Well it’s the most wonderful time of the year again, and I’ve been listening to a lot of holiday music. An album I’d definitely recommend is Christmas with the Rat Pack – it’s got a bunch of classics and I’ve been listening to it almost everyday while I code.

Recently at Increo we’ve made some major updates to Backboard, including a new viewing experience and the ability to organize Backboards into projects. Developing those two features was fun and challenging — they’re excellent examples of why we love making great software. However, one aspect of development I dread is making sure Backboard works in all the major browsers. Backboard officially supports Internet Explorer 6 or later, Safari 2 or later, and Firefox 2 or later. Most of the browser rendering discrepancies are minor, except for those pertaining to IE6. So to express my frustration, I’ve written a little poem/song in the holiday spirit:

The IE 6 Blues (sung to the tune of The Christmas Blues by Dean Martin)

We’re making applications
For the triple-W,
But there come some big frustrations
When I need to look into

How our code is generated
In IE 6’s shoes.
It’s giving me the IE 6 blues.

IE 6 is so outdated,
So to you I will confess:
I absolutely hate it
When it screws up CSS.
But many companies use it
So support, we won’t refuse.
I guess I’ve got the IE 6 blues.

When an element won’t float right,
And it has no minimum height,
And it disappears so you can’t inspect the DOM,
Then Javascript throws an error,
I say aloud “But where?
Man, Webkit and Firebug are the bomb!”

With browsers and their renderin’
Safari, Firefox - I’m sold!
IE 6? Let’s stop pretendin’
‘Cause it’s pushin’ eight-years old!
Upgrade your IE browser: V6, please don’t use
Or you’ll give coders like us the blues
Those doubly-margined, wrongly-padded IE 6 blues.