This is immaturely and badly argued. So it took a massive two days for an intern to add IE6 support to a web app. This is actually a good argument for keeping IE6 support for the several percent of users who still have it. I am not saying there aren't good arguments for dropping IE6, but this just isn't it.
Some of the supporting arguments are even worse - does he really expect a course called "Legacy Browser Support 301" to be taught at his college? And why would he need that course, seeing as how he managed fine all by himself? He could now teach that course better than any of the profs, who probably don't hack on IE6 conditional code.
There is also this refusal to look at things from a business perspective - he is working for a company which earns revenue from that web app that he worked on. If the revenue from IE6 users is greater than the value of 2 days of an intern's work, which seems likely, then the right decision is to throw in IE6 support. Now, if you have a massive stable of web apps (like Google) and it takes immense developer resources to support IE6 which will go away in a few years anyway, that's a different story. Change the inputs and you change the answer.
He seems like a good prog and a good guy, but he needs to mature some more.
This is off to the side of IE6, but I think we make a big mistake when we calculate costs that way.
It isn't simply a question of whether immediate revenue is greater than 2 days of an intern. The question is whether the projected revenue is greater than the support costs of that feature over time and the opportunity cost, i.e. "we can't do feature X easily because feature Y is in there." The fact that people don't calculate costs that way in software development puts many organizations in a pickle.
Some of the supporting arguments are even worse - does he really expect a course called "Legacy Browser Support 301" to be taught at his college? And why would he need that course, seeing as how he managed fine all by himself? He could now teach that course better than any of the profs, who probably don't hack on IE6 conditional code.
There is also this refusal to look at things from a business perspective - he is working for a company which earns revenue from that web app that he worked on. If the revenue from IE6 users is greater than the value of 2 days of an intern's work, which seems likely, then the right decision is to throw in IE6 support. Now, if you have a massive stable of web apps (like Google) and it takes immense developer resources to support IE6 which will go away in a few years anyway, that's a different story. Change the inputs and you change the answer.
He seems like a good prog and a good guy, but he needs to mature some more.