Everything you know about CSS is wrong - orly?
I was checking out the Sitepoint.com blogs the other day when I saw this book title going around, its title in huge letters dancing around. Apparently, Rachel Andrew and Kevin Yank wish to convince us that all the CSS techniques we’ve amassed during the last few years are wrong and we should start thinking differently.
The book continues by importing a new kid on the block - a method using CSS tables for layout, through the proper use of the display property.
Something in all this struck me as phony. Maybe it was the title, which reminded me Digg-bait blog posts. Maybe it was the fact that I’ve already bought and liked two of Sitepoint.com books but I still think that they are kinda shallow. Maybe it’s the gut reflex in someone telling me everything I know is wrong - orly?
I agree. We have to start thinking differently. And we’ve already started. But everything we know is wrong? I don’t think so.
Changing our way of designing and front-end coding is not a matter of days or months - it’s a slow procedure, for good or for worse.
When we were designing using tables, we were thinking we were doing the right thing. Now that we use CSS, we’re still thinking we’re doing the right thing. We settled down with the current CSS techniques because they work.
Believe it or not, after a few years of coding in CSS you almost eliminate the huge chunk of project time that was needed for IE6 debugging. You just take a glimpse at a IE6 bug and you know the solution - because of people that worked on work-arounds and so-called hacks.
We stopped using hacks and now try to fool IE6 through conditional comments - a method that was suggested even by its makers. More and more CSS3 features take their places in current browsers - we start design with progressive enhancement in mind.
Our code gets leaner and meaner by the day.
And now that IE8 will get out (rolls eyes) we throw it all away because it’s obviously the wrong thing to do?
I don’t think so. I’m not convinced. Are you?
October 25th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Sounds like the title is definitely over-bloating. Evolution in web design lies at building upon the existing fundamentals. Surely things will never stay frozen and the same : Just take a look at when the last HTML version was out and think for a while if that was good or not.
They only want us to start hunting a carrot down the road, and for some reason everyone has a different carrot.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I saw the book as well sugar, and of course i read Sitepoint’s article The Problem with CSS is …, and I have to say I’m a bit confused as well… And it’s not only Sitepoint, Digital Web Magazine posted a similar article explaining this new technique…
It’s vital to write here, that CSS table-related display properties work only on IE8 and the other major browsers (FF, Opera, Safari, etc.) but not IE7 which makes the technique a bit useless at the moment… Maybe in few years (when IE9/10 is ready)…
October 29th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
@John
I cannot accept holy-grail methods.
What’s fun (and terrifying) about CSS is that there is no absolutely correct way to do things.
It’s all very fluid. You evolve as a designer and your code evolves too.
I’m sorry, but all this table properties stuff sounds scary to me. I wouldn’t like to go back to sites all-designed-the-same-way.
I guess I’ll never be the same after reading Transcending CSS.