How much time do you spend coding for IE

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
How much time do you spend coding for IE in comparison to other browsers? Microsoft have recently released InternetExplorer 8, which still is not standards compliant. I love Firefox, it's a dream to code for, and it's very forgiving (not that this matters as all of my HTML is valid).

I'm finding it a real painus in the anus having to not only test my app in different browsers, but in different versions too. Most of my time is spent trying to get around Internet Explorer's quirks, and I'm about ready to pull my hair out!

Does anyone have any tips for getting pages to display properly with different versions of IE? I don't want to start coding for only one browser, but at the end of the day, coding for IE shouldn't be such a ball-ache. IE should be mostly standards compliant by now, yet even the most basic of CSS attributes such as text-align: center and margin still do not work correctly. What makes me laugh is that Microsoft are actually a part of the W3C...

So, I understand that I will piss a lot of people off if I put a notice on my sites telling IE users to get a real browser, so what can we do? Where do we draw the line between being fair to users and just being plain ignorant? Can we get away with leaving small display errors (such as a header that's not centred that should be), if our CSS is valid, and just plead ignorance? It's hard enough producing valid HTML, let alone implementing CSS hacks that are valid. Surely no-one knows every single quirk of IE, so what do you do?

All thoughts and comments appreciated.

[eluser]Thorpe Obazee[/eluser]
When I code, I try to produce something for IE7+, FF, etc. No IE6. I usually use styles that are standard in both IE7 and FF. I try not to produce things things I 'know' would cause problem later on.

As for hacks, if I ever implement hacks 5 times or more, I tell myself to look into how I structured the page.

[eluser]Vicente Russo[/eluser]
To be honest I don`t spend too much time on IE, just some quick fixes here and there. Maybe you could try to use a css to reset the elements, this should fix most of the problems. And of course, study a little more on css... it took me years to realize that css IS complex and HTML even more. Some people just ignore this, read one or two tutorials online and start builind sites "as an expert". It`s not that simple, when you put on your head that you have to study like any other "programming language" and read a good article, or a book, you`ll see how things will flow. Today I always try to validate my code on strict model, is not that hard..

I dont know your work, don`t know if your beginner or expert on css/xhtml, this is just my opinion, ok?

[eluser]NogDog[/eluser]
I usually find that if I write valid [X]HTML including a fully qualified doctype declaration as the very first line of the output* (getting IE out of "quirks mode") then I seldom have any cross-browser compatibility issues.

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* This means no <?xml?> tag on the first line of XHTML output, as IE will then be in "quirks mode" (not sure if this is still true with ID8?)

[eluser]tomcode[/eluser]
I proceed like NogDog and keep CSS basic, when it passes FF and IE6 it usually does it for the rest, too.

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Thanks a lot for your comments, everyone - much appreciated.

[eluser]Choo[/eluser]
I always try not to use hacks and it is is possible very often. Using of expressions and instructions with "*" isn't a good practice.

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Why is it bad practice? I generally start every CSS file with:

Code:

* {
    padding: 0px;
    margin: 0px;
}

This is because IE seems to add padding to elements as it sees fit, so by doing this, I can handle elements in a predictable fashion.

[eluser]Vicente Russo[/eluser]
I always use css reset. Here is a link with 10 technics to reset. Its in portuguese, but its easy to read and there`s a source link from native language of each one. I use the #5, Eric Meyer.

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Bookmarked! Fantastic resource, thanks for sharing.