I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. Internet Explorer 6 is quite possibly the worst bit of software I have ever encountered.

The thing is, from the front end it’s not really too bad. OK, so it’s looking a bit dated, but as far as the user can see, it renders web pages without complaint, it’s not too slow, it’s got a fairly easy to use bookmarks system. It’s simple. We can’t get people to upgrade because (as far as they know) it does the job perfectly well. They simply don’t know that they can do so much better.

From the other end though – the point of view of the developer – it’s a complete nightmare. I’ve sure already covered the myriad ways in which the HTML, CSS and caching parts of the engine are fundamentally broken. Now, it seems, the Javsacript engine is completely borked aswell. I won’t go into the details (I’ll only end up getting angry and dumping a truckload of slurry on Micorsoft’s doorstep), but suffice to say that it runs like a dog on IE6, though every other browser executes it like it’s Thrust SSC on speed. Great. Some resources to help if you’ve in a similar situation:

• Optimizing JavaScript for Execution Speed
• A compendium of JavaScript optimization techniques
• Javascript Closures
• JavaScript Memory Leaks
• PPK on Javascript memory leaks
• DHTML leaks … not so much, actually
• Fixing JavaScript memory leaks for good.
• BeeByte’s JS Links

Someone remind me, just how did IE6 get through Microsoft’s quality control program? Roll on IE7, I say.