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HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

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Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#41

Post by fifilura »

Using tables for layout is pretty understandable.

But when tables went out of fashion it was all about using floats for layout for a few years. That was wild, I am surprised it was left out from that list.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layou...

"Originally for floating images inside blocks of text, the float property became one of the most commonly used tools for creating multiple column layouts on webpages. With the advent of flexbox and grid it's now returned to its original purpose, as this article explains."

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#42

Post by kuschku »

mcv wrote: post #2

I'm not sure "shaped the Internet" is the right description. These are 10 HTML/CSS hacks that enabled you to work around browser quirks and poor support for certain features.

If you want to know a JS hack that truly "shaped the Internet", that'd be ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"). It's the origin of AJAX, allowed GMail to dynamically update the mail list, and led to the entire SPA craze.

If you read ancient articles like this one https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/dynamic-page-updat... you can truly see just how much it changed the internet.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#43

Post by solarkraft »

troupo wrote: post #19
keepamovin wrote: post #5

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…

Unfortunately today w3c and tc39 (Javascript) are completely dominated by Google who ram through a lot of standards while barely paying lip service to the process. Unfortunately a lot of players who rely on browser functionality are completely silent in the standards committees (like the TV vendors who all run their apps in a webkit or chromium version), so it's barely a three-way tug-o-war between Google, Apple and…

And really barely. My impression is Chrome still innovates (though somewhat unilaterally), Mozilla sleeps (no clear path towards view transitions ...) and Apple sometimes contributes small quality of life things.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#44

Post by keepamovin »

troupo wrote: post #19
keepamovin wrote: post #5

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…

Unfortunately today w3c and tc39 (Javascript) are completely dominated by Google who ram through a lot of standards while barely paying lip service to the process. Unfortunately a lot of players who rely on browser functionality are completely silent in the standards committees (like the TV vendors who all run their apps in a webkit or chromium version), so it's barely a three-way tug-o-war between Google, Apple and…

I’m still bullish on the possibility of Microsoft edge shaking up this dynamic a little, but maybe I’m naïve.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#46

Post by city41 »

fifilura wrote: post #41

Using tables for layout is pretty understandable. But when tables went out of fashion it was all about using floats for layout for a few years. That was wild, I am surprised it was left out from that list. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layou... "Originally for floating images inside blocks of text, the float property became one of the most commonly used tools for creating multiple column layo…

The era between tables and flexbox/grid was a difficult one. Floats were finicky and hard to get right. A lot of people just went back to tables, and I honestly didn't blame them.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#47

Post by renegade-otter »

wiredfool wrote: post #33
keepamovin wrote: post #5

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.

I think the value of Bootstrap was consistency across browsers. The grid system was the most important part. With standard Grid, Bootstrap is effectively legacy - you shouldn't really be using it at this point.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#48

Post by kalleboo »

city41 wrote: post #46
fifilura wrote: post #41

Using tables for layout is pretty understandable. But when tables went out of fashion it was all about using floats for layout for a few years. That was wild, I am surprised it was left out from that list. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layou... "Originally for floating images inside blocks of text, the float property became one of the most commonly used tools for creating multiple column layo…

The era between tables and flexbox/grid was a difficult one. Floats were finicky and hard to get right. A lot of people just went back to tables, and I honestly didn't blame them.

Or the rare-in-the-wild but somewhat funky method of using the display: table/table-row/table-cell CSS declarations to create table-based designs, but applied to different tags so at least your HTML still only shows those fancy modern divs :)

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#49

Post by sbarre »

kuschku wrote: post #42
mcv wrote: post #2

I'm not sure "shaped the Internet" is the right description. These are 10 HTML/CSS hacks that enabled you to work around browser quirks and poor support for certain features.

If you want to know a JS hack that truly "shaped the Internet", that'd be ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"). It's the origin of AJAX, allowed GMail to dynamically update the mail list, and led to the entire SPA craze. If you read ancient articles like this one https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/dynamic-page-updat... you can truly see just how much it changed the internet.

Hah I was hoping someone would bring this up..

We were using that XMLHTTP object as far back as 1999 (I just went to look at old source code) to load page fragments do quasi-SPA stuff before it was a thing.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#50

Post by k__ »

I fondly remember the times.

I'd built a site for Firefox and then conditionally import IE patches via those hacks to fix issues.

In the worst case, I'd hand to bludgeon it into the right form with JS, but usually I got pretty far with those CSS hacks.

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