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HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

tedium.co

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Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#33

I like how HN employs one of these today: - Use HTML tables for layout Hahaha :) On a more serious note, this list highlights how development without standards leads to control information being encoded in various tolerable side-channels. The potential mess and collision of this brings into relief the disdain that's sometimes levelled at the current W3C process. This process marries a standards-driven evolution of we…

I love how tables "went away", and were widely replaced with bootstrap. Which gives you ... tables. in divs. But only 12 columns wide.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#35
post #24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically: IE6 was trash. Microsoft had won the browser war, but at the same time the dotcom crash and antitrust action over the tight integration between IE and Windows caused Microsoft to stop investing in it.

Did they ever invest much into it? As far as I understand they got the core components from Spyglass Inc. and avoided paying licensing fees by giving it away for free.

Sounds like they avoided paying licensing fees by not paying licensing fees and then acting surprised when called on it.

https://archive.ph/20120919002551/http://www.windowsitpro.co...

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#36
One of the major differences between tables and block elements, is that block elements react to the context, and tables react to the content. I used to use "display: table" a lot, even on divs.

Nowadays, the block model has matured enough to moot the point, but back then, it was the best way to have content that didn't reflow, but would still be presentable.

"Creating Killer Web Sites." That brings back memories...

A lot of folks hated that book.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#37
What about those weird proprietary HTML tags (ilayer, blink, etc.( that were not supported by both IE and Netscape Navigator that on first release required you to write the tag inside an HTML comment so as not to break the competing browser?

That not hacky enough to make this list? :)

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#39
post #15

It's funny how we came around to JSSS, and it's now everywhere: from CSS-in-JS to web components coding their CSS in strings inside Javascript

I've looked up some JSSS code examples, and it seems like it's pretty much the only type of code where the "with" keyword makes sense:

  
  tags.H1.color = "red";
  tags.p.fontSize = "20pt";

  with (tags.H3) {
    color = "green";
  }
  with (tags.H2) {
    color = "red";
    fontSize = "16pt";
    marginTop = "4cm";
  }
  
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