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HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

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Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#121

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

I was going to comment that I took offense to calling table-based layout a hack in the first place. When tables went out of favor, and I saw many, many front end dev teams waste cumulative months of time creating a much less understandable web page fiddling with float nonsense all over the place, solely so "purists" could keep their religion in tact, I learned a valuable lesson. Joel Spolsky calls them "Architecture Astronauts" in a great blog post - the types of developers who forget that their job is to actually produce working software that does something well with the least amount of effort (architecture astronauts also gave us the ridiculousness of the first EJB spec, and stuff like the widely derided AbstractFactoryBuilderConstructor nonsense from Java). I feel like I've done a good job over time recognizing these architecture astronaut personalities and staying far away.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#122

Post by rchaud »

mpixel wrote: post #103
rchaud wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people on HN seem to have this opinion. A lot of the content on that site has been re-written, and it's now a pretty fantastic resource for beginners. If you tell 2 beginners to build something with PHP/jQuery/JS, and send one person to W3Schools and the other to PHP.net/jquery.org/MDN, I have no doubt that the W3schools person will get something done in workable state faster.

And if you tell 2 experts to build something with W3Schools as the resource against better documentation, I'm sure the results will be the opposite. That's not the point though, I'm not going to say different strokes for different folks. Instead I'd say, if that beginner uses the 'slower' path instead, that will pay dividends in time -- they are better of learning to use the docs than getting paid peanuts for deliver…

An expert wouldn't go to W3schools to begin with. They would have far more specific problems that would be better explored on Stack Overflow.

A beginner on the other hand would have their SO questions locked/closed within minutes because it would likely break any one of the thousand little rules SO has (to reduce duplicates) that are unknown to beginners.

Horses for courses; I read the official MDN and PHP docs now, but I didn't when I began because those sites assume an enormous amount of prior knowledge about programming.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#123

Post by rchaud »

subtra3t wrote: post #108
mpixel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you tell 2 experts to build something with W3Schools as the resource against better documentation, I'm sure the results will be the opposite. That's not the point though, I'm not going to say different strokes for different folks. Instead I'd say, if that beginner uses the 'slower' path instead, that will pay dividends in time -- they are better of learning to use the docs than getting paid peanuts for deliver…

I disagree with you. "Learning" to use a particular documentation website (which, mindyou, changes its layout frequently) is not very time consuming. So a beginner should use w3schools while they see fit, and then move on to MDN, etc. when they find it to be unsuitable for their purposes.

That's exactly what the progression was for me. W3S laid the foundations, and then I went on to MDN and other sources once I felt more comfortable.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#124

Post by rchaud »

woodrowbarlow wrote: post #112
rchaud wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people on HN seem to have this opinion. A lot of the content on that site has been re-written, and it's now a pretty fantastic resource for beginners. If you tell 2 beginners to build something with PHP/jQuery/JS, and send one person to W3Schools and the other to PHP.net/jquery.org/MDN, I have no doubt that the W3schools person will get something done in workable state faster.

i'm mostly upset that they use "w3" in their name to masquerade as an "official" source of documentation. i know their about page clears this up, but it's pretty buried.

Well perhaps W3C's official site would rank higher if it actually offered any tutorials, i.e. the thing people are searching for, as opposed to a list of specifications and draft specifications that won't be finalized for 10 years.

In any case, "W3" is just another representation of 'www', which the W3C doesn't have any kind of claim over.

OpenAI isn't open. W3Schools is unaffiliated with the W3C. The world keeps spinning.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#125

Post by jenscow »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121
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…

I was going to comment that I took offense to calling table-based layout a hack in the first place. When tables went out of favor, and I saw many, many front end dev teams waste cumulative months of time creating a much less understandable web page fiddling with float nonsense all over the place, solely so "purists" could keep their religion in tact, I learned a valuable lesson. Joel Spolsky calls them "Architecture…

For sure. While tables went out of fashion, there was nothing usable to replace them.

I was not really interested if those doing a "View Source" are going to be offended by my "incorrect" use of tables.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#126

Post by hiccuphippo »

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…

I still remember article after article coming out with the newest "holy grail" of 3 column layout.

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#128

Post by ransom1538 »

stabbles wrote: post #88
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…

As W3Schools still likes to call it: the new, modern clearfix hack [1] .clearfix::after { content: ""; clear: both; display: table; } [1] https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_clearfix.asp

 That works?  

Re: HTML hacks that shaped the Internet

#130

Post by yyyk »

lost_womble wrote: post #53
troupo wrote: 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

A common case of W3 actively choosing the worse option

CSS seems better? Much less verbose for same effect, doesn't require enabling Javascript. The 'with' selectors do predate jQuery and querySelector, but that was a problem with Javascript and not CSS.
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