Fix browser bugs as you go or save them up till the end?

Question

With CSS bugs, do you fix them as and when they arise during each stage of your development, or do you save them up till the end? as I'm at quite an early stage in a large project and seem to be getting bogged down with annoying IE6 bugs.

Answer 1

My Workflow:

• Develop on Firefox. Edit: Try and take care of known ie6 bugs - but do not waste time checking.
• Validate
• Check on Chrome/Safari. Usually OK
• Hack for IE7 - Usually not much to do. Add hacks in a separate stylesheet if necessary.
• Hack for IE6. Add hacks in a separate stylesheet if necessary.

Answer 2

I find it better to test (and fix) as you go - that way if you do find a major bug, there's (probably) less rewriting to do. If you don't catch it until the end, you could find there's a lot of your code relying on something happening in a particular (browser specific) way.

Answer 3

I tend to try and address them as soon as possible.

My theory being it's easier to make changes early on, than make a potentially design breaking change at a later date.

I do the bulk of my work in Firefox, but will test in IE reguarly to ensure that everything is playing nice

Answer 4

I tend to save them up; if you develop by the W3C standards you should have a solid basis. Also, in time you usually get to know the different flaws in Internet Explorer and take these in account during the development process.

In the end, I like to develop with Firefox first and fix any errors I might not have fixed during the process at the end of the process.

• Choose a DOCTYPE and stick with it
• Start developing in FireFox
• Use HTMLTidy or a similiar plugin to keep your code clean and shiny
• Check Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7
• Use css hacks or conditional statements and stylesheets for IE
• Validate some more and make final checks.

Answer 5

good advise here: test as you go along, YUI grid, scan the list of IE bugs before hand, don't let browsershots.org drive you insane...

http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=C37E0

http://webdesign.about.com/od/internetexplorer/a/aa082906.htm

http://ask.metafilter.com/100059/Help-me-understand-what-I-need-to-make-my-website-compliant-with-IE

Answer 6

I also develop on FF and only test for IE compatibility. I tend to fix big issues as I develop so I can verify that the desired style is achievable on all browsers. I leave all the small stuff or later ie. defining the margins and such to achieve the exact layout we want. An by later I don't mean the end of the project, I mean the end of a logical section of the site (normally a page)