Progressive Enhancement is a powerful methodology that allows Web developers to concentrate on building the best possible websites while balancing the issues inherent in those websites being accessed by multiple unknown user-agents. Progressive Enhancement (PE) is the principle of starting with a rock-solid foundation and then adding enhancements to it if you know certain visiting user-agents can handle the improved experience.
PE differs from Graceful Degradation (GD) in that GD is the journey from complexity to simplicity, whereas PE is the journey from simplicity to complexity. PE is considered a better methodology than GD because it tends to cover a greater range of potential issues as a baseline. PE is the whitelist to GD’s blacklist.
Part of the appeal of PE is the strength of the end result. PE forces you to initially plan out your project as a functional system using only the most basic of Web technologies. This means that you know you’ll always have a strong foundation to fall back on as complexity is introduced to the project.
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