You are currently browsing the Graphics Workshop weblog archives for the day Friday, March 2nd, 2007.

2 March 2007

The Explorer Experience

I just wanted to mention what Internet Explorer is like, for those who are not web designers and who do not experience anything comparable.

Imagine that your job is just as it is. Ups and downs, little fires to put out, long drawn-out projects, and all the rest of it. Only, every so often you are visited by a guy. He shows up at both random and predictable times, like just after you’ve completed a big chunk of work, for example. Then he flips a coin. If it’s tails, nothing happens; but if it’s heads… All your recent work looks like it’s been created by a maniac. An incompetent maniac. And you have to re-do absolutely everything, but instead of operating in a normal logical workflow, you are in some twilight zone alternate reality where bizarre rules apply. So now you’re blind, feeling around in the dark, pushing buttons and pulling levers. After hours- maybe days- of this, you approach the state you were in before the visitor showed up. Only some things weren’t completely fixed, and you feel a bit like a fraud. So you try to cover up the hacks and the problems that even hacks couldn’t remedy, while nervously waiting for the visitor to return. Because he will, oh he will…