There’s a bunch of information about how IE10 will be handling HTML5, but the bit that sticks out to me is that IE will no longer support Conditional Comments as of version 10.

Conditional Comments have been a controversial issue since becoming widely adopted as a method of avoiding CSS hacks. I, for one, have stood behind Conditional Comments fot some time and use them in sites to this day. As with all things though, Conditional Comments have been abused over time, which likely put a bad taste in the mouths of many developers.

I think that the IE team deciding to drop Conditional Comments speaks to the fact that they’re doing all they can to adhere and become more relevant given their lifespan thus far.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to write maybe a CSS declaration or two targeted only at Internet Explorer, but I’m hoping by the time IE10 comes out, that average drops even further.

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When I use conditional comments

Up until this point, conditional comments have saved the day for me simply by being present in the head of my documents. For nearly every client project, I find myself using conditional comments to target both Internet Explorer 6 as well as Internet Explorer 7. In my opinion, as far as standards compliance is concerned, IE7 is merely a shuffle forward, as opposed to a step.

I’ve also accepted using conditional comments to include JavaScript written specifically to assist Internet Explorer. A specific example that comes to mind is when I’m implementing Suckerfish Dropdowns. I elect to include the JavaScript with a conditional comment simply because the script is only meant to be run when browsing the document in Internet Explorer 6. I prefer to have other browsers ignore the JavaScript for simplicity’s sake. While it may not be considered harmful to allow JavaScript such as the bit needed for Suckerfish Dropdowns in all browsers, to me it is settling to keep it separated.

Using conditional comments in the body

Until recently, it hadn’t even occurred to me that using conditional comments in the body of your document could become commonplace. There’s no documentation specifying that conditional comments can be used only in the head of your document, so why stop there? To me, using conditional comments in the body of your document is partially counter productive.

The reason I choose to employ conditional comments is their nature of providing longevity. By writing specific style sheets to target specific versions of Internet Explorer, I’m able to solve a rendering issue and leave the solution as is for the life of the document. The problem is solved with a minimal change to the DOM.

When you choose to use conditional comments in the body of your document, you’re electing to alter the DOM in a more significant way. Now, instead of working with different style sheets to solve a problem, you’re altering the problem itself. If this route is chosen, you now have a number of choices. You can alter a significant portion of the DOM in order to work with a single, existing style sheet, or you can take both sides and use conditional comments to include Internet Explorer specific style sheets as well as alter the DOM at the same time.

The idea in general, to me, seems more sloppy than resorting to the use of CSS hacks strewn throughout your document style sheet. Your source will become ugly and awkward to maintain, and the longevity of your document will be greatly reduced. Using conditional comments to include a version specific style sheet (or a bit of JavaScript) should be all the ammo you need to solve the problem of Internet Explorer.

What’s your opinion?

How do you feel about conditional comments in the first place? If you’re opposed, is it due to the fact that the code is technically proprietary? Is it due to the fact that the implementations you’ve seen are as outlined above in that conditional comments are littered across the entire DOM?

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