Opinion: Do web standards matter?
Sugapablo
decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
Markup Validator.
Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
think?
P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
the homepage locally, it failed too.
--
[ Sugapablo ]
[ http://www.sugapablo.net <--personal | http://www.sugapablo.com <--music ]
[ http://www.2ra.org <--political | http://www.subuse.net <--discuss ]
http://www.subuse.net : text-only, low bandwidth, anonymous web forums
Carolyn Marenger
> Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
> decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
> Markup Validator.
>
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
>
> P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
> the homepage locally, it failed too.
I follow the standards. It isn't a guarantee that the page(s) will work
everywhere, but I like to think it will. Maybe eventually, the browsers
will catch up and follow the standards too. In the mean time, some
manufacturers like to make their own standards, rather than following
those already in existance.
I also try to produce pages with minimal bloat. Keep the pages small, so
they load fast. It also makes them easier to edit later on.
Carolyn
Sugapablo
> I also try to produce pages with minimal bloat. Keep the pages small, so
> they load fast. It also makes them easier to edit later on.
Yeah, that's why I created http://www.subuse.net
Sometimes, I still get this romantic nostalgia for the days when I had a
2400 baud modem, telix, lynx, and nothing but command line. Silly, but...
Plus, today, with so many web phones and mobile devices, there aren't many
sites that work well with them, so I figured there's a need for minimalism
again.
Roy Schestowitz
> Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
> decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
> Markup Validator.
Good idea; good initiative.
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
That is sad news. This reflects on disregard for standards and moreover --
the inexperience of Web developers that these companies hire.
The movement of Web standards, much like that of Open Source, promotes a Web
that does not discriminate. This benefits everybody. So surely, Amazon,
Yahoo and MĄ˘ro$oŁt do not care enough. Mozilla have been discriminated
against for many years.
Want to know more about Web standards? Talk to the visually impaired, talk
to the PDA user, talk to the person in Africa who cannot afford a Window$
licence.
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards?
Yes. One day many of us will have to 'clean up' our Web sites. You, however,
will not need to do so. Your present effort will be merited. 1 year ago
people designed their site to be compatible with IE. With so much going on
at the moment, can anyone look 5 years ahead?
> I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
Once you practice a few validations, you learn from your mistakes and no
longer repeat them. Valid code becomes innate.
> P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
> the homepage locally, it failed too.
Ouch. Probably the result of several people collaborating on content.
Roy
--
Roy Schestowitz
http://schestowitz.com
Benjamin Niemann
> Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
> decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
> Markup Validator.
>
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
>
> P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
> the homepage locally, it failed too.
You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people first),
hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external contractors),
ad code delivered by affiliates...
mozilla.org is (compared to the others) a pretty small site and has just
been redesigned.
Even if the others started fixing their sites two year ago, I wouldn't
expect them to get the job done by now.
Microsoft for example just started this job (not sure, if it was
microsoft.com or another of their portal sites). They did pretty well, but
are still far from being perfect. IIRC some microsoft guy wrote about it -
and the obstacles in his blog.
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/
accooper
validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not allowed
here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
Also on things like CSS, IE does not support correctly half of it. Like
positioning is iffy. So I try my best and test my pages in IE and Mozilla or
Fire Bird. I'm more worried about my spelling!
--
Andrew C. Cooper
www.wordforlife.com/cmhm
Check Out Our New Free Christian
Music Downloads At
www.wordforlife.com
"Sugapablo" <ru...@REMOVEsugapablo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.03.26....@REMOVEsugapablo.com...
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:08:11 -0500, Carolyn Marenger wrote:
>
>> I also try to produce pages with minimal bloat. Keep the pages small, so
>> they load fast. It also makes them easier to edit later on.
>
> Yeah, that's why I created http://www.subuse.net
>
> Sometimes, I still get this romantic nostalgia for the days when I had a
> 2400 baud modem, telix, lynx, and nothing but command line. Silly, but...
>
> Plus, today, with so many web phones and mobile devices, there aren't many
> sites that work well with them, so I figured there's a need for minimalism
> again.
>
> --
> [
Jim Royal
Sugapablo <ru...@REMOVEsugapablo.com> wrote:
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
Web standards are validation are a tool for you, for your own
development work -- today and into the future. But there's no value to
the visitor in trumpeting a web site as standards-compliant. No one
cares. But it definitely makes your job easier if you can check your
code against the W3C validators.
The Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! sites are works in progress. They
contain a great deal of legacy content and code, and are being modified
and updated all the time, on the fly. It is not surpirsing that such
sites are not yet standards-compliant. Only sites that are rewritten
from the ground-up can be made easily using web standards.
If web standards help you as a web developer, then use them, and forget
what the huge portals are doing.
--
Jim Royal
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
http://JimRoyal.com
Nick Theodorakis
<ru...@REMOVEsugapablo.com> wrote:
>Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
>decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
>Markup Validator.
>
>Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
>mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>
Why, I'm *shocked* that major corporations aren't developing to
standards! ;-)
>So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
>care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
>standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort.
Think of it as "future-proofing" your markup. You won't have to go
back and fix your sites that are broken in IE 8.2 or Fire&animal; 3.5.
>What do yinz think?
I think you must be from Pittsburgh.
Nick
--
Nick Theodorakis
nick_the...@hotmail.com
contact form:
http://theodorakis.net/contact.html
Sherm Pendley
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
I took a look at the nutrition info for some of the most popular eateries in
the US: McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Turns
out they're terrible for you! Loaded down with fat, sugar, and sodium.
So, if these places don't seem to care, why should the rest of us concern
ourselves with nutrition when we're cooking our own meals?
sherm--
--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
Barbara de Zoete
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards?
Violating my own standards here (read all responses already made, before
responding myself, as to avoid duplication of answers):
I get my motivation to code according to standards from within. I don't really
care what others do. _I_ mind, because:
- I like to create with a certain quality, and I think working according to
standards adds quality to what I create;
- I experience how easy it is to maintain quality code;
- I experience how easy it is to find flaws and mistakes with validating my
pages every now and again, when I made some major changes; flaws and mistakes
that can influence the rendering of my pages in a way that I think is
undesirable;
- I experience expanding my knowledge (train as I 'fight') if I challange myself
to stay within standards.
But, I like to be a bit naughty sometimes, so I created my own DTD that included
the <nobr> for example. So 'web standards' is really what you make of them in
the end, how else does evolution get a change ;-)
Now, I'll read what others had to say on this.
--
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|zweefvliegen | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html |
`-------------------------------------------------- --<--@ ------------'
Toby Inkster
> I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
> W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
> allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
rarely incorrect.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Roy Schestowitz
> accooper wrote:
>
>> I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
>> W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
>> allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
>
> The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
> difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
> rarely incorrect.
Actually it answers (should answer) "it /is/ correct", as defined by the
standards in question. At present this means that it will "rarely be
rendered incorrectly by browsers". This implies that some browsers are
broken, not the validators which rely on formal standards.
Lauri Raittila
> Toby Inkster wrote:
>
> > accooper wrote:
> >
> >> I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
> >> W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
> >> allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
> >
> > The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
> > difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
> > rarely incorrect.
>
> Actually it answers (should answer) "it /is/ correct",
No, being correct is irrelevant. Validator chacks if it is valid, nothing
more, nothing less. Valid has technical meaning here that differs from
correct.
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/validation.html
> At present this means that it will "rarely be
> rendered incorrectly by browsers".
Again, that is not true. It is extreamily easy to make valid document
that is always rendered wrong.
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Utrecht, NL.
Jim Moe
>
> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
> large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
>
Not so. Large sites use a Content Management System of some sort. Once
the CMS is set up to generate valid code, having a standards-compliant
site is automatic.
Really it's some combination of hubris, sloth, poor education and
ignorant management.
--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)
mbstevens
> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such
> pages (I mean the large portal like microsoft, yahoo...)
> valid. Such pages are dynamically constructed with
> content from various sources. It is more of an
> organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in
> databases in various departments (finding and convincing
> the responsible people first), hardcoded in custom
> software (perhaps developed by external contractors), ad
> code delivered by affiliates...
I have to disagree on that one. Generated pages are
almost as easy to get valid as static ones. If these
places cared about standards they'd be able to to it very
quickly. (I'm not saying that they could necessarily get
rid of the complex tables. But they could easily get
their pages to *validate*.)
--
mbstevens http://www.mbstevens.com
Adrienne
<ru...@REMOVEsugapablo.com> writing in
news:pan.2005.03.26....@REMOVEsugapablo.com:
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
Opera is valid XHTML
>
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem
> to care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves
> with standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What
> do yinz think?
>
I write valid markup for a few reasons:
1. It's easier for me to write to standards.
2. It's easier to find bugs. I do a lot of server side coding, and I
find it's easier to find a server side bug if I know the markup is valid
first. 3. Documents are more consistent across browsers and platforms.
4. Search engines seem to like valid markup better, and they seem to like
semantic markup even more. 5. I'm a control freak. I like everything to
be "just so".
--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
accooper
you can be chasing rabbits more than building pages.
--
Andrew C. Cooper
www.wordforlife.com/cmhm
Check Out Our New Free Christian
Music Downloads At
www.wordforlife.com
"Roy Schestowitz" <newsg...@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
news:d23unt$2e72$1...@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...
Barbara de Zoete
> All I know is that you have to take the validators with a grain of salt or
> you can be chasing rabbits more than building pages.
>
Just shows how much you actually don't know.
Dan
Benjamin Niemann wrote:
> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean
the
> large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are
dynamically
> constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
> organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
> various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people
first),
> hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external
contractors),
> ad code delivered by affiliates...
But look at Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) for a
counterexample. That site lets any idiot edit it, and the editing is
done in a tag-soup mishmash of plain text, proprietary wiki markup, and
a subset of HTML... but the end result, as output to the browser, is
completely valid XHTML; at least, every Wikipedia page I've ever tried
in the validator has passed.
--
Dan
David Ross
you have with viewing it as I intended is the fault of your
browser. It's not my fault, and I won't do anything about it.
If your page does not comply with the specifications and guidelines
— or worse uses proprietary capabilities found in only one
company's browser — any problem that I have with viewing it as you
intended may easily be the fault of your Web page. You need to fix
your page before pointing an accusing finger at my browser. If you
don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
For details, see
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/internet/Webdevelopers.html>.
--
David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>
I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.
Barbara de Zoete
> If you
> don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
>
Maybe you have learned something on authoring markup and styles for pages. Now
it is about time to learn on replying in this newsgroup:
- quote the part you reply to;
- attribute the quote.
Just to show you care about the realm you've entered. If you don't care, then I
don't choose to read your postings.
Lauri Raittila
> If my Web page complies with the W3C specifications, any problem
> you have with viewing it as I intended is the fault of your
> browser. It's not my fault, and I won't do anything about it.
That would be stupid attitude, if true.
No browser has or is likely to ever support HTML4. I think that CSS21 and
XHTML2 are the point when we can think there is wide enough browser
support... (and it will be 5 years, at least...)
In reality, you never use code that you know will break on all browsers,
even if it is entirely correct. That would be just plain dumm (unless
only idea is to demostrate something)
> If your page does not comply with the specifications and guidelines
> — or worse uses proprietary capabilities found in only one
> company's browser — any problem that I have with viewing it as you
> intended may easily be the fault of your Web page.
That makes much more sence.
> You need to fix your page before pointing an accusing finger at my browser.
Exactly.
kchayka
>
> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
> large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
> constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
> organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
> various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people first),
> hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external contractors),
> ad code delivered by affiliates...
It may not be as hard as you think. Take a look at wired.com. That's a
fairly large site.
If you run their home page through the validator, it may seem like there
are a lot of errors, but almost all of them are due to using "&" in URLs
rather than the & entity reference. If they fixed this one thing,
there would only be a couple errors on the page. Not bad, methinks.
Something you may not be considering is that large organizations are
going to have change control systems that are intended to prevent crap
from getting into their production environment. Code quality standards
belong in that process. I don't believe it's a matter of an organization
"convincing" employees to do things the right way. If it's a policy,
there's not much to argue about. If there's no policy, you get chaos.
The quality of the output is only as good as the process and input
controls. Some places are better at it than others, same as anything
else. But just because some big boys aren't so good at it doesn't mean
it can't be done.
--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.
Uncle Pirate
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
I sometimes wonder if it's worth it too. I try to stick to the
recommendations and do none of the stuff that causes me to leave so many
sites today. I also teach HTML and I use the w3c validator as part of
my grading. I do tell me students that I am teaching them the "correct"
way and expect all of their pages to validate. Once they are done with
the class however, they are free to follow the recommendation they want
to (loose, strict, whatever). I've seen many of my students finish the
class and go right back to table layout and either no doctype or a loose
doctype.
Because the browser manufacturers allow the crap code to work, it's a
losing battle. Personnally, though, I'll keep putting out the best
markup that I possibly can.
--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
Coordinator, Tularosa Basin Chapter, ABATE of NM; AMA#758681; COBB
'94 1500 Vulcan (now wrecked) :( http://motorcyclefun.org/Dcp_2068c.jpg
A zest for living must include a willingness to die. - R.A. Heinlein
Barbara de Zoete
> I also teach HTML and I use the w3c validator as part of my grading. I do
> tell me students that I am teaching them the "correct" way and expect all of
> their pages to validate. Once they are done with the class however, they are
> free to follow the recommendation they want to (loose, strict, whatever).
> I've seen many of my students finish the class and go right back to table
> layout and either no doctype or a loose doctype.
>
Hmmm. Makes me wounder. What is the reason you give your students? Not just so
they understand the knowledge you provide, but the actual insight, wisdom,
whatever, that takes them beyond the simple understanding level. What is it you
strive to accomplish with your students?
Uncle Pirate
> Benjamin Niemann wrote:
>
>>You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
>>large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
>>constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
>>organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
>>various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people first),
>>hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external contractors),
>>ad code delivered by affiliates...
>
>
> It may not be as hard as you think. Take a look at wired.com. That's a
> fairly large site.
Correct. When a company is paying "professional" web developers to work
on their website, there is no excuse for the garbage output.
>
> If you run their home page through the validator, it may seem like there
> are a lot of errors, but almost all of them are due to using "&" in URLs
> rather than the & entity reference. If they fixed this one thing,
> there would only be a couple errors on the page. Not bad, methinks.
>
> Something you may not be considering is that large organizations are
> going to have change control systems that are intended to prevent crap
> from getting into their production environment. Code quality standards
> belong in that process. I don't believe it's a matter of an organization
> "convincing" employees to do things the right way. If it's a policy,
> there's not much to argue about. If there's no policy, you get chaos.
Some environments are easier to enforce policy than others. Although
the code genererated by Netscape/Mozilla Composer is generally not good,
the ease of use for non-technical people assigned to work on their area
pages is what I train many of the employees at the college where I am
the webmaster. I do all the pages that I take care of with HTML 4.01
strict, css 2.1, and validate those pages. I tell the users, in
workshops I give that I don't ever want to have to work on the pages
they are doing with Composer because of what it outputs, but the pages
display OK, and they are not web developers.
On our new design (upcoming), I'm planning on implementing some SSI and
a different (not sure what yet) method so those non-technical people can
output better code easier. I'm looking at different tools now for them
to use. I cannot expect them to use a text editor as I do without some
more extensive training.
>
> The quality of the output is only as good as the process and input
> controls. Some places are better at it than others, same as anything
> else. But just because some big boys aren't so good at it doesn't mean
> it can't be done.
Exactly. I would really prefer to implement a method where the
secretaries and such give me the info and I do the pages. Lack of time
on my part, prevents that however so I'm also looking into php (I
already do a lot of CGI stuff with Perl). I'm considering a basic
dynamic method where these people only have to deal with content, not
the HTML.
Good thread. Interesting opinions.
Uncle Pirate
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:29:16 -0700, Uncle Pirate <st...@SureCann.com> wrote:
>
>> I also teach HTML and I use the w3c validator as part of my grading.
>> I do tell me students that I am teaching them the "correct" way and
>> expect all of their pages to validate. Once they are done with the
>> class however, they are free to follow the recommendation they want
>> to (loose, strict, whatever). I've seen many of my students finish
>> the class and go right back to table layout and either no doctype or
>> a loose doctype.
>>
>
> Hmmm. Makes me wounder. What is the reason you give your students? Not
> just so they understand the knowledge you provide, but the actual
> insight, wisdom, whatever, that takes them beyond the simple
> understanding level. What is it you strive to accomplish with your
> students?
I tell my students that "Transitional" means just that. Although things
may "work" with no doctype or using the transitional method, it is
outdated. The time of transition from a 1998 recommendation is long
past; new pages *should* meet the recommendations. I give them
information about quirks mode, how browsers render differently
with/without various doctypes. I show them how much simpler pages are
to work on eliminating the table layout methods. I try to teach the
"modern correct" methods of web development. But I can only "make" them
do it while they are taking my class and being graded on their
assignments. Your question makes me wonder if I shouldn't gather some
statistics to review. Your question just might make a good course
assessment project. Thanks.
Barbara de Zoete
> Barbara de Zoete wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:29:16 -0700, Uncle Pirate <st...@SureCann.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I also teach HTML and I use the w3c validator as part of my grading. I do
>>> tell me students that I am teaching them the "correct" way and expect all
>>> of their pages to validate. Once they are done with the class however,
>>> they are free to follow the recommendation they want to (loose, strict,
>>> whatever). I've seen many of my students finish the class and go right
>>> back to table layout and either no doctype or a loose doctype.
>>>
>> Hmmm. Makes me wounder. What is the reason you give your students? Not just
>> so they understand the knowledge you provide, but the actual insight,
>> wisdom, whatever, that takes them beyond the simple understanding level.
>> What is it you strive to accomplish with your students?
>
> I tell my students that "Transitional" means just that. Although things may
> "work" with no doctype or using the transitional method, it is outdated. The
> time of transition from a 1998 recommendation is long past; new pages *should*
> meet the recommendations. I give them information about quirks mode, how
> browsers render differently with/without various doctypes. I show them how
> much simpler pages are to work on eliminating the table layout methods. I try
> to teach the "modern correct" methods of web development. But I can only
> "make" them do it while they are taking my class and being graded on their
> assignments. Your question makes me wonder if I shouldn't gather some
> statistics to review. Your question just might make a good course assessment
> project. Thanks.
>
What I miss in your explanation to me, is the passion. The reasoning about
Transitional is what they can read or figger out themselves. The passion tells
them about reaching all people on earth that are somehow connected to the
internet. No matter what machine, what browser, what ever means, if someone is
connected, you can reach them.
I once stood on a line in Europe, a path that was several thousands of
kilometers long, knowing that with me, in a few hours before me and after me,
over one hundred and fifty milion people stood on that same line. It was the
path that plotted the course of the shadow on earth of a full sun eclips, as it
occured. I rarely ever felt so bonded with people before or after, but sometimes
I get that feeling if a visitor of my site responds out of the blue to my
publishings.
That. That is why I code to standards. I want everybody to be able to connect to
me. If you are serious about reaching out, your code shows it.
Sugapablo
> I would really prefer to implement a method where the secretaries and
> such give me the info and I do the pages. Lack of time on my part,
> prevents that however so I'm also looking into php (I already do a lot
> of CGI stuff with Perl). I'm considering a basic dynamic method where
> these people only have to deal with content, not the HTML.
That's what a CMS (Content Management System) is for. You write the web
code, and all they do is fill in the content into web forms (etc.) and no
technical knowledge is needed on their part beyond just using the website.
I deal with CMSs all the time. Once you have it layed out, they simply
spit out all kinds of good code.
--
[ Sugapablo ]
Nick Kew
> at least, every Wikipedia page I've ever tried
> in the validator has passed.
>
How long has that been the case?
When I developed the mod_annot framework[1] for accepting input
(including markup) from users and guaranteeing valid pages,
I thought it was a first. Are you saying wikipedia's been doing
it for years?
[1] see http://www.apachetutor.org/apps/annot
--
Nick Kew
Benjamin Niemann
> Benjamin Niemann wrote:
>>
>> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
>> large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
>> constructed with content from various sources. [...]
>>
> Not so. Large sites use a Content Management System of some sort. Once
> the CMS is set up to generate valid code, having a standards-compliant
> site is automatic.
But what, if the WCMS allows the author to enter tagsoup that is directly
stored in the DB without validation. Many WCM systems do and most of them
did a few years ago. You'd still have to plow through thousands of
documents and correct them.
> Really it's some combination of hubris, sloth, poor education and
> ignorant management.
The vast amount of existing content makes it a great challange for these
sites. And much of this content and the software behind it (their probably
homegrown WCM system) originates from a time when standards unfortunatly
did no matter...
I totally agree that it would indeed be a very good signal, if they did
undertake this challange (especially MS that co-authored the web standards
they are violating or neglecting).
But I think it is only natural that such giant sites have a much higher
inertia and it would be rather surprising, if they reached the goal before
the bulk of small sites do.
If I would like to know, if these big players care about web standards, I
would look at their newer pages. E.g. what about the new MSN search? It
just recently went public. THAT would be a shame, if they'd still use
tagsoup for these sites. (In fact, it looks pretty good. XHTML 1.0 strict
with just a few glitches).
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/
Uncle Pirate
> What I miss in your explanation to me, is the passion. The reasoning
> about Transitional is what they can read or figger out themselves. The
> passion tells them about reaching all people on earth that are somehow
> connected to the internet. No matter what machine, what browser, what
> ever means, if someone is connected, you can reach them.
Very difficult to get the passion across in a text format like this.
And when I teach on-line, as I often do, it is difficult to get that
across as well, this fall will be in the classroom and the students will
experience my passion. I take pride in doing the best job I can do, no
matter what that job may be.
Far from perfect, my pride (soon to get a facelift, I hope) is
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/, much of my 40 hour a week job. I use the
difference between editing one of the older table layout pages with the
newer 4.01 strict with CSS pages as an example of ease of updating.
I am really looking forward to the promised development of a new layout.
Others, better at design will come up with the layout/design, while
I'll be involved telling them what is practical/feasible and will
eventually implement the facelift. Exciting times.
Uncle Pirate
>
> That's what a CMS (Content Management System) is for. You write the web
> code, and all they do is fill in the content into web forms (etc.) and no
> technical knowledge is needed on their part beyond just using the website.
>
> I deal with CMSs all the time. Once you have it layed out, they simply
> spit out all kinds of good code.
>
Problem is expense of a good one. I'll be probably piecing it together
a little at a time as I've been doing for years. Although not the best
coder, I've converted several things into dynamic pages over the years
at NMSU-A. Although somewhat buggy (error_log entries all the time),
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/directory.pl works well for what it was
designed for and is much easier to maintain than editing several web
pages containing that information as I used to. And, I'm not afraid to
find code so that I don't have to reinvent ... Kinda why I'm looking
into php right now. Lots of stuff written out there that I don't quite
understand yet.
Lachlan Hunt
> I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the W3C
> validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not allowed
> here".
It is the validator's job to report *all* syntax errors, not to decide
"Oh, I think this is a minor error, I won't bother the author by
mentioning it this time".
> I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
It may not make a difference to you, as someone reading the source code;
but, to an SGML parser, a space (or any other character) where one is
not expected is a syntax error, from which a parser would have to employ
possibly undefined error handling technniques to recover. In the case
of XML, such errors will be fatal, so yes, it really does make a difference.
--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox
Lachlan Hunt
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
At least the microsoft.com home page is getting very close (only 3
errors: 1 missing alt attr, proprietary nowrap attribute and using
checked="true" instead of checked="checked").
> So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
This sounds like an attempt to justify the presence of errors simply
because they're made by many other organisations, whereas this really
should be a case of learning from other's mistakes, so you don't make
them yourself.
Many people attempt to ignore standards, conformance and validation by
saying that it doesn't matter and/or it doesn't affect anything.
However, the simple fact is that there is little chance we will ever see
a main-stream browser that conforms 100% to HTML 4 simply because doing
so would "break" many more existing (broken) pages than it would
benefit. i.e. Because there are so many poorly coded web pages out there
that *don't* conform to the standards, we will never see a main-stream
browser that does; thus non-conformance has had, and *does have*, a very
detrimental effect.
The SHORTTAG NET features of SGML are one example I can think of, which
will not be implemented for this reason, at least not in Mozilla any
time soon [1].
> P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
> the homepage locally, it failed too.
That's very strange, at first I thought that might be related to bug
1069 [2] (some hosts reject UAs with libwww-perl in their User-Agent
string), although that didn't work in this case, so slashdot must be
rejecting based on some other factor. However, I was able to validate
with the latest development version of the validator which reported
invalid HTML 3.2 with 130 errors.
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94284
[2] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1069
Toby Inkster
> That's very strange, at first I thought that might be related to bug
> 1069 [2] (some hosts reject UAs with libwww-perl in their User-Agent
> string), although that didn't work in this case, so slashdot must be
> rejecting based on some other factor.
Slashdot blocks the W3C validator by IP address. They've been doing it for
quite some time. (Embarrassed about poor quality code.)
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
>> That's very strange, at first I thought that might be related to
>> bug 1069 [2] (some hosts reject UAs with libwww-perl in their
>> User-Agent string), although that didn't work in this case, so
>> slashdot must be rejecting based on some other factor.
>
> Slashdot blocks the W3C validator by IP address. They've been doing
> it for quite some time. (Embarrassed about poor quality code.)
Heh, they forgot this one. <g>
<URL:http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/validate.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2F&warnings=yes>
"The maximum number of errors was reached. Further errors in the
document have not been reported."
In all fairness to Slashdot, the "maximum number of errors" was 50.
--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.
David Ross
>
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:21:14 -0800, David Ross <nob...@nowhere.not> wrote:
>
> > If you
> > don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
> >
>
> Maybe you have learned something on authoring markup and styles for pages. Now
> it is about time to learn on replying in this newsgroup:
>
> - quote the part you reply to;
> - attribute the quote.
>
> Just to show you care about the realm you've entered. If you don't care, then I
> don't choose to read your postings.
Each newsgroup seems to have its own, distinct conventions for
replying. Some want top-posting of replies; others want
bottom-posting. Some want complete quoting of the entire thread
when replying; others want only the relevant portion of the
previous message. I can't possibly remember all the rules for each
of the 21 newsgroups where I frequently participate. (For Web
standards, however, there is only one HTML 4.01 specification and
one one CSS1 specification; and I still have to read the
specifications for details.)
In this case, I was replying to the Subject, which indeed did
appear as part of my reply.
Lauri Raittila
> Each newsgroup seems to have its own, distinct conventions for
> replying. Some want top-posting of replies; others want
> bottom-posting.
Yet to find out group that prefers top posting or insensible quoting.
Some groups that accept it (only gets noted on bottom of message)
I subscribe and participate on about 60 groups in 3 languages, of which
less than half technical stuff, and all follow same guidelines for
posting. Not all are as strict on posting style as this group, but all
prefer same style. (and some are stricter.)
Usually, it has much to do with volume of group. This is not excactly
quiet group, and many people also follow other ciwa* groups...
> Some want complete quoting of the entire thread
> when replying; others want only the relevant portion of the
> previous message. I can't possibly remember all the rules for each
> of the 21 newsgroups where I frequently participate.
The ones I have used have been accepted in all groups I subscribe.
> (For Web
> standards, however, there is only one HTML 4.01 specification and
> one one CSS1 specification; and I still have to read the
> specifications for details.)
There is many, many websites out there telling usenet netiquette.
> In this case, I was replying to the Subject, which indeed did
> appear as part of my reply.
Common courtacy would be include subject to body to make it clear.
Sugapablo
political in nature, I'll simply provide the link:
http://www.subuse.net/article.php?g=14&id=4
Dr John Stockton
10:57:55, seen in news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, David Ross
<nob...@nowhere.not> posted :
> I can't possibly remember all the rules for each
>of the 21 newsgroups where I frequently participate.
Then write them down, and refer to them when posting.
Readers are more important than authors; they need to be at least as
numerous, since otherwise the authors are superfluous.
--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME ©
Web <URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html> -> Timo Salmi: Usenet Q&A.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/news-use.htm> : about usage of News.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.
me
news:pan.2005.03.26....@REMOVEsugapablo.com...
> Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
> decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
> Markup Validator.
>
> Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
> mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>
> care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
> standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
> think?
>
> the homepage locally, it failed too.
]
I suspect you had some idea of the response you'd get before you asked this
question (considering the audience) but I see no harm in seeking validation
from those who share a similar point of view.
I have no objection to standards provided that they do not make unusable
anything that existed before the standard. I see no obstacle to providing
backward comparability for legacy code in the current standard (someone
please correct me if I'm wrong).
As an aside I do not validate my code. I might implement validation if I
perceived that there was sufficient benefit for me to warrant doing so.
Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
the web serves no purpose.
Signed,
me
kchayka
>
> Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
> freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
> the web serves no purpose.
It's all about you?
Whether you want to admit it or not, it's really all about your
visitors. Without them, the web serves no purpose.
c.thornquist
"me" <anonymous@_.com> wrote in message
news:114io89...@corp.supernews.com...
> "Sugapablo" <ru...@REMOVEsugapablo.com> wrote in message
> news:pan.2005.03.26....@REMOVEsugapablo.com...
>> Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
>> decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
>> Markup Validator.
> I suspect you had some idea of the response you'd get before you asked
> this
> question (considering the audience) but I see no harm in seeking
> validation
> from those who share a similar point of view.
>
> I have no objection to standards provided that they do not make unusable
> anything that existed before the standard. I see no obstacle to providing
> backward comparability for legacy code in the current standard (someone
> please correct me if I'm wrong).
>
> As an aside I do not validate my code. I might implement validation if I
> perceived that there was sufficient benefit for me to warrant doing so.
>
> Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
> freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
> the web serves no purpose.
> Signed,
> me
>
>
I tend to agree. I see the need for some very basic standards for validation
(esp. alt. tags), but the dogmatic attitudes present in newsgroups & on some
developers sites re validation and/or tables versus CSS makes it sound
almost cult-like:)
Carla
me
news:3at9osF...@individual.net...
> me wrote:
> >
> > Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website
author's
> > freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely
then
> > the web serves no purpose.
>
> It's all about you?
>
> Whether you want to admit it or not, it's really all about your
> visitors. Without them, the web serves no purpose.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Which comes first, a book or it's
readers? Which comes first, the website or the visitors?
Signed,
me
Arne
>
> Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
> freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
> the web serves no purpose.
In what way do following standards prevent your freedom of expression?
So far I have not experience that. Of cause I have sometimes find
other ways to do what I want to do, if I want a page to be valid. But
there is always that other (valid) way to do it.
--
/Arne
Proud User of Mozilla Suite. Get your free copy here:
*English* http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/
*Svenska* http://www.mozilla.se/mozilla.shtml
Greg Schmidt
> "kchayka" <use...@c-net.us> wrote in message
> news:3at9osF...@individual.net...
>> me wrote:
>>>
>>> Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website
> author's
>>> freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely
> then
>>> the web serves no purpose.
The web is (primarily) a visual medium. There is nothing that you can
express visually that cannot be done in such a way that it validates.
Doing so gives you (well, apparently not you, but it gives me) more
confidence that what I am "expressing" will work well, across current
and future browsers. Additionally, well-structured valid code has a
better chance of being translated reasonably well into non-visual media,
by an aural or Braille browser for example.
Validation is not the be-all and end-all. It is a useful tool. If your
page generates a few warnings that you fully understand the
ramifications of, then you can make a decision as to whether or not to
fix them. I recall reading an interview with the guy in charge of the
ESPN CSS redesign. He mentioned that there were a couple of "strict"
rules that they decided to break, because doing so gave them a large
benefit for most of their users, at a cost of a small penalty for a
small percentage. They weighed the two possibilities and decided that,
for the time being, it was better to be wrong. However, their decision
is a far cry from validation newbies deciding that "I don't really need
ALT attributes on any of my images."
>> It's all about you?
>>
>> Whether you want to admit it or not, it's really all about your
>> visitors. Without them, the web serves no purpose.
>
> What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Which comes first, a book or it's
> readers? Which comes first, the website or the visitors?
Millions upon millions of web sites have come and gone. Many of them
failed because they didn't reach their intended audience. Of course,
the site must be there before visitors will show up, but if the visitors
don't materialize, then the site will wither and die. Looked at another
way, without visitors, it's not a web site, it's your own private
writings, which may as well be in a journal under your pillow.
--
Greg Schmidt gr...@trawna.com
Trawna Publications http://www.trawna.com/
Joel Shepherd
wrote:
[snip]
Wow. A seven-sentence response, two-thirds of which started with "I",
and six of which featured "I" as the primary subject. It really *must*
be all about you.
> If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
> the web serves no purpose.
Folks who can't express themselves freely on the Web probably face
_much_ bigger challenges than the meanies at the W3C. Poverty,
illiteracy and tyranny suppress far more expression than some W3C
committee suggesting that tables not be used for layout, or declining to
include BLINK in some standard.
Get some perspective before spouting off BS about freedom of expression.
--
Joel.
Alan J. Flavell
> The web is (primarily) a visual medium.
Oh no, the whole point of the web was to communicate content. We
already had plenty of visual-specific media, before the WWW was
invented; if one of those had been enough, TimBL would have had no
need to invent the WWW.
I don't dispute that most readers browse the web visually. But that
doesn't devalue the web into a visual-only medium.
c.thornquist
"Greg Schmidt" <gr...@trawna.com> wrote in message
news:1bi46sxj2kaj2$.dlg@trawna.com...
> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:53:48 -0600, me wrote:
>
>> "kchayka" <use...@c-net.us> wrote in message
>> news:3at9osF...@individual.net...
>>> me wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website
>> author's
>>>> freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely
>> then
>>>> the web serves no purpose.
>
> The web is (primarily) a visual medium. There is nothing that you can
> express visually that cannot be done in such a way that it validates.
<snip>
> Millions upon millions of web sites have come and gone. Many of them
> failed because they didn't reach their intended audience. Of course,
> the site must be there before visitors will show up, but if the visitors
> don't materialize, then the site will wither and die. Looked at another
> way, without visitors, it's not a web site, it's your own private
> writings, which may as well be in a journal under your pillow.
>
> --
> Greg Schmidt gr...@trawna.com
> Trawna Publications http://www.trawna.com/
And millions are continually coming online; most being built by the average
Joe who wants to share family photos or express an opinion or seek others
with similar interests in their hobby.
When I have time, I will return to the sites I built 5 years ago for $200.00
each to support my family, meanwhile I hope the ability to view sites does
not become contingent upon validation.
I'll try to think of analogies in other media & art forms whereby standards
(not related to health & safety) are required to be met, before
publication/viewing by others. That may aid in understanding both sides.
I agree that accessibility is very important.
Carla
me
news:joelshep-1DBAD1...@news1.west.earthlink.net...
> In article <114io89...@corp.supernews.com>, "me" <anonymous@_.com>
> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> Wow. A seven-sentence response, two-thirds of which started with "I",
> and six of which featured "I" as the primary subject. It really *must*
> be all about you.
You are a keen observer, thank you for tallying the number of sentences I
used to express myself. The OP asked for opinions about how I as a website
designer felt about standards, as your astute observations have revealed I
have given my opinions as they applied to my situation so yes in a sense you
are correct, on this one occasion, in this thread and under these specfic
circumstances.
> > If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
> > the web serves no purpose.
>
> Folks who can't express themselves freely on the Web probably face
> _much_ bigger challenges than the meanies at the W3C. Poverty,
> illiteracy and tyranny suppress far more expression than some W3C
> committee suggesting that tables not be used for layout, or declining to
> include BLINK in some standard.
The implications of my words are evidently non-obvious to you, I will
restate them for your benefit in terms I hope you can understand. Standards
are OK as long as they don't cause sites to become unusable. Please let me
know if you're still fuzzy on my meaning.
> Get some perspective before spouting off BS about freedom of expression.
I'm sorry if my method of expression offended you but your approval is of no
consequence. If you found my post so lacking in perspective perhaps you
would honor us with your learned opinion, hopefully you have the capacity to
express yourself in a manner that is something other than just insults. Have
a nice day.
Signed,
me
Toby Inkster
> I'll try to think of analogies in other media & art forms whereby
> standards (not related to health & safety) are required to be met,
> before publication/viewing by others.
Publishing houses generally insist that standards of grammar and spelling
are followed by their authors.
Most newspapers and magazines, as well as insisting on correct grammar and
spelling, have a house style. For example, the Guardian makes its style
guide available online <http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/>.
(Aside: As an experienced journalist of 50 years' standing once said:
"There are only three words which need a capital letter: God, The Queen,
and the Editor." He was exaggerating, but you get the picture.)
me
news:3atgo2F...@individual.net...
> Once upon a time *me* wrote:
> >
> > Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website
author's
> > freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely
then
> > the web serves no purpose.
>
> In what way do following standards prevent your freedom of expression?
> So far I have not experience that. Of cause I have sometimes find
> other ways to do what I want to do, if I want a page to be valid. But
> there is always that other (valid) way to do it.
Standards have not as yet impeded my freedom of expression but they might if
browser manufacturers adopt standards that obsolete code in such a way as to
make some sites unusable.
Signed,
me
c.thornquist
"Toby Inkster" <usenet...@tobyinkster.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.03.29....@tobyinkster.co.uk...
Those are good examples, except there's nothing preventing the printing
presses from operating if those standards aren't met. And there's no
regulatory agency trying to enforce correct grammar by those publishers.
Perhaps there's room for sloppy & correct HTML?
Carla
Travis Newbury
>>Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
>>freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
>>the web serves no purpose.
> It's all about you?
> Whether you want to admit it or not, it's really all about your
> visitors. Without them, the web serves no purpose.
Why? If my site (personal or business) wants to project a specific
look, feel, flavor, what ever, even though I completely understand that
someone else may not like it or be able to see it. What concern is it
to you? Who cares what I do on the web?
I am not advocating using or not using anything, it is purely an
academic question. And speaking of which, wouldn't what I want to do on
the web be covered under free speech? (Citing US laws) I have a right to
express myself (or company) pretty much how ever I want.
Having said that, I must say I believe a smart business makes their site
by at least attempting to follow the rules.
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury
> The web is (primarily) a visual medium. There is nothing that you can
> express visually that cannot be done in such a way that it validates.
This includes using tables for layout? That validates.
> Validation is not the be-all and end-all. It is a useful tool.
Truer words can not be spoken.
--
-=tn=-
kchayka
> kchayka wrote:
>>>Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
>>>freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
>>>the web serves no purpose.
>> It's all about you?
>> Whether you want to admit it or not, it's really all about your
>> visitors. Without them, the web serves no purpose.
>
> Why? If my site (personal or business) wants to project a specific
> look, feel, flavor, what ever, even though I completely understand that
> someone else may not like it or be able to see it. What concern is it
> to you? Who cares what I do on the web?
If the site is for your own personal use, feel free to do whatever you
like, but there's not much point in having a web site if you are the
only visitor. If you don't care, no one else will, either.
But, if you want to reach a particular audience, then the purpose of the
site is for the benefit of those visitors, don't you think? The design
should be determined by what *they* want or need, not by the designer's
whims. If you know the target audience likes stuff like Flash and
gratuitous animation, give them what they want, but don't do it just
because the designer likes it. If you don't know what your visitors
want, you should find out.
Otherwise, you could end up alienating the very audience you're trying
to attract.
Travis Newbury
> > Why? If my site (personal or business) wants to project a specific
> > look, feel, flavor, what ever, even though I completely understand
that
> > someone else may not like it or be able to see it. What concern is
it
> > to you? Who cares what I do on the web?
>
> If the site is for your own personal use, feel free to do whatever
you
> like, but there's not much point in having a web site if you are the
> only visitor. If you don't care, no one else will, either.
>
> But, if you want to reach a particular audience, then the purpose of
the
> site is for the benefit of those visitors, don't you think?
> The design
> should be determined by what *they* want or need, not by the
designer's
> whims. If you know the target audience likes stuff like Flash and
> gratuitous animation, give them what they want, but don't do it just
> because the designer likes it. If you don't know what your visitors
> want, you should find out.
>
> Otherwise, you could end up alienating the very audience you're
trying
> to attract.
While probably not the answer most in this group would come up with, I
personally could not agree more.
--
-=tn=-
Stephen Poley
>As an aside I do not validate my code. I might implement validation if I
>perceived that there was sufficient benefit for me to warrant doing so.
>
>Philosophically speaking I oppose anything that impedes a website author's
>freedom of expression. If authors cannot expresses themselves freely then
>the web serves no purpose.
The idea that working according to standards impedes creativity has been
voiced before in these groups. It is utter myth. This is obvious if you
take a look at the telecommunications sector: this is far more strongly
governed by standards than the Web is, yet it has produced a flood of
new services and products.
--
Stephen Poley
Toby Inkster
> Those are good examples, except there's nothing preventing the printing
> presses from operating if those standards aren't met.
Except pride.
Eric Bohlman
news:nnhk41h7hv8lev4hm...@4ax.com:
A corrolary is that the greatest artists of all time have been those who
innovated *within* the limits of their media, whereas artists who have
tried to pretend that those limits didn't exist have been relegated to
the scrap-heap of pseudo-artists (those who regard Art as merely calling
attention to oneself).
Richard Brooks
[snipped]
How about currency ? A great one would be road or health & safety signs!
I think a lot of Web designs follows the HiFi system analogy. Okay, we
can put a 24-band graphic equaliser but do we really need it. We guys
use our ego's too much in most media. We could add Flash, Javascript,
ActiveX, XML, VML,VBScript and anything else on one page but are we
selling ourselves or the client's product.
In the UK we had a classic case of one TV advertising producer who got
so wild with showing his own talents (the last of the series of adverts
being a family car being driven through a post-apocalyptic world, you
know the sort of thing! Ball bearings being rolled over the road, a man
in a gimp mask with nails poked out of it, solarized colour with the
advert ending with a piano being thrown over a bridge) the customer
ended up not knowing what the name of the product being sold was.
Richard.
Travis Newbury
> The idea that working according to standards impedes creativity has been
> voiced before in these groups. It is utter myth.
That statement completely depends on one's definition of creativity, and
if you are including accessibility as part of the standards.
--
-=tn=-
me
[snip]
> I think a lot of Web designs follows the HiFi system analogy. Okay, we
> can put a 24-band graphic equaliser but do we really need it. We guys
> use our ego's too much in most media. We could add Flash, Javascript,
> ActiveX, XML, VML,VBScript and anything else on one page but are we
> selling ourselves or the client's product.
>
> In the UK we had a classic case of one TV advertising producer who got
> so wild with showing his own talents (the last of the series of adverts
> being a family car being driven through a post-apocalyptic world, you
> know the sort of thing! Ball bearings being rolled over the road, a man
> in a gimp mask with nails poked out of it, solarized colour with the
> advert ending with a piano being thrown over a bridge) the customer
> ended up not knowing what the name of the product being sold was.
> Richard.
I agree and your points are valid. I would add that in my experience the
client (or employer) will only allow that which they find appropriate.
Signed,
me
c.thornquist
"Eric Bohlman" <eboh...@omsdev.com> wrote in message
news:Xns962919CC131FC...@130.133.1.4...
> Stephen Poley <sbpoleySpi...@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:nnhk41h7hv8lev4hm...@4ax.com:
>
>> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:06:21 -0600, "me" <anonymous@_.com> wrote:
>>
<snip>
>>
>> The idea that working according to standards impedes creativity has
>> been voiced before in these groups. It is utter myth. This is obvious
>> if you take a look at the telecommunications sector: this is far more
>> strongly governed by standards than the Web is, yet it has produced a
>> flood of new services and products.
>
> A corrolary is that the greatest artists of all time have been those who
> innovated *within* the limits of their media, whereas artists who have
> tried to pretend that those limits didn't exist have been relegated to
> the scrap-heap of pseudo-artists (those who regard Art as merely calling
> attention to oneself).
What does that mean? Are you referring to painters & sculptors? Musicians?
Carla
me
news:nnhk41h7hv8lev4hm...@4ax.com...
I have already addressed this here:
news:114jib2...@corp.supernews.com
But my answer is in no way related to the telecommunications sector
especially considering that from the users point of view the act of making a
phone call has not changed for many decades (i.e. pick up receiver, dial,
talk).
Signed,
me
DU
> Sugapablo wrote:
>
>
>>Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
>>decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
>>Markup Validator.
>>
>>Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
>>mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
>>
>>So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
>>care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
>>standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
>>think?
>>
>>P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
>>the homepage locally, it failed too.
>
> You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
> large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid.
Those corporations we are talking about have huge resources, have
officially and publicly commited to support web standards, have been
taken part of defining the specifications, and had years to convert
their own sites.
Such pages are dynamically
> constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
> organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
> various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people first),
> hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external contractors),
> ad code delivered by affiliates...
>
I still disagree with you for reasons I gave.
> mozilla.org is (compared to the others) a pretty small site
Not true in my opinion. You have not surf a lot at mozilla.org. There
are hundreds, possibly thousands of documents.
and has just
> been redesigned.
Not true. There is still a lot of work being done to convert all pages
to HTML 4.01 strict. I even converted a page of the mozilla.org site today!
> Even if the others started fixing their sites two year ago, I wouldn't
> expect them to get the job done by now.
But they had much more than 2 years.
> Microsoft for example just started this job (not sure, if it was
> microsoft.com or another of their portal sites).
Not true. Microsoft publicly said it would support standards and comply
with standards.
Many years ago (around 2000), I read and saved these quotes:
"Microsoft is committed to working with the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) to implement W3C-approved HTML standards, and has confirmed its
pledge to work through W3C and other standards bodies on enhancements to
HTML and other key Web technologies."
http://www.microsoft.com/standards/intro.asp
Now, that link was removed also many years ago. If you support defining
and implementation of web standards, then why do you neglect these
everywhere in your own web site?
NETSCAPE OPEN STANDARDS GUARANTEE
"We will adopt the major open standards recommended by the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other appropriate, vendor-neutral
standards bodies, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Object
Management Group (OMG), ECMA, and others."
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/columns/intranet/open_standards.html
DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Mozilla 1.7.6 :)
Greg Schmidt
> Greg Schmidt wrote:
>
>> The web is (primarily) a visual medium. There is nothing that you can
>> express visually that cannot be done in such a way that it validates.
>
> This includes using tables for layout? That validates.
Tables for layout tend to hurt accessibility and search engine rankings,
make designs more fragile and increase page size (and hence download
times). However, you are right that from an SGML point of view they are
valid. It goes to show that, just as there are (rare) occasions where
(very slightly) invalid code is the best choice, there are also (many)
occasions where code that happens to be valid is not the best choice.
DU
> If my Web page complies with the W3C specifications, any problem
> you have with viewing it as I intended is the fault of your
> browser. It's not my fault, and I won't do anything about it.
>
> If your page does not comply with the specifications and guidelines
> — or worse uses proprietary capabilities found in only one
> company's browser — any problem that I have with viewing it as you
> intended may easily be the fault of your Web page.
There is a worse alternative. It's silent error correction mechanism in
browsers like MSIE. They will support poor coding practices by
compensating for syntax errors and they'll do this silently. So the
amateur web author will adjust the code according to what he sees: the
What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get principle can be the worst "teacher" of
HTML and CSS.
"If we lived in a world where browsers could refuse to display malformed
content (with useful error notification of course so that authors could
easily repair their content), then all of these 'bugs' would simply
disappear. I could focus my efforts on real DOM and CSS bugs, and not
have to waste my time emulating the behavior of WinIE.
(...)
The whole reason nearly all Web pages on the Internet are malformed is
because browsers let Web page authors get away with it. As long as
browsers are permissive in their error handling and recovery, Web
authors will continue to produce invalid Web pages, because they won't
even have any idea the pages they are authoring are invalid!
(...)
I think people who don't work on Web browsers for a living have no
concept of just how malformed the Web really is, so let me state this as
clearly as I can:
The #1 reason that HTML pages render incorrectly in alternate browsers
is because of differences in error handling and recovery."
David Hyatt January 18th 2004
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_01.html#004702
also reported at
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/52481/safari-exposes-ie-as-a-brave-face-for-poor-coding.html
"Error behavior that is appropriate for a person may not be appropriate
for software. People are capable of exercising judgement in ways that
software applications generally cannot. An informal error response may
suffice for a person but not for a processor."
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031209/#no-silent-recovery
"A user agent acts on behalf of the user and therefore is expected to
help the user understand the nature of errors, and possibly overcome
them. User agents that correct errors without the consent of the user
are not acting on the user's behalf.
Silent recovery from error is harmful."
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031209/#error-handling
You need to fix
> your page before pointing an accusing finger at my browser. If you
> don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
>
> For details, see
> <URL:http://www.rossde.com/internet/Webdevelopers.html>.
>
David, I like your webpage. I had the intent to do a webpage exactly
like yours. I will check it more carefully later. It's bookmarked :)
Btw, mozilla.org still has some clean up to do:
I converted these
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html
and
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_otherproj.html
to HTML 4.01 strict a few days ago and removed over 500 markup and CSS
errors.
Bug 151557: Make all pages on mozilla.org validate as HTML 4.01 Strict
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151557
Greg Schmidt
> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Greg Schmidt wrote:
>
>> The web is (primarily) a visual medium.
>
> Oh no, the whole point of the web was to communicate content. We
> already had plenty of visual-specific media, before the WWW was
> invented; if one of those had been enough, TimBL would have had no
> need to invent the WWW.
Well, we had a number of text-specific media too, like FTP, Gopher and
WAIS. If the world was just about text content, then those would have
sufficed, but the physicists that TimBL worked with wanted to be able to
share graphs as well. The WWW does a great job not only of delivering
text, but also graphics (some of which is content, much of it is not).
I don't think it's coincidence that the surge in popularity of the WWW
came with the release of the first graphical browser.
> I don't dispute that most readers browse the web visually. But that
> doesn't devalue the web into a visual-only medium.
You didn't quote this part of my original:
>> well-structured valid code has a
>> better chance of being translated reasonably well into non-visual media,
>> by an aural or Braille browser
A summary of that might be "valid code doesn't get in the way of the
content".
Perhaps my opening line should have been "The web is experienced
(primarily) as a visual medium."
DU
> JRS: In article <42470233...@nowhere.not>, dated Sun, 27 Mar 2005
> 10:57:55, seen in news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, David Ross
> <nob...@nowhere.not> posted :
>
>
>> I can't possibly remember all the rules for each
>>of the 21 newsgroups where I frequently participate.
>
>
>
> Then write them down, and refer to them when posting.
>
> Readers are more important than authors; they need to be at least as
> numerous, since otherwise the authors are superfluous.
Wow! I've never read something as harsch as this. You can not be serious.
I understand well David Ross here. I remember a particular netscape
newsgroup: I was once told that my signature should not be more than 2
lines long and my signature had 3 links of references to FAQ and
resources links useful for readers of the group. My signature had 3
lines, not 2. When people are lectured and admonished for this sort of
"infraction", then I think we are all losing the purpose of joining a
newsgroup discussion.
I personally think that bottom-posting is much easier, more convenient
to read, interleaving replies contextually is better. I dislike cap-lock
manners. I prefer people keep only relevant parts of posts: such policy
vary from newsgroups btw. More technical newsgroups will not like
snipping much.
DU
kaeli
enlightened us with...
> The whole reason nearly all Web pages on the Internet are malformed is
> because browsers let Web page authors get away with it. As long as
> browsers are permissive in their error handling and recovery, Web
> authors will continue to produce invalid Web pages, because they won't
> even have any idea the pages they are authoring are invalid!
Might I give a hearty yell of support to this statement?
When I first started out, I used MSIE because Netscrape sucked. I had no clue
that my pages even HAD errors, much less of a clue that other browsers
wouldn't render things the same way my browser did.
Because MSIE compensates for errors so much, I always design with Firefox now
and THEN check MSIE rendering (and fix if necessary). Same for when I do
javascript, since Firefox's error messages are so much better.
I keep hoping that SOME day, all browsers will at least support the same
basic DOM the same way, including rendering of CSS, so that by using whatever
elements are standard, I am 100% guaranteed that all browsers will render the
content in the exact same way (and CSS works the same, and javascript works
the same, etc). And if anyone thinks that is currently the case, I ran into
the wonderful IE peek-a-boo bug simply by putting a div in a table TD -- and
it wasn't even FLOAT!. As long as crap like that (and the box model problems,
etc) happens, I don't consider MSIE as supporting standards, since CSS is (or
should be) a standard I can count on.
--
--
~kaeli~
Doing my part to piss off the Religious Right.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace
c.thornquist
Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they, almost all
that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that they were built
with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
Including the text! Don't those authors care about usability (as opposed to
accessibility)? Most people can comfortably read only 400 pixels across at a
stretch.
I know you can approximate the layout & look of a site built with tables in
CSS (saw it done in an example on a website), so why do so many CSS sites
look so bad? And so similar? Is it something inherent in coding with CSS?
Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up. They must be precise.
Carla
DU
> In article <3b07stF...@uni-berlin.de>, drun...@hotNOSPAMmail.com
> enlightened us with...
>
>>The whole reason nearly all Web pages on the Internet are malformed is
>>because browsers let Web page authors get away with it. As long as
>>browsers are permissive in their error handling and recovery, Web
>>authors will continue to produce invalid Web pages, because they won't
>>even have any idea the pages they are authoring are invalid!
>
>
> Might I give a hearty yell of support to this statement?
> When I first started out, I used MSIE because Netscrape sucked. I had no clue
> that my pages even HAD errors, much less of a clue that other browsers
> wouldn't render things the same way my browser did.
> Because MSIE compensates for errors so much, I always design with Firefox now
> and THEN check MSIE rendering (and fix if necessary). Same for when I do
> javascript, since Firefox's error messages are so much better.
>
> I keep hoping that SOME day, all browsers will at least support the same
> basic DOM the same way, including rendering of CSS, so that by using whatever
> elements are standard, I am 100% guaranteed that all browsers will render the
> content in the exact same way (and CSS works the same, and javascript works
> the same, etc).
Well, now is the time to report these errors to Microsoft. At this site,
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerStandardsSupport
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerFeedback
you can report all bugs, errors, problems you see with MSIE 6 and the
MSIE 7 dev. team will... <gulp> see, and read these and then will
possibly implement the features you request or correct the bugs you report.
MSIE 7 dev. team is supposed to release a MSIE 7 beta 1 this summer...so
if I was you, I would hurry reporting the bugs you see over there. You
can also report a bug along with a testcase at
http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/
as the IE 7 team also checks these pages.
Alan J. Flavell
[overquotage snipped...]
> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they,
> almost all that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that
> they were built with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way
> across my 19" monitor?
Eh? Haven't you discovered windowing systems yet? No web page gets
to spread itself "all the way" across my monitor!!!
> Including the text! Don't those authors care about usability (as
> opposed to accessibility)?
(Possibly they didn't reckon with you choosing a ridiculously wide
browser window /and/ using a browser that doesn't implement max-width)
Most people can comfortably read only 400 pixels across at a
> stretch.
That depends on the pixel density of the display! On my desktop
display, that's less than 3 inches, and represents a -very- short line
of text.
> I know you can approximate the layout & look of a site built with
> tables in CSS
This is truly perverse. You want to take a badly-engineered product,
and use good engineering to mimic it? You'd rate to finish up with
many of the disadvantages of both, and few of the benefits. No wonder
you're disappointed.
Nobody claims that CSS is perfect, or that browser implementations of
it are entirely reliable. But at least it's a move in the right
direction, and, if done properly, my perception is that on balance it
rates to produce better results. Of course, it can be that your
standards of "better" are so different from mine that we'd never
agree. But you seem to be doing your worst to put CSS in a bad light,
while "proving" that table layouts enjoy a superiority that IMHO they
don't deserve.
> so why do so many CSS sites look so bad? And so similar?
More to the point, why is your perception of them so different from
mine?
> Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up.
The problem with table layouts is that they stubbornly insist on
"working" in situations where they're completely inappropriate.
CSS can be more flexible than that.
> They must be precise.
Which web browsers are not; so the bets are off.
I drink to flexibility of design.
Michael Winter
[snip]
> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they, almost all
> that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that they were built
> with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
I would imagine that it's simply because Web "designers" aren't using
CSS yet. The authors that do are the Web developers that know the
benefits of CSS, but don't have the artistic capability to exploit them.
Graphics designers are still being taught techniques from when NN4 was
a major user agent. I've even seen material that focuses on that
antiquated pain in the ass. CSS is a small side note, and the idea of
semantic mark-up never even comes up.
It's been said before that more graphical artists need to lead the way
with CSS-based Web development. To show others just what can be
achieved with well-written, semantic mark-up. I sincerely hope that
happens sometime soon.
[snip]
> Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up. They must be precise.
It's got nothing to do with numbers. It's that most table layouts I've
bothered to look at fit a particular design. If something doesn't
quite fit the design, or you need to change it, it's not always a
matter of a little editing here, at little there. That'll just lead to
something ugly and broken. It may necessitate rebuilding from the
ground up.
Mike
--
Michael Winter
Replace ".invalid" with ".uk" to reply by e-mail.
Greg Schmidt
> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they, almost all
> that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that they were built
> with CSS, look boxy, boring
This is an old question that's been rehashed here many times. The best
guess I've seen is that people who are good at CSS tend to be techies
and not so good at design(1), while people who are good at design tend
not to be so good at CSS. For a variety of reasons (mainly to do with
economics, I think), the two types tend not to collaborate very often.
> and spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
> Including the text! Don't those authors care about usability (as opposed to
> accessibility)? Most people can comfortably read only 400 pixels across at a
> stretch.
Why do sites built with tables not stretch out to make better use of my
monitor? The pages which scrunch themselves all up into the left half
of the available space, and make themselves harder to read by doing so,
far outnumber the pages which will stretch too wide.
> Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up. They must be precise.
By fragile, I meant that they are more likely to break when changes are
made. You need to add a new menu item, and now all of the numbers must
be recalculated to fit it in. Such changes have much less "ripple
effect" on a properly designed CSS site.
(1) I know that this is true in my case. I think that perhaps my best
CSS design was for http://handsonmassage.ca/ It's not quite done yet,
but it's close. It's not as flashy as some sites, but I think it's not
as "boxy and boring" as many CSS sites. Most importantly, it meets the
client's needs, and it's dead easy to maintain (low maintenance costs
contribute to high customer satisfaction).
Adrienne
<c.thor...@insightbb.com> writing in
news:wvC2e.116947$r55.84800@attbi_s52:
Recently, I was asked to duplicate the look of the Loreal site. The new
site owner thought that duplicating the site would be difficult, because it
was using ASP.Net so I would not be able to see the real coding.
I explained that I did not have to see the server side coding, only the
HTML. I looked at the source, and saw a whopping 1,121 lines, including
presentational tables, javascript, and 45 validation errors. When I
duplicated it, I reduced it to 164 lines, pure CSS, external javascript,
and 0 errors.
The sites are: http://www.loreal.com/ and
http://win04.startlogic.com/infinica/ (yes I know the text is too small,
but the site owner demanded it despite many warnings)
--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
kaeli
enlightened us with...
>
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerStandardsSupport
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerFeedback
>
> you can report all bugs, errors, problems you see with MSIE 6 and the
> MSIE 7 dev. team will... <gulp> see, and read these and then will
> possibly implement the features you request or correct the bugs you report.
>
> MSIE 7 dev. team is supposed to release a MSIE 7 beta 1 this summer...so
> if I was you, I would hurry reporting the bugs you see over there. You
> can also report a bug along with a testcase at
>
> http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/
>
> as the IE 7 team also checks these pages.
>
Really??
*sends a copy of this over to her home e-mail*
I gotta go check this out. Do you think M$ might actually be starting to give
a crap?!?!
/ once upon a time, i loved microsoft products... *sigh*
--
--
~kaeli~
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in
rats.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace
kaeli
enlightened us with...
> I understand well David Ross here. I remember a particular netscape
> newsgroup: I was once told that my signature should not be more than 2
> lines long and my signature had 3 links of references to FAQ and
> resources links useful for readers of the group. My signature had 3
> lines, not 2. When people are lectured and admonished for this sort of
> "infraction", then I think we are all losing the purpose of joining a
> newsgroup discussion.
>
Yeah, there's a netcop over at the javascript group, too.
They're all over.
("My internet penis is <---- this ----> BIG!!")
LOL
I usually just ignore anyone who feels the need to correct me about my sig.
Unless I'm REALLY bored. *heh*
Uncle Pirate
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:47:59 GMT, c.thornquist wrote:
<snip>
> Why do sites built with tables not stretch out to make better use of my
> monitor? The pages which scrunch themselves all up into the left half
> of the available space, and make themselves harder to read by doing so,
> far outnumber the pages which will stretch too wide.
Good point. Some of my sites may be what Carla is talking about. I'll
have to consider placing everything in a div with a max-width. Of
course, that's not going to work in every browser, but at least I'll
have tried. :)
>
>
>>Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up. They must be precise.
>
>
> By fragile, I meant that they are more likely to break when changes are
> made. You need to add a new menu item, and now all of the numbers must
> be recalculated to fit it in. Such changes have much less "ripple
> effect" on a properly designed CSS site.
>
> (1) I know that this is true in my case. I think that perhaps my best
> CSS design was for http://handsonmassage.ca/ It's not quite done yet,
> but it's close. It's not as flashy as some sites, but I think it's not
> as "boxy and boring" as many CSS sites. Most importantly, it meets the
> client's needs, and it's dead easy to maintain (low maintenance costs
> contribute to high customer satisfaction).
>
Nice looking site. I took a brief look at your coding and am wondering
why you went with the loose dtd. It appears (like I said, brief look)
that everything would validate strict. And I agree totally with you
about design vs. develop. I think I'm a pretty good developer; I'm not
so good at design.
--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
Coordinator, Tularosa Basin Chapter, ABATE of NM; AMA#758681; COBB
'94 1500 Vulcan (now wrecked) :( http://motorcyclefun.org/Dcp_2068c.jpg
A zest for living must include a willingness to die. - R.A. Heinlein
Uncle Pirate
> On 30/03/2005 19:47, c.thornquist wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they, almost
>> all that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that they were
>> built with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way across my 19"
>> monitor?
>
>
> I would imagine that it's simply because Web "designers" aren't using
> CSS yet. The authors that do are the Web developers that know the
> benefits of CSS, but don't have the artistic capability to exploit them.
That's it, I beleive. I know that I am no designer. So, in the
upcoming redesign of the large website I manage (http://alamo.nmsu.edu),
the design will be created by a committee consisting of people from our
(college) art department, marketing, public information, various area
personnel, and myself. We will each have something to offer in the
design, then I will implement what we come up with. I think it will
work rather well.
>> Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up. They must be precise.
>
>
> It's got nothing to do with numbers. It's that most table layouts I've
> bothered to look at fit a particular design. If something doesn't quite
> fit the design, or you need to change it, it's not always a matter of a
> little editing here, at little there. That'll just lead to something
> ugly and broken. It may necessitate rebuilding from the ground up.
I can't wait to get rid of tables on my site. Updating pages with
tables nested in tables nested ... Well, you get the idea. Editing
information in a div or paragraph or whatever is much much easier.
I've also just implemented, for experimentation, SSI and am in the
process of implementing a new layout for one part of the site
(http://alamo.nmsu.edu/computer/) using seperate files for heading and
navigation menu, styles, footer, and main content. I have many
secretaries and other novices on campus that take care of various pages.
I think that if they only have to concern themselves with the content
section, they will have a much easier time messing things up less.
Uncle Pirate
> David Ross wrote:
> You need to fix
>
>> your page before pointing an accusing finger at my browser. If you
>> don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
>>
>> For details, see
>> <URL:http://www.rossde.com/internet/Webdevelopers.html>.
>
>
> David, I like your webpage. I had the intent to do a webpage exactly
> like yours. I will check it more carefully later. It's bookmarked :)
Yes, some good information there. I have also bookmarked it for further
review.
Lauri Raittila
> c.thornquist wrote:
>
> > Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar?
>
> http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
> http://hardcandy.org/
> http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/bestgallery2/
> http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/154/154.css&page=0
> http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/153/153.css&page=0
>
> > spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
>
> then drag the bottom right-hand corner of your browser up a bit and to the
> left.
Or use userstylesheet.
P {max-width:60ex;}
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Utrecht, NL.
Support me, buy Opera:
https://secure.bmtmicro.com/opera/buy-opera.html?AID=882173
Toby Inkster
> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar?
These all look similar?
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
http://hardcandy.org/
http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/bestgallery2/
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/154/154.css&page=0
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/153/153.css&page=0
> spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
If you don't want a site to spread across the entire width of your screen,
then drag the bottom right-hand corner of your browser up a bit and to the
left.
There -- you see *you* have the choice of the site's width!
Lauri Raittila
> The sites are: http://www.loreal.com/ and
Hurts my eyes and is very bad indeed.
> http://win04.startlogic.com/infinica/ (yes I know the text is too small,
> but the site owner demanded it despite many warnings)
Unfortunaltely can hardly be called good example of CSS layout. The good
thing about CSS is that you can do lots of things with it that you can't
do with table layouts. The bad thing is the same.
Show him and yourself this screen cap:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~laurirai/crap/screen.png
To fix it so that design don't break I had to:
- disable my general userstylesheet (line-height 1.5)
- disable my current font size userstylesheet (was something like 16px)
- disable my min font size thingy (it was 12px)
especially the last one I never use normally, I'm in user mode before
that.
Anyway, the problem is in sites coding. (the 3col layout is IMO stupid
idea anyway) It would be possible, of course, to make it not break, even
using current CSS.
Travis Newbury
> Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they, almost all
> that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that they were built
> with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
> Including the text! Don't those authors care about usability (as opposed to
> accessibility)? Most people can comfortably read only 400 pixels across at a
> stretch.
The main reason is that graphic artists have yet to embrace css. When
this happens you will start to see less boxy looks. And I completely
agree with you, they all look alike.
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury
>>Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they,
>>almost all that I've seen where it was brought to my attention that
>>they were built with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way
>>across my 19" monitor?
> Eh? Haven't you discovered windowing systems yet? No web page gets
> to spread itself "all the way" across my monitor!!!
So to hell with those that use their browsers full screen eh?
>>Including the text! Don't those authors care about usability (as
>>opposed to accessibility)?
> (Possibly they didn't reckon with you choosing a ridiculously wide
> browser window /and/ using a browser that doesn't implement max-width)
Wait a second! Who's browser is it? It is mine, so it is NOT
ridiculous for me to have it full screen!
> I drink to flexibility of design.
And to hell with people who make their browser full screen!
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury
>>Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar?
> These all look similar?
> http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
> http://hardcandy.org/
> http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/bestgallery2/
> http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/154/154.css&page=0
> http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/153/153.css&page=0
Actually they do all look boxy and similar.
>>spread all the way across my 19" monitor?
> If you don't want a site to spread across the entire width of your screen,
> then drag the bottom right-hand corner of your browser up a bit and to the
> left.
So now you are telling me how to use my browser?
You say "if you don't like it, then change the size of your browser."
Fixed width says "If you don't like it, then change the size of your
browser."
How are these different?
> There -- you see *you* have the choice of the site's width!
But I say about your design "It looks like hell at the width I choose."
You tell the fixed width person "It looks like hell at the width I choose"
They sound the same to me. They both are less usable at the size we have
chosen for our browsers. So why is one better than the other?
Mind, I am NOT trying to start an argument, I would really like to hear
how you think these statements are different. It seems to me like it is
all a matter of personal preference. I prefer my browser to be full
screen. I am bothered less by a fixed width than flexible. Sure I
sometimes have a hue space on the right, but the content is all usable
to me. This is not so with flexible, it is way too wide to read. You
think the opposite. In both cases if we change the size of the browser
we can see everything perfectly. So in both cases the designer has
decided how we are to use our browser.
--
-=tn=-
Travis Newbury
> Or use userstylesheet.
>
> P {max-width:60ex;}
Does that work in IE?
--
-=tn=-
Uncle Pirate
> Mind, I am NOT trying to start an argument, I would really like to hear
> how you think these statements are different. It seems to me like it is
> all a matter of personal preference. I prefer my browser to be full
> screen. I am bothered less by a fixed width than flexible. Sure I
> sometimes have a hue space on the right, but the content is all usable
> to me. This is not so with flexible, it is way too wide to read. You
> think the opposite. In both cases if we change the size of the browser
> we can see everything perfectly. So in both cases the designer has
> decided how we are to use our browser.
I can't speak for Toby, but I see that both can be flexible to a point.
As a developer, I must make the decision of what will be a max size
and a minumum size. My reasoning of not using table layout is that it
is more difficult to work with than simple headings and paragraphs for
text, and all the fancy stuff separated with divs.
I disagree with your last statement in that the designer/developer isn't
deciding how you use your browser; he/she is deciding a max and min
*ideal* viewing size. It's still up to you (in either type of page)
whether to view it within the ideal conditions.
I understand (especially teaching at a college) how most people use a
browser (most any application) in full screen mode. The majority of
these people also don't understand the convenience of having more than
one application/window open on the screen at a time either. They will
most always close one before opening another. Teaching HTML and CSS, I
sometimes have a hard time getting students to have a browser window
open and a text editor saving the file and then refreshing the browser
to instantly see your changes. And that process is a whole lot easier
with windows that you can see parts of at the same time. I very rarely
ever have any application full screen as I usually have many things
going at once switching from one to another.
kchayka
> Alan J. Flavell wrote:
>
>> I drink to flexibility of design.
>
> And to hell with people who make their browser full screen!
What's the point of having a full-size window if you aren't going to use it?
Maybe this is why so many deezyners make fixed-width layouts - because
they haven't figured out how to change their browser window size to
something reasonable for the content they happen to be viewing? ;)
--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.
Els
> So now you are telling me how to use my browser?
>
> You say "if you don't like it, then change the size of your browser."
> Fixed width says "If you don't like it, then change the size of your
> browser."
>
> How are these different?
a) fixed width doesn't leave an option for users on a smaller screen.
It's one thing to change your window size to larger or smaller to your
liking, but it's another to have to change your screen resolution to
be able to fit a fixed width document in it.
b) fixed width doesn't let me choose a smaller window when I like to
use 500px wide windows for instance.
>> There -- you see *you* have the choice of the site's width!
>
> But I say about your design "It looks like hell at the width I choose."
Then it will most likely (in your opinion) look like hell at any width
;-)
> You tell the fixed width person "It looks like hell at the width I choose"
>
> They sound the same to me. They both are less usable at the size we have
> chosen for our browsers. So why is one better than the other?
The fixed width doesn't give you any other option than that particular
width. How is the author gonna know what your preferred width is?
> Mind, I am NOT trying to start an argument, I would really like to hear
> how you think these statements are different. It seems to me like it is
> all a matter of personal preference. I prefer my browser to be full
> screen.
It's the same as with money. Those who have it, don't have a problem
with it. Not everybody /has/ a large screen (or /wants/ to use the
browser full width).
> I am bothered less by a fixed width than flexible. Sure I
> sometimes have a hue space on the right, but the content is all usable
> to me. This is not so with flexible, it is way too wide to read.
So, you have the option to
a) use a narrower window
b) use a user stylesheet that says max-width:800px;margin:auto;
c) deprive yourself of options by using IE... ;-)
> You
> think the opposite. In both cases if we change the size of the browser
> we can see everything perfectly. So in both cases the designer has
> decided how we are to use our browser.
Nope, in the fixed width case, a lot of people have no option than to
adapt to the author's intended width or wider, and a lot don't even
have that, as they are limited to 14inch screens.
In the flexible case, everybody has any option they like.
--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
c.thornquist
"Travis Newbury" <t...@swingers.com> wrote in message
news:vMI2e.338$BN7...@fe04.lga...
You may be right. My background is in fine arts (painting & sculpture). The
sites I've seen built with CSS are so repetitive in design, it makes me
wonder if it's caused by CSS. But CSS makes sense to me. You make an error
in coding on a large site built w/o CSS & they are a pain to fix. I do have
a couple small errors on a large site I recently completed & must use search
& replace on every page. But that's a scary proposition. Here's the site:
http://www.srfc.com It's 270+ pages & every page must be fixed. Luckily (or
not) the browsers are forgiving. I realize the nav bar on top won't work as
it should (the long drop downs don't scroll) for those not using IE, so I
added the two main categories, which need scrolling) again on the left nav
bar.
Anyway, I think you are right, I just haven't seen enough variety in CSS
built sites. But, that will come. Right? Like I said, CSS makes more sense
to me. Still, I enjoy working with tables.
Re the site above, I need help learning to create secure forms (any forms!).
The customer has a Cobalt server, if that helps. Any tutorial links would be
appreciated.
Carla
Toby Inkster
> Actually they do all look boxy and similar.
No more so than table-based designs. After all, a table is a table -- a
grid of boxes.
Alan J. Flavell
> Alan J. Flavell wrote:
[attribution reinstated:]
| | On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, c.thornquist wrote:
> > > Why do sites built using pure CSS look so similar? Why do they,
> > > almost all that I've seen where it was brought to my attention
> > > that they were built with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all
> > > the way across my 19" monitor?
>
> > Eh? Haven't you discovered windowing systems yet? No web page
> > gets to spread itself "all the way" across my monitor!!!
>
> So to hell with those that use their browsers full screen eh?
Not at all; but if they insist on using a browser window that's
inappropriate for purpose, and their browser fails to apply any
relevant max-width suggestions, they might not get the best result
possible.
> > (Possibly they didn't reckon with you choosing a ridiculously wide
> > browser window /and/ using a browser that doesn't implement
> > max-width)
>
> Wait a second! Who's browser is it? It is mine, so it is NOT
> ridiculous for me to have it full screen!
Well, it wasn't me who was complaining about the results. It's a
well-established principle of web design that the final decision about
the presentation is taken by the reader; the author can only make what
seem to be appropriate proposals.
Making those proposals flexible, in the various ways which CSS allows,
can make a page which adapts itself more comfortably to variations in
the presentation situation. But if the reader takes that to extremes,
then the occasional sub-optimal result isn't so very surprising. At
least, to my way of thinking, it's better for the reader to have the
option of choice, as opposed to getting tiny fixed-size text cramped
into a narrow fixed-width column on an otherwise empty wide screen.
So which would *you* prefer?
c.thornquist
"Alan J. Flavell" <fla...@ph.gla.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.61.05...@ppepc56.ph.gla.ac.uk...
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, c.thornquist wrote:
>
> [overquotage snipped...]
>
> Eh? Haven't you discovered windowing systems yet? No web page gets
> to spread itself "all the way" across my monitor!!!
>
No, I haven't discovered "windowing". I just want to open my browser & go.
Here's an anology: I want to get in my car & drive without having to adjust
things under the hood depending on my destination (stole that analogy from
the 'webmasters newsgroup). So, what's "windowing"?
<snip>
> (Possibly they didn't reckon with you choosing a ridiculously wide
> browser window /and/ using a browser that doesn't implement max-width)
What's wrong with 100% width on a 19" monitor set at 1024 X 768? Most sites
look fine at that setting. The CSS sites, like w3.orgs, have text running
all the way across the screen. It makes reading tiring. Look at the opening
paragrah on their homepage. And it's like that throughout their HTML section
( http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ ). They don't care about usability issues and
they should, especially on a site that requires so much reading.
<snip>
> That depends on the pixel density of the display! On my desktop
> display, that's less than 3 inches, and represents a -very- short line
> of text.
A 3 inch column is very small in large font (see w3.org's site), but still,
4 inches is max. for comfort in reading. Think of what is comfortable in
print.
>
>> I know you can approximate the layout & look of a site built with
>> tables in CSS
>
> This is truly perverse. You want to take a badly-engineered product,
> and use good engineering to mimic it? You'd rate to finish up with
> many of the disadvantages of both, and few of the benefits. No wonder
> you're disappointed.
I meant presentation, not structure.
<snip>
> But you seem to be doing your worst to put CSS in a bad light,
> while "proving" that table layouts enjoy a superiority that IMHO they
> don't deserve.
I'm not saying tables are superior, just different and legit. On the other
hand, CSS supporters claim the superiority of CSS over tables.
>
>> so why do so many CSS sites look so bad? And so similar?
>
> More to the point, why is your perception of them so different from
> mine?
Probably because I focus more on presentation than what the w3c deems
correct coding.
>> Tables need not be fragile if the numbers add up.
>
> The problem with table layouts is that they stubbornly insist on
> "working" in situations where they're completely inappropriate.
>
> CSS can be more flexible than that.
>
If tables work to present the content where you want it, how is that
inappropriate?
>> They must be precise.
>
> Which web browsers are not; so the bets are off.
>
> I drink to flexibility of design.
I try to view my sites in FF, Opera & IE. All view the same way in each.
There are problems with presentation, though, if I change my browser's font
size settings. No overlapping, but they look terrible. But, I need to learn
more about font settings & stop using fixed sizes for fonts.
I drink to learning CSS:)
Carla
c.thornquist
"c.thornquist" <c.thor...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
news:LAM2e.119502$r55.56839@attbi_s52...
>
<snip>
> Re the site above, I need help learning to create secure forms (any
> forms!). The customer has a Cobalt server, if that helps. Any tutorial
> links would be appreciated.
>
> Carla
>
Now I'm even more confused. I just changed the font sizes in IE on a site
I've maintained for 5 years & on pages with the original coding IE can
change the size & they look fine. But on the newer pages in which I used
style tags, IE can't do a thing re sizes. Did everyone know that about style
tags? How does CSS address font sizing by the user's browser? Now I'm
wishing I had never started using style tags (or whatever they are called.
Embedded CSS?)
I checked a site last week in FF & some of the fonts changed size, while
others did not.
Maybe I'll seek a new career. I'm too old for this stuff.
Carla
Lauri Raittila
> >> built with CSS, look boxy, boring and spread all the way across my 19"
> > The main reason is that graphic artists have yet to embrace css.
> You may be right. My background is in fine arts (painting & sculpture). The
> sites I've seen built with CSS are so repetitive in design, it makes me
> wonder if it's caused by CSS.
I believe the reason is that most of those sites you have seen is of
people writing here. (not the sites they create, but their own)
Thise people are generally not graphic designers, but CSS and HTMl
experts...
CSS is not too used fao layout yet.
> It's 270+ pages & every page must be fixed.
Of course, if it is systematic error, it is matter or search and replace,
so 10 minute job...
> Anyway, I think you are right, I just haven't seen enough variety in CSS
> built sites. But, that will come. Right?
CSS zen garden has some graphical designed CSS. It used to be better
(there were no 100 examples of same stuff, but different approaches), and
of course those are mostly very flaky, as design is retrofitted