The HELLISH World Of Four, no 5, Browsers

Did they PLAN to make the lives of web focused services companies hell?

It does feel a little like they're picking specifically on us, but I'm sure there are thousands of other small Web2.0 developers saying the same thing right now.

I also think you've just seen the 'rapid' development on the web drop to half speed. At least for awhile.

Why? Because we effectively have to now develop for 4 browser environments. IE6 ,IE7, FF1.5 and FF2.0. And in reality, a 5th as well, Safari on Macs.

And, sadly, these bright shiny new versions of browsers did not bring everyone in line with agreed on standards. In particular IE7. Nothing is simpler, everything is more complex and, now, we have to develop 5 different set of hacks for each browser. At least for the next couple of years.

At least we have some time until Vista comes out.

Well damn, that took all 10 minutes. I wrote the above words and, in my mail I get this:

Like it or not, starting this morning every machine built by Dell, HP/Compaq, eMachines, Sony and many other will be installed with Microsoft Vista as the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) final was issued yesterday.

This means we'll start seeing Vista machines on store shelves in about 7-10 days. This also means with the holiday and tax return seasons just around the corner, we'll be seeing people using ClickCaster with Vista.

The next 6 months should be, if nothing else, interesting.