The headline is clickbaity, but the advice is solid. Use progressive enhancement and don’t worry about polyfilling.
When I say ‘Stop supporting IE’ it means to me that I won’t go the extra mile to get unsupported features working in Internet Explorer, but still make sure Internet Explorer users get the basics, and can use the site.
Keep this link handy to share with your boss or client. It is almost certainly not worth your while optimising for Internet Explorer.
Note: Google aren’t turning IE users away. Instead they’ll get a reduced scriptless experience. That’s the way to do it. Remember: module and nomodule are your friends for cutting the mustard.
Importantly, Google has not simply cut off Internet Explorer 11 from using Google Search, leaving people unable to search the web. Instead, Internet Explorer customers are now shown a rudimentary “fallback experience” for Google Search, which can perform basic searches but isn’t as fully featured as Google is on modern browsers.
The transcript from the latest episode of the HTTP 203 podcast is well worth perusing.
- Internet Explorer halted development, no innovation. Would you say Safari is the new IE?
- There was loads of stuff missing. Is Safari the new IE?
- My early career was built on knowing the bugs in IE6 and how to solve them. Is Safari the new IE?
- Internet Explorer 6, it had a really slow JavaScript engine, performance was bad in that browser. Is Safari the new IE?
- Internet Explorer had a fairly cavalier attitude towards web standards. Is Safari the new IE?
- Back in the day that we had almost no communication whatsoever. Is Safari the new IE?
- Slow-release cycle. Is Safari the new IE?
Any time or effort spent getting your JavaScript working in IE11 is wasted time that could be better spent making a better experience for users without JavaScript.
I agree with this approach.
With a few minor omissions and links, you can create a site that works great in modern browsers with ES6+ and acceptably in browsers without JavaScript. This approach is more sustainable for teams without the resources for extensive QA, and more beneficial to users of nonstandard browsers. Trying to recreate functionality that already works in modern browsers in IE11 is thankless work that is doomed to neglect.
I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane with Chris:
From the Web’s inception, an ancient to contemporary history of the Web.