Using browser specific comments puts absolutely no further in the web standards world. What is one of the most important points of web standards? That we code one page/file/whatever and the result is the same in every browser and thereby improving accessiblity, cross-platform rendering, and everything in between. Browser specific code gets us nowhere. It’s the same path of logic as a hack. And that makes me bitter.

Tantek nicely notes in his well-popularized WaSP post last November that “CSS2(.1) doesn’t say you can implement part of the spec. You’re supposed to implement the whole spec in the first place.” This is exactly what IE 7 must do. I have trust in the IE 7 team that things will get sorted out. The reason they’re doing this extensive beta testing and opening themselves up to the war-mongering Microsoft haters is to improve their browser. WaSP’s work with them hasn’t just been flushed…they’re trying. But as far as things have gone right now, I’m unhappy.

None of the code we right should be considered hacks. Because when a browser is advanced or “modernized” like IE 7 should be, then the site should look just fine because it has properly implemented the level of CSS that it set out to do. I don’t really see anything I write as a hack. It’s proper code, well within the specifications, and all validates. As Tantek also noted, it’s harder for a new comer into the standards based market.

To sum it up: “Don’t implement [an advanced] selector, until that browser is able to do so. IE5/Mac did so, so can IE7, more than five years later…”

I won’t be using hacks, but I will be using valid CSS of any supported level. If the IE users get less of an experience, it’s the browsers fault…

Actually, if the user gets a degraded experience, when workarounds exist. . . then it is not the browser’s fault, it is yours. Hiding behind the “I don’t do hacks” argument is great if you have 10 people viewing your site and all of them use FF or Safari. But hey, you keep up that great browser snob attitude. . . . It lets the rest of us who simply build better sites that work in all browsers get more work.