This post is part two of three. Part 1 (Be a Realist) and Part 3 (Be a Leader) are also available.

It’s 2013, and it is time for people to get over their hate for Internet Explorer. Yes, IE has had its issues in the past. I know it, you know it, even Microsoft knows it. At the end of the day, developers that whine and complain and about supporting IE are trying to be trendy and fit-in rather than be a professional. Supporting IE isn’t nearly as painful as the complainers make it out to be and that it actually makes the most sense for any web project.

In this post, I ask the IE complainers to put their big boy/girl pants on by being a strategist when it comes to being a web professional.

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Be a Strategist

If you work around a Microsoft platform you know that Windows 8 support native HTML5 applications, those being the Windows Store apps. What is the powerhouse behind these new apps? Is it some kind of special .NET complier?

No. It’s IE10.

Every Windows 8 desktop and new Microsoft Surface is loaded with IE10 because it is the engine for all the new Windows Apps, which means that any Windows 8 or Windows RT user is going to be using Internet Explorer whether they know it or now.

How does this relate to supporting Internet Explorer? Assuming that you expect your web application to be successful, you can probably expect that eventually you are going to want to make client apps on different end-user platforms thus making it more convenient for people to use your application.

If you are using JavaScript and HTML for your web application, a large portion of your code (if not all of it) can be reused to build a Windows App for Windows 8. So, rather than having to go back and fix your website to guarantee it supports Internet Explorer, why not take the initiative and test it in IE10 to make sure the experience is as you expect. By spending the extra few minutes to test in IE, you’ll be ready to make an app for Surface and Windows 8 Desktops without having to “fix” anything.

Oh, and since you’re using IE10 (which is very HTML5 enabled) you can use the Developer tools to make sure it works for the other 30% of the web browser world by using the developer tools to render it as though it is using the older versions of IE.

If you want to complain about supporting IE, you have to realize that you are complaining about some pretty minor work. At the very least, complaining about IE support is basically complaining about how your app is going to be successful and people that use Windows are going to want use it in a different way.

Maybe I’m crazy, but complaining about being ready for the future of your app seems fairly unprofessional. But hey, that’s just me.

…And every client I have ever dealt with.

…Ever.