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Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / CSS / September 2006Does CSS Suck?
Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of CSS. The discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called "Why CSS Bugs Me" (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1987181,00.asp). The discussion starts here: http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/1/1004331343/ShowPost.aspx#1004331343. Someone suggested that some of you folks might have a thing or two to say about the topic, so I'm inviting everyone to drop by and give their thoughts. May I suggest that you not spend too much effort or attention on the Dvorak article per se, since it's one of the more poorly written posts. The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - myself included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. > Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of > CSS. The discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called > "Why CSS Bugs Me" (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1987181,00.asp). > The discussion starts here: > http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/1/1004331343/ShowPost.aspx#1004331343. I think the comments by blueice03 (near the bottom) says it best. You actually have to *learn* how to use it correctly. > Someone suggested that some of you folks might have a thing or two to > say about the topic, so I'm inviting everyone to drop by and give > their thoughts. Nah ... > May I suggest that you not spend too much effort or attention on the > Dvorak article per se, since it's one of the more poorly written > posts. Must agree with that. <g> > The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - > myself included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even > fatally flawed. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. CSS is only flawed by those who don't know how to use it.  Signature-bts -Warning: I brake for lawn deer > The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - myself > included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. Please fill in the blanks: CSS does/has __________. This is a serious flaw because _________. The solution to this problem is __________________. If you can't fill in the first two blanks, then your "feeling" is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. If you can fill in the first two, but can't fill in the third, then your feeling makes no practical difference, does it? SignatureWes Groleau Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. -- Robert A. Heinlein > May I suggest that you not spend too much effort or attention on the Dvorak > article per se, since it's one of the more poorly written posts. Most of them are poorly written, at least in terms of common sense. So Dvorak noticed that some browsers failed to correctly implement a well-written standard and leapt to the amazing conclusion that CSS is broken? Where in ____ did I ever get the notion that guy had brains? And then ten sycophants pop in to agree with him? SignatureWes Groleau Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. -- Robert A. Heinlein Well, OK. I guess I was expecting a little more in the way of substance than this. Never mind, then. >> May I suggest that you not spend too much effort or attention on the >> Dvorak article per se, since it's one of the more poorly written posts. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > And then ten sycophants pop in to agree with him? > Well, OK. I guess I was expecting a little more in the way of substance than > this. "Does it suck? Is it flawed?" has substance? SignatureWes Groleau "Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change; the courage to change the one I can; and the wisdom to know it's me." -- unknown >The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - myself >included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. >I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. CSS isn't flawed, and it doesn't suck. What sucks is Microsoft's implementation of it. That alone is *the* cause of *my* grief concerning CSS. If nobody ever used IE for browsing again, CSS would be a beautiful thing to use. But with IE around, it becomes a mess of ugly hacks. -A > CSS isn't flawed, and it doesn't suck. What sucks is Microsoft's > implementation of it. That alone is *the* cause of *my* grief > concerning CSS. If nobody ever used IE for browsing again, CSS > would be a beautiful thing to use. But with IE around, it becomes a > mess of ugly hacks. Then don't use the hacks. Ignore the fact that IE users can't see your page properly. If everyone would do that, eventually people will get sick and tired of that shitty piece of software and use the alternatives. What a wonderful world :-) >> CSS isn't flawed, and it doesn't suck. What sucks is Microsoft's >> implementation of it. That alone is *the* cause of *my* grief [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >Then don't use the hacks. I generally don't, except for explicitly setting line-height in some containers to get around the peekaboo bug. That, at least, causes no pollution in my stylesheet, and won't have any consequences when a new, better version of IE comes out. >Ignore the fact that IE users can't see your page properly. I do. For example, I have CSS tabs with drop-down menus (no javascript). Anyone can click on a tab to view a page with the menu choices, but only non-IE users see the drop-down menus on the tabs themselves. I try to make things degrade gracefully for IE. But Microsoft is not paying me to work around their bugs, so I try to avoid it. >If everyone would do that, eventually people will get sick and >tired of that shitty piece of software and use the alternatives. No, I think people simply wouldn't be aware of what they're missing unless they tried the alternatives. And as long as IE comes with Windows, there's little incentive for anyone but the technically-inclined to switch. -A > Then don't use the hacks. Ignore the fact that IE users can't see your > page properly. If everyone would do that, eventually people will get > sick and tired of that shitty piece of software and use the > alternatives. Nice theory, but the said fact is that the people who hack and hack until their stuff looks good on IE with a T1 connection and never notice that it looks like crap and/or loads like molasses everywhere else outnumber the folks that know what they're doing. Since Joe Public doesn't know any better, he/she assumes that the "looking like crap" is that fault of all those other browsers. And if you are in the minority that refuses to cater to IE's bugs, the general public assumes your website is crap, never knowing it's their browser. After all, other sites look good in IE. SignatureWes Groleau There ain't no right wing, there ain't no left wing. There's only you and me and we just disagree. (apologies to Jim Krueger) > And if you are in the minority that refuses to cater > to IE's bugs, the general public assumes your website > is crap, never knowing it's their browser. I suspect that the "general public" has no real idea what a browser is. MesSIE is just there, a component of their OS, and it's what they use for "exploring the internet". Note that it doesn't call itself "web explorer", nor could it honestly do so, if only because it deliberately violates some of the mandatory requirements of the applicable specifications. Nevertheless: if one doesn't fool around with over-complex HTML and CSS, it's usually feasible to design *for* a web-compatible browser, and not need to change too much to get it displayed acceptably with IE6, at least. It wouldn't satisfy the pixel-exact DTP freaks - but they don't understand designing for the web, anyway. regards > Nevertheless: if one doesn't fool around with over-complex HTML and > CSS, it's usually feasible to design *for* a web-compatible browser, > and not need to change too much to get it displayed acceptably with > IE6, at least. Yes, but the majority I was speaking of don't understand HTML or CSS, so they use "WYSIWYG" tools that DO generate over-complex HTML and often embed the same CSS commands over and over and over. > It wouldn't satisfy the pixel-exact DTP freaks - but they don't > understand designing for the web, anyway. Well, the website I'm responsible for wouldn't satisfy the purists (it uses a table for that part of the formatting that isn't portable in CSS). But it's simple and maintainable and looks almost the same on every browser. It's not "designed for the web" in the way I think you mean, but I didn't design it. (I RE-designed it to be simple and maintainable--it was most unpleasant under the hood--while trying to keep the look they had already approved.) I have some ideas on ways I might make it better, while still keeping the owners happy, but time is limited. SignatureWes Groleau ----------- I've been framed! ... http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html another genius >> CSS isn't flawed, and it doesn't suck. What sucks is Microsoft's >> implementation of it. That alone is *the* cause of *my* grief [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > What a wonderful world :-) pretty dumb thing to say considering 9 out of 10 posts here sound like "it works in IE but not FF" people like you use firefox because somewhere along the line you were told microsoft is bad... theyre taking over the world... bill gates is satan.... everything should be free and open source. thats ridiculous. firefox is what happens when you dont have a highly paid QA department. a browser with more bugs and flaws than IE ever had >>The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - myself >>included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > -A > firefox is what happens when you dont have a highly paid QA > department. a browser with more bugs and flaws than IE ever had <cough>bullshit</cough> http://secunia.com Count the flaws and exploits yerself for IE and Firefox. Signature-bts -Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck. > pretty dumb thing to say considering 9 out of 10 posts here sound like "it > works in IE but not FF" Maybe because 9 out 10 people haven't a clue of what they are really doing. > people like you use firefox because somewhere along the line you were told > microsoft is bad... theyre taking over the world... bill gates is satan.... > everything should be free and open source. I would venture to say that most of us that use Firefox do so because it's a superior browser that supports the W3C standards FAR better than IE. > thats ridiculous. I couldn't care less what company produces Internet Explorer, or who runs that company. What I DO care about is a browser that works the way it should, and in that regard, IE is vastly inferior. > firefox is what happens when you dont have a highly paid QA department. a > browser with more bugs and flaws than IE ever had I think you mistyped that statement ... should read "Internet Explorer is what happens when you dont [sic] have an apathetic QA department." Think about it: would you rather have the power of a multitude of actual users in the real world providing feedback, or a small group of cube inhabitants who get paid regardless of the quality aspect of their Quality Assurance? >> CSS isn't flawed, and it doesn't suck. What sucks is Microsoft's >> implementation of it. That alone is *the* cause of *my* grief >> concerning CSS. If nobody ever used IE for browsing again, CSS >> would be a beautiful thing to use. But with IE around, it becomes a >> mess of ugly hacks. Signature*** Remove the DELETE from my address to reply *** ====================================================== Kevin Scholl http://www.ksscholl.com/ kscholl@comcast.DELETE.net ------------------------------------------------------ Information Architecture, Web Design and Development ------------------------------------------------------ We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams... ====================================================== > Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of CSS. > The discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called "Why CSS > Bugs Me" As a rule of thumb, treat anything John Dvorak says as (a) Complete garbage and (b) And attempt to get a rise out of people who like whatever he is trashing this week (so he gets lots of page views, so ZDNet get advertising revenue, so he gets paid). SignatureDavid Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/> Home is where the ~/.bashrc is >Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of CSS. The >discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called "Why CSS Bugs [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. >I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. There are several threads of considerably better quality in this group's archive if you want to read up on some of the flaws with and in CSS. SignatureSpartanicus > Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is > poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) have steadily become more and more difficult to discriminate from newsfroups; Google is not solely responsible for this, by any means. But they are by far the biggest hijacker of froups. I guess we never guessed what effect DejaGoo was going to have. Please come back, DejaVu: all is forgiven! SignatureJack. http://www.jackpot.uk.net/ >> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is >> poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >responsible for this, by any means. But they are by far the biggest >hijacker of froups. In referring to web fora I (probably mistakenly) did not intend for Google Groups to be included amongst those. Some of us, myself included have taken counter measures by filtering out all posts originating from Google Groups. In addition I also filter out the direct follow-ups to these posts. This significantly reduces the noise in newsgroups. SignatureSpartanicus >> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is >> poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. > > It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) "Sick"? >>> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is >>> poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. >> >> It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) > > "Sick"? I think he meant "sic" (TICBW). From Wikipedia: | Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", or "just as that". In writing, | it is italicized and placed within square brackets — [sic] — to | indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, or other | preceding quoted material is a verbatim reproduction of the quoted | original and is not a transcription error. The plural of "forum" is either "fora" or "forums", Jack clearly prefers "fora". SignatureMatt >>>> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is >>>> poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. >>> It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) >> "Sick"? > > I think he meant "sic" (TICBW). I know, and I don't normally correct people's usage on Usenet, but it was just ironic after he had taken it upon himself to edit "fora", and on because top of that he was misusing "sic" anyway, as the definition below corroborates. It's used to notify the reader that the error preserved in the copy existed in the original, not that the copy is a correction. > From Wikipedia: > | Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", or "just as that". In writing, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > The plural of "forum" is either "fora" or "forums", Jack clearly prefers > "fora". >>>> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion >>>> is poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > The plural of "forum" is either "fora" or "forums", Jack clearly > prefers "fora". "Forum" is an english word; the plural is "forums". I sense that I am being teased. SignatureJack. http://www.jackpot.uk.net/ >>>>> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion >>>>> is poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > "Forum" is an english word; the plural is "forums". I sense that I am > being teased. "Fora" is also recognized by the on-line Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries. > "Forum" is an english word; the plural is "forums". I sense that I am > being teased. "Fora" and "Forums" are both acceptable plurals for "forum". SignatureToby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact On 8/1/06 11:03 AM, in article eao50b$658$3$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk, > "Forum" is an english word; the plural is "forums". I sense that I am > being teased. From http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=forum Forum 1460, "place of assembly in ancient Rome," from L[atin] forum "marketplace" apparently akin to foris, foras "out of doors, outside." Sense of "assembly, place for public discussion" first recorded 1690. Since this English word comes from a Latin word, the Latin plural -- fora -- is technically correct. Then again, nobody ever said English (especially the Usenet dialect) was "technically correct" -- if it were, we would say "octopodes" instead of "octopuses". I could go on and on ... but I won't. Kurtis ------ Your mileage may vary. Please keep hands and feet inside the car at all times. Not a flotation device. >>> Like most discussions on web fora the quality of the discussion is >>> poor, I gave up after reading a few pages. >> >> It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) > > "Sick"? It was meant to be an ironic reference to "fora". SignatureJack. http://www.jackpot.uk.net/ >>> It's regrettable that web-forums (sick) >> >> "Sick"? > > It was meant to be an ironic reference to "fora". Sick is what you become with overexposure to web-flora. SignatureWes Groleau Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. -- Robert A. Heinlein Bill Norton schrieb: > Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of CSS. The > discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called "Why CSS Bugs > Me" (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1987181,00.asp). The discussion > starts here: > http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/1/1004331343/ShowPost.aspx#1004331343. It is an easy and cheap journalist method to present oneself as kind of a rebel by writing "xxx sucks and I am the only one who dares to say the truth", and thus get a bunch of pro and contra reactions. The result is an annoyingly boring discussion with mostly religion-like statements, as the example shows. Now here's my point of view: The core idea of CSS is brilliant. Today's real world appearance of it shows some flaws, some of the most serious ones are IMO: 1. Not solved problems of screen representation: - The lack of an overall applicable and consistent unit for screen representation (as the em value is context dependent) - The lack of consistent image scaling (technically limited by the impossibility of acceptable rendering of scaled low-res images; standards- resp. implementation-limited by the absence of background scaling) - Box model problems, which will hopefully be solved with the availability of the box-sizing property (defining an element with a 2px border, 1em padding and total width of 60% is impossible; there is not even a consistent rendering of a text field and a select element with the same width, border and padding applied) 2. Browser implementations - Poor implementation of CSS in quite popular browsers, as well known in this group - Long lifetime of browser versions makes CSS development very slow. If today a perfect Internet Explorer would be published, we will still have to code for IE6 in 5 or 10 years. 3. User understanding - Clients and sometimes also authors expect CSS to make their site look identical in every situation, instead of appropriately different in every situation. - Designers often design for their own screen as if it was a piece of paper. Now the presence of this kind of flaws is not surprising, as the development of CSS is community-driven and influenced by a variety of stakeholders, such as the W3C, browser manufacturers, authors, authors' clients, users. This kind of project develops slowly by nature, and it develops also by people discussing their needs in this group, or posting suggestions to the W3C, but not by general "CSS sucks" statements. The alternative to CSS would be a proprietary software developed by one company. This is actually available - anybody feeling uncomfortable with CSS can use Flash or PDF to gain total control over the appearance of his/her informations. I am sure the same person would post a "Why Flash bugs me" or "Why PDF bugs me" article shortly. SignatureMarkus > May I suggest that you not spend too much effort or attention on the Dvorak > article per se, It's as Bismark said about politics and sausages. I used to read PC mags avidly, then I wrote for them (PC Mag). Since then I've stopped buying them. > since it's one of the more poorly written posts. Is Dvorak's space opera any good? > The upshot of it all is that there seem to be a lot of people - myself > included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. CSS is fine. Implementations of it used to be poor. Training and knowledge of it is still abyssmal. It's funny how the people who understand CSS manage to produce good work with it, and the people who claim it's "broken" itself can't. Of course it's never _their_ fault. > Over at PCMag.com there is a debate going on over the usability of CSS. The > discussion was initiated by an article by John Dvorak called "Why CSS Bugs [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > included - who feel that CSS is seriously flawed, maybe even fatally flawed. > I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. My thought is that the pervasive use of CSS across the Web squarely contradicts Dvorak's claim that it is "fatally flawed" and calls into question the value of any other pronouncement he might make on the subject. |
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