html5internet explorerweb-development
Whenever I read something or hear someone talking about HTML5, CSS and JavaScript support, they always refer to Internet Explorer with the version number such as Internet Explorer 6, and Internet Explorer 9. But they only refer to Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and others without version numbers.
Shouldn't they also specify the version number in which certain web technologies are incompatible for other browsers instead of just Internet Explorer?
Chrome's new version adoption rate is really fast because of their automatic upgrade. Way faster than IE and even quite a bit faster than Firefox. Generally, if you are supporting the latest stable build of Chrome, you should be fine. It is literally only a matter of days or weeks before a new stable version almost totally replaces the old.
Edit: Graph from How Google Keeps Chrome Fresh
Let's reflect a bit here for a minute - the only browser in the last decade to cause major problems for existing sites when it changed version number was Internet Explorer.
I don't recall a single instance of a client calling me and telling me their site is now broken with the latest version of Chrome or Firefox. There might've been some very minor visual issues, such as not pixel-perfect padding / margin or something similar, but on the whole the standards-compliant browsers have been extremely consistent in how they render sites.
New features and APIs have been added in recent versions, but those should not break sites that did not use them. Experimental features usually use vendor specific properties and are used at the developer's discretion. You should never rely on an experimental feature that has not been stabilized yet.
So as far as I'm concerned, I'm only worried from the arrival of the next Internet Explorer version. Chrome, Firefox, Safari and the rest can keep updating as fast as they like, as long as they keep consistently rendering sites as they have for years.
I'm not saying you should not test your sites with new versions as they come out, only that it's likely to be much less of a problem than you are anticipating. My suggestion is to guarantee support for the major version (market-share wise) at the time of launch and one more future version for anything but Internet Explorer. IE's release schedule is lax enough that should not present a problem.
Best Answer
Well, that mainly has two reasons:
1. IE versions have major differences
While other browsers may have no (obvious) difference between versions, Internet Explorer, being the only browser pre-installed (and basically hard-coded) in Windows, has huge differences from version 6 to version 10. Version 10 is almost as good a browser as Chrome or Firefox, while version 6 is an unreliable, slow, good-for-nothing, over-customized browser still used by some non tech-savvy, and it is incompatible with thousands of features introduced after it was created (that was over a decade ago).
You can see some compatibility examples here.
2. Being pre-installed has an impact on the market
Since IE comes with Windows, and while other OS are gaining up publicity, Windows has been the default for thousands (if not millions) of people, for a long time. Since these people hire programmers to do stuff, like make their websites, programmers are forced to make it look good on the client's screen, even if that doesn't always target the largest audience.
Of course, most of us are trying to have a good result on both the client's screen and their clients' screens, but that isn't always easy, if our client has IE 6. (And believe me: some of them will think that you are not a good developer if you ask them to change their browser)
So, in conclusion, we tend to always refer to IE with its version, because it does mean something different for development.
P.S.: Here is a great blog article about the history of IE and why geeks hate it which does a great presentation on a once good browser.