我应该使用HTML5和CSS3吗？

Question

I'm someone who wants to be up on the latest web technologies but also appreciate that alot people still use IE6/7/8. Is it a waste of code/time if half of it wont be displayed on most browsers? Is it just a case of using different style sheets, or just use one style sheet and if a browser doesnt support text-shadow, then screw it, they can see it without the nice effects. What are peoples thoughts?

Answer 1

It depends on your userbase. I am an intranet developer and my company still uses IE6(!!!) so we have no choice but to support IE6. I also develop some public facing websites and we use Analytical tools to see the which Browser is being used more and ignore ones which are less used. in this case IE6 was the least used Browser.

Answer 2

I won't go for HTML5 and CSS3 till Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 4 (absolute release, not alpha or beta) is released, because these two browsers make up the most of web traffic (afaik, correct me if I'm wrong) and using html5 or css3 will be a big loss.

And yeah, it depends on your userbase too.

Answer 3

I'm developing a small-business oriented online app and decided to support only IE8, FF and Chrome. I also went for one stylesheet that degrades nicely (text-shadow, rounded corners). IE8 users will see square corners but it doesn't make the site unusable in any way.

I just think that the cost of making everything look perfect in all browsers (and maintaining it!) is much higher than the benefits.

The above also applies to HTML5 IMHO - unless you know that vast majority of your users will have an HTML5-compatible browser there's no need to invest in it right now. Unless the whole point of your site is to use one of the newest features.

Just tell yourself what problem of your users you are actually solving and solve that one.