Nothing gets a web developer’s hackles up quite like older versions of Internet Explorer. The web browser we all love to hate still manages to hang around after all these years — in the case of IE 6, the persistence is strong enough that even Microsoft has a website dedicated to getting rid of it.

While almost no one likes older versions of IE, most of us still need to support it to varying degrees. Mobile web expert Peter-Paul Koch recently ended an informal survey of web developers asking them which versions of IE they supported, tested in and whether or not they charged extra to support older versions of IE.

The results — from nearly 18,000 replies (1,150 for the least answered question) — are surprising in several ways, like the fact that 2 percent of web developers surveyed still support IE 5.5.

MORE:  For Most, Supporting Older Versions of IE Remains a Necessity

The W3C has an early Christmas present for web developers: The standards body that oversees the lingua franca of the web has published the complete definition of the HTML5 specification.

HTML5 isn’t an official standard yet, but the move to what the W3C calls “Candidate Recommendation” CR status means that the spec is largely stable, features are frozen, and testing can begin. In other words, the W3C is on track to publish the final version of HTML5 by 2014.

While developers targeting modern web browsers are already using HTML5 and many of its accompanying APIs, the move to CR status is nevertheless important because it marks the beginning of the interoperability and testing phase.

MORE:  HTML5 Inches Closer to the Finish Line | Webmonkey | Wired.com.