HTML Table
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- Mojo0
- skt0
- kelpie0
Personally, I'm still in a huff that browser developers never consulted me about whether the browser should be able to release smells as well as display visuals. Would really help me get that "pine fresh" feeel on this Forestry Commission website I'm designing.
- skt0
I protested against the Forestry Commission once. Ended up on the Money Program.
True story.
- rafalski0
Moth, Moth, Moth..
Tables had functionality a lot of developers miss, but most understand using them for layout is wrong structurally. We can live with tables gone. No sweat.
You make it sound like CSS was sent by gods and anyone who thinks its imperfect is a weekend coder who just doesn't get it.
Point is, CSS flaws are well observed, known and discussed to death. Most blind CSS zealots blame browsers and keep worshipping the CSS, deeming all critics amateurs. Actually, while browsers are among the culprits, the biggest problems lie within CSS itself, browser fuckups just conveniently help to cover that.
Saying that if someone has problem with CSS they need to learn the craft doesn't solve the problem. We all have been coding "proper" CSS for long. We're doing it right. That's not the issue. The more we learn, the more we see how wrong parts of CSS are. We know our tools, we just know they could be easily improved.
Some say, "if these flaws had been so obvious, wouldn't they've been fixed by now?". This is how it works, isn't it? You update the specs, then the software, people install it and everybody's happy. Right? No, it doesn't work like that with browsers.
Well, first of all, browsers, like nothing else in the industry are characterized by something I could call for our use here "browser inertia". Updating a browser's rendering mode is a risky task. Ie. a million pages will display wrong if your updated browser suddenly starts displaying something right. That's a huge risk. Then there is browser adoption time and it is terrifyingly slow. It takes years and years for people to install current browsers. That's why advancements in this field are so slow.
When CSS2 came out and 'good' browsers started adopting them, CSS shortcomings became obvious to many (despite widespread acclaim). But it was too late for a change. IE ruled then and updating Standards could result in their rejection. Bear in mind that it was the time of browser wars and Standards' status was still fragile. It was thin ice back then. It was too late for updates. Specs had been published, browsers were being released and installed with hope to gain some market share.
Things are different now, but this strangely doesn't change much. CSS is king and it's even harder to improve these days. People have learned their workarounds, a whole generation of developers learned CSS the hard way and think it must be a result of years of scrutinized evolution and is what it is supposed to be. "How can it be wrong if it's so good?". That's why it will not change too soon.
On top of it all, work on extending the tools got dog slow. CSS3 draft gets old and still is a draft only. Nobody wants to develop the glorious XHTML and we're going back to HTML (version 5 now being worked on).
Just a quick example of what is fucked up in CSS and where it came from. Take the box model. The one we have now is a result of a political decision, rather than technical or practical one. Soon it became clear that the IE5 box model was more logical, practical, efficient. This was even admitted by CSS naz.. err.. gurus in their bestseller CSS worship books. It was wrong though, because it was Microsoft's.
To back my words, despite the good IE5 box model being dead now, its revival is part of the CSS3 draft:
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ui/#bo…
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/css2te…
- moth0
Guh.... but you're still missing the point Raf.
Tables never were, or never will be for layout. All the CSS in the world doesn't change that.
I guess the real debate here should be correct XHTML markup - not the "issues" with CSS.
- moth0
but bugger it.
I think i might go to pub standards and get drunk.