MIX09 in Las Vegas

Microsoft’s MIX09 conference has kicked off in Las Vegas, that shimmering monument to excess where bad decisions are encouraged, oxygen is apparently optional, and software developers gather to discuss web standards under the glow of several billion neon lights.

And today brings something genuinely noteworthy: the final version of Internet Explorer 8. Not a moment too soon. The last few months have seen an increasingly public campaign against its ancient ancestor, Internet Explorer 6. Major websites have started warning visitors that they’re using obsolete software. Developers have sharpened their pitchforks. Campaigns have sprung up across the web. What began as irritation has turned into something resembling a religious crusade, only with more CSS hacks.

IE6 has after all been with us far longer than anyone reasonably expected. Internet Explorer became the most widely used web browser in history, which naturally made it an irresistible target for hackers. Combine an enormous user base with infrequent updates and questionable security, and you have the technological equivalent of leaving your hotel room door open in Las Vegas with a pile of cash on the bed. PC World once placed Internet Explorer 6 at number six on its list of the worst tech products of all time. Quote: “Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet”. Ouch.

Soft days at Bellagio, Las Vegas.

Developers have been sick of IE6 for years. Some companies abandoned support long ago, presumably after deciding that life was simply too short. Jeffrey Zeldman wrote To Hell With Bad Browsers more than eight years ago, and depressingly much of the sentiment still feels appropriate. Christian Heilmann’s Web Development is Moving On – Are you? is also well worth reading if you need further encouragement to stop accommodating software that belongs in a museum.

For developers, the big news in IE8 is its improved CSS 2.1 support and its collection of different “standards” modes, because apparently one standard would have been suspiciously straightforward.

Microsoft has also introduced SuperPreview, a tool for comparing how pages render in different versions of Internet Explorer. A useful idea, although there’s something wonderfully absurd about needing specialized software just to discover precisely how badly another piece of software has mangled your website.

Still, progress is progress. IE8 is here. Web standards are slowly winning. And somewhere beneath the casino lights of Las Vegas, IE6 can finally begin its long-overdue journey toward the dust pile of forgotten technological nightmares. Please don’t send flowers.