Nobody likes to support IE11 but dropping support moves Bootstrap 5 from "just use Bootstrap" to "Bootstrap has tricky pitfalls". Before someone can use Bootstrap 5 they need to be sure and confident that they don't need IE11 and never will.
As of now, Bootstrap 5 cannot be considered for use in any website with heavy use from enterprise users.
Edit: though it is nice to see that Chromium Edge is already catching up to Spartan Edge!
It's another story if you are selling, but if the users must use your application, they will click on the other blue e icon.
https://i.postimg.cc/FzBj9Ttp/Screenshot-20200407-084447.png
In practice we find solutions, such as installing chrome or using mobile devices. I know it depends on the domain and the country, but companies with outdated desktop pc running only internet explorer are becoming rare. We prefer to refuse one of them than wasting time supporting outdated environments.
I'm more receptive to backwards compatibility concerns than some in the thread. But when IT admins have new software available, disable and block it arbitrarily, and then complain that new services aren't supported by the old software, I lose my patience.
The only reason anybody has ever given me for disabling Edge is that users find it confusing. If you haven't educated your users on Edge and feel that they are only appropriately trained for IE for the past 5 years, you're not really trying to roll forward with the industry and you're going to be left behind due to your own stupidity. No sympathy.
We gotta move forward. The web can't be held hostage over decade old corporate contracts.
It has gotten to the point where IE11 in a VM is my main browser for testing and debugging.
IE11 lives on because many corporations run software that requires it.
There's a network effect, because links don't open the a browser that's compatible with the destination, but in the same browser as the link. So the corp with one IE11 app wants to serve their intranet home page in IE11, and so they want everything to run in IE11.
There are mitigations and migration paths, but that's all swimming up-stream -- it incurs risk, and costs time and money -- so it happens slowly and only in spots.
To use Bootstrap 5 you have to answer this question: are corporations my customer, or could I ever pivot to a business strategy where corporations are my customer?
If you don't care about money, then you can just answer no if you want, and you'll be fine.
But the consumers you can reliably insist run modern browsers don't pay for websites (not directly), so if you are running a business you are either committed to an ad-driven model, physical goods model, with no b2b option, or you're going to keep IE11 in-play.
I just don't think most people want to make a far-reaching commitment about the nature of their future business before they develop their first web page. (They do it all the time, but not on purpose!) A framework like bootstrap should free you from coming to grips with all that, but bootstrap 5 pushes it into your face before you are probably ready for it.
> If you don't care about money, then you can just answer no if you want, and you'll be fine.
You come off as weirdly bitter and hostile here.
Obviously when you choose tech, you have to weigh the pros and cons. It's part of our job. Why is it not our job when picking the foundation framework for our web client?
If you need IE11 support you can stay on Bootstrap 4 (we're still using Bootstrap 3!) or any of the other CSS frameworks. What's the problem?
Also, most people aren't in a position where they might accidentally take on corporate business in the future, either. Seems like a weird niche position to hammer on. And if you were in that position yet you chose a framework that, what, only works in Firefox unstable nightly, then you made a bad call and maybe you'll learn from the decision. So what?
Seems like weak reasoning for Bootstrap to never push the envelope when there is still Bootstrap 3 and 4 available. That's why they cut a new brand each time instead of just bumping semver on the same Bootstrap product. Every major version hop is basically a new framework.
If the bootstrap team is looking at their (or even average) ie11 %'s to determine if they should drop support they are really making that decision blind. It would instantly take bootstrap from a viable framework on many sites to a deal breaker.
I mean, if you're writing for IE11 that's true of any library or framework you might consider, even the ones that "support" IE11.
If you're still supporting IE11 I don't see why it's so weird to do so with Bootstrap 4.