Just read an interesting article by yahoo’s Nicholas C. Zakas: What’s a web browser?
How do you best balance implementing new technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 while keeping support for browsers like i.e 6, is it a practical approach to day to day web development where deadlines must be met?
I think it really depends on the type of site you are building as well as the type of intended end users. If you are building a site for a band, they tend to use a lot of flash/silverlight to make the interactions “cool” and more fluid. This would be an example of when to go all out with HTML5 and using canvas to accomplish some of the same effects. Obviously IE6 wouldn’t work, but with more and more major companies dropping support for IE6 (Google included for gmail) it is becoming less and less of an issue as time passes.
If you need to develop a site where people will still heavily use IE6 then you might want to stay away from using the latest technologies. The pain you would go through to get things to work might not be worth it in the end especially if deadlines are tight and if you are not an expert.
Then there are the cases in the middle and here I think you need to think long and hard if you want to keep supporting IE6. I know a bunch of people who have dropped support and have found it much easier to strike the balance between CSS3 and HTML5 with the other browsers. It’s still not perfect, but much easier to work with in the end.