I generally agree with what you’re saying and naturally I’m for iterative develpoment as well. But, like I stated above, I think they should’ve released an IE version long ago with security and UI fixes and then put focus on releasing something that actually isn’t behind when it’s due for release.

The risk with too much and frequent iteration is that we will have a lot of sub-releases with different levels of support, and that doesn’t make anyone happier (and exactly in one aspect I feel Opera has failed).

1. Keep the people waiting for long time. They don’t like that and instead of being patient and listening to your excuses and stories about how great new version will be they’ll look elsewhere pretty soon.
2. You’ll end up with too much new code. New code is bad… It breaks because it does not have the proper “mileage”. Smaller versions let you see how code handles in production, not on your test machines. Priceless!
3. You’ll end up just talking: “In new version we’ll have …”, “That bug is marked as wontfix because we have a better solution in new version” (months away!) etc.

So, my vote is for iterative development process. Bring something to the table and let the children play. I know that IE is far more important that some open source collaboration tool, but still the fact that big versions are bad idea stands.

Here’s a pattern that works: Fix urgent issues (security and bad UI in case of IE6), add some new features to keep kids happy, release, repeat.

Hope it makes sense and sorry for my poor English.

I’d like an equal web browser market with at least two different web browsers being used by a majority of web users, to spur competition.

The problem with that is that if your profession is to deliver a web site, then it’s your obligation to make sure that it works in as many web browsers as possible; especially the one that has the majority of end users.

Therefore, web developing is very often about finding the common nominating level.

And Carl, even if IE 7 is working fine for you with all web sites out there, it doesn’t really say if it has held back web developers from delivering an even better web site.

The only notable website that appeared ‘broken’ was last.fm, which has now sorted itself out.

I understand and respect the point of addressing security vulnerabilities, but then I would’ve rather seen that they would have released an IE 6.5 a year or more ago, fixing just that, and then focusing on releasing a good web browser supporting a lot of standards and possibilities for web developers.

Like Carl Camera says above, sure it’s good to decrease the IE 6 users as soon as possible, but how long will we be grateful for that? Trust me, about a year from now we will bitch about all the various shortcomings of IE 7 while all other web browsers will be better (in terms of web standards and CSS support).

And sure, Microsoft will have a continous development of IE, but still, it will definitely take some time before IE 7.5/IE 8. And if such a version is released fairly soon, then we will have at least three current different versions of IE to test in (if we don’t count IE 5). So, in my opinion, it won’t make my life better with adding even more testing to my development plans.

I say: Microsoft, release the best web browser in the market, and make your competitors catch up for a change.

And contrary to some comments here, this release has not been in development since the release of IE6. This development cycle is much, much shorter than that.

I am very, very happy with this release of IE and it definately shows signs in the right direction. Hoping to reach perfection in IE8

If this is the case then by all means release IE7 as soon as possible, as a starting point for the browser’s resumption (I mean they need it in time for Vista). Hopefully we will see further improvements in v7.1, 8.0, or whatever comes next. As long as what comes next isn’t years away. I think what they have done so far is a pretty good start, and there’s no point delaying Vista again just to get the browser perfectly right.

It has taken them an unusually long time to just get this far with IE7, but then we can say the same thing about virtually every Microsoft product. No surprises there.