Developing for IE7

So how's your Internet Explorer 7 performance? Early user reports have varied from speedy to pokey. Of course, the level of AJAX-based functionality on a site can affect the rendering speed, and the style of coding may favor IE over Firefox, or vice versa. With the proliferation of RIA development platforms, this issue is likely to grow more confusing. Perhaps we’ll see a return of icons stating "This site best view with..." For me, IE7 seems to be on par with Firefox, but I haven't had a chance yet to compare it to FF2.0, released a week after IE7. The health of each browsers' add-on market is another important metric. Three IE favorites of mine are the Developer Toolbar, the IESpell spell checker, and Fiddler, which lets you monitor and modify incoming or outgoing HTTP traffic.

Microsoft is also holding a contest to encourage add-on development. The contest will run from November until next February 9, 2007, and the winner receives a trip to Mix07 in Las Vegas and $2500 in walking-around money.

Posted by John Dorsey at 01:21 PM  Permalink