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Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

tonsky.me

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Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#91

Post by dclowd9901 »

Animats wrote: post #72

That's because CSS layout was designed by people who thought "float" and "clear" were a good idea, tables were bad, and, when in doubt, make it Turing-complete and dump the problem on someone else. 2D and 3D tools get this right. CAD programs, game engines, and animation programs are all far better at positioning things. They have far better layout engines and constraint systems. This is really a constraint problem.…

I think (despite the article’s digs) iOS had the right idea with everything having a relative layout to parents and siblings. It makes it much easier to know what “center” actually means when you have a notion of what it’s supposed to be centered to.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#93

Post by postalrat »

Animats wrote: post #72

That's because CSS layout was designed by people who thought "float" and "clear" were a good idea, tables were bad, and, when in doubt, make it Turing-complete and dump the problem on someone else. 2D and 3D tools get this right. CAD programs, game engines, and animation programs are all far better at positioning things. They have far better layout engines and constraint systems. This is really a constraint problem.…

Do the tools you say do it better than html also handle the variety of clients html documents are expected to work with? Or handle accessibility better?

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#94

Post by dclowd9901 »

crazygringo wrote: post #18

This is an excellent piece, about how virtually impossible it is to center things accurately mostly because of how fonts are displayed. But I'll add two more wrinkles that the author doesn't mention: First, that font rendering isn't just about metrics but varies across operating systems and browsers. So even if you center perfectly on Chrome on your Mac, it may very well be off on Firefox on Windows. And second, that…

Yes, and let’s not forget fallback fonts. So rules for each browser and OS and each font class and each layout (desktop, tablet, mobile). Probably on the order of 100 rules for a single style. Yeah, we’re just being lazy.

We need sane font rendering in browsers that treat things like alignment in a way that we’d expect for the 99% case. If I say “center” it should just fucking center.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#95

Post by bazoom42 »

Animats wrote: post #72

That's because CSS layout was designed by people who thought "float" and "clear" were a good idea, tables were bad, and, when in doubt, make it Turing-complete and dump the problem on someone else. 2D and 3D tools get this right. CAD programs, game engines, and animation programs are all far better at positioning things. They have far better layout engines and constraint systems. This is really a constraint problem.…

It is a weird myth that CSS somehow discourages tables. CSS have supported styling html tables and ‘display:table’ (allowing a table-like layout without html-tables) for 25 years.

Float and clear was grandfathered into CSS since they were added to HTML by Netscape. They are fine for their intended purpose: placing images in a text and have the text flow around.

Other positioning systems you mention does not solve the same problem as CSS. CSS has to support viewports of any size and dimensions and allow text to scale independently of the viewport size and still remain readable.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#98

Post by Maxion »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #78

Don't read this article, if you are not in web dev. Once you start seeing it, you can't stop seeing it, and it will drive you crazy forever. It is the same for noticing misalignment, recognizing color oversaturation, high quality speakers/headphones, etc. (It is a good article!)

The same happens when you:

- Install flooring

- Install trim in your own home

- Build / install cabinets

You will now see:

- Odd flooring patterns and uneven floors

- Know what it looks like when trim isn't coped

- Uneven gaps between doors

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#99

Post by andrewmcwatters »

Animats wrote: post #72

That's because CSS layout was designed by people who thought "float" and "clear" were a good idea, tables were bad, and, when in doubt, make it Turing-complete and dump the problem on someone else. 2D and 3D tools get this right. CAD programs, game engines, and animation programs are all far better at positioning things. They have far better layout engines and constraint systems. This is really a constraint problem.…

Man... whole generations just straight up either do not realize, or have forgotten that early CSS revolved around creating documents, not apps, and that all of those design paradigms originated from typesetting.

In the same way that one would float a figure to the left or right of lines of a paragraph, `float: left;` and `float: right;` allowed you to do the same.

Open a textbook and look at lines of a paragraph flowing (where content "flow" layout comes from) around a figure, such as an image or a diagram.

The World Wide Web was documents.

In this context, `float` was a genius idea. There's literally no other way in CSS to do this without a bunch of hacks.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#100

Post by szundi »

pylua wrote: post #28
mckn1ght wrote: post #7

> That’s exactly why people love web programming so much. There’s always a challenge. LOL, these examples are exactly why I got out of web programming. Thankfully I never had to deal with any of the modern frameworks. I was getting hot flashes just scrolling through this page.

There is challenging for the wrong reasons then there is challenging for the right reasons. You will want to make sure you work on things that are challenging for the right reasons.

Then some stakeholder just doen’t like a thing for silly reasons and never can anyone always be happy - for cheap at least
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