Reply to: UK gov sticks to IE 6

[lightng]

If your concept of "test & roll out" is "bung it on production and see if people are happy" then that's a little concerning.

Ah yes, "Continuous delapidation" - its a brand new concept for servicing the application life-cycle. My current place of work are ahead of the curve, they have been following that methodology for years.

[d000hg]

"weeks to test and roll out to all users" What are they talking about? Takes about 10 mins to download and instal.

If your concept of "test & roll out" is "bung it on production and see if people are happy" then that's a little concerning.

[TykeMerc]

This is all about their internal apps, which is no big deal really. It's no different from having some old bit of internal bespoke software which has been in use since 1997 or something. It's just that this stuff runs in an old browser rather than some terminal in the corner of the office or something.

Legacy app syndrome, very common in just about everywhere I've worked for the last decade. In many cases it would cost insane amounts of cash to replace these apps.

The workers can always install FF, Chrome, Opera or whatever if they want to use the web properly.

Not on a properly locked down environment they can't.

Or do they mean they're going to continue to develop brand new applications which only work in IE6???

Nope, just not planning to spend loads on replacing multiple (badly developed in the 1st place) legacy applications.

[Zippy]

"weeks to test and roll out to all users" What are they talking about? Takes about 10 mins to download and instal.

The users won't be able to do it themselves. IT support look like the IT Crowd but without the brains. Seriously.
Web sites won't work the same and the intranet won't work at all.
Your help desk will be tied up for the next three months by thickos claiming that "the screen looks funny"

[xoggoth]

"weeks to test and roll out to all users" What are they talking about? Takes about 10 mins to download and instal.

[swamp]

I worked on an IE6-only app for the public sector recently. With a small amount of work it would run on any browser, and I pointed out they should do this as IE6 was soon EOL, but there was absolutely no appetite for it. There wasn't even any concern that the new work we did would not work on IE7, Firefox etc.

Personally I couldn't care less. Public sector clients don't; it's not like they are spending their own money! And besides, it will ultimately spell more work for contractors.

I also have no sympathy for developers who moan about IE6. I mean, FFS, in my day I had to wrestle with IE3+ and NS2+, Netscape Palette, 640x480, differences across operating systems. I could only dream about something as good as IE6! I even worked with IE2 once

[dang65]

This is all about their internal apps, which is no big deal really. It's no different from having some old bit of internal bespoke software which has been in use since 1997 or something. It's just that this stuff runs in an old browser rather than some terminal in the corner of the office or something.

The workers can always install FF, Chrome, Opera or whatever if they want to use the web properly.

Or do they mean they're going to continue to develop brand new applications which only work in IE6???

[d000hg]

I'm pretty sure IE6 will carry on working when it is no longer supported. When was the last time you phone up MS and asked for support?

I agree that in many cases it's better to replace these apps on some rolling basis rather than get them all updated, though it depends if they do anything using IE-specific features or are just in need of some CSS fixes.

[Platypus]

A very (very) large corporate user of IE6 that I know has just emailed all staff and contractors advising them to switch to Firefox 3, plus there's a plugin which gives FF compatibility with most of their corporate browser-based apps.

[swamp]

Exactly. When they say "To test all the web applications currently used by HMG departments can take months at significant potential cost to the taxpayer. It is therefore more cost effective in many cases to continue to use IE6..." they're just ignoring the fact that IE6 will be EOL in a couple of years (it should have been this month - and in fact is for IE6 on XP SP2 - but there you go), and they'll have to spend that money then anyway. Furthermore, they'll inevitably leave it too late and finish up hiring lots of contractors to get everything sorted out in time, which will end up costing more than if they embarked on a programme of fixing their broken tulip now.

oh and

[AtW]

Because Microsoft is going to stop supporting it soon?

Then they should switch to FireFox 2.

[NickFitz]

Because Microsoft is going to stop supporting it soon?

Exactly. When they say "To test all the web applications currently used by HMG departments can take months at significant potential cost to the taxpayer. It is therefore more cost effective in many cases to continue to use IE6..." they're just ignoring the fact that IE6 will be EOL in a couple of years (it should have been this month - and in fact is for IE6 on XP SP2 - but there you go), and they'll have to spend that money then anyway. Furthermore, they'll inevitably leave it too late and finish up scrambling to get everything sorted out in time, which will end up costing more than if they embarked on a programme of fixing their broken tulip now.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Didn't we have a flame war over IE 6 some time ago?

Apparently 'nobody' uses it. (Just checked HAB Inc - IE 6: 24.6%.)

I agree, it's a pain in the wotnots, but it's impossible to get away from it.

[cojak]

And why not?

Because Microsoft is going to stop supporting it soon?

[AtW]

And why not? They should not be visiting sites like Facebook and everything else that requires newer browsers anyway.