever heard of IE6? Is it true that most of the development time was used to fix IE6 issues?". My answer will be "Yes, it is true, so be good if you don't ever want to use it for browsing...".
I'm pretty certain IE6 will be a sort of boogie man for future generations of web developers.
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