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Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

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Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#11

Post by llimllib »

palish wrote: post #9
alabut wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it hasn't changed my mind away from being pro-CSS. It has however, made me realize how much of a learning curve CSS must be for many programmers compared to tables, much more than I thought, so I'm less likely to debate the finer points with coders that use tables and just stick to enjoying the benefits of stylesheets for myself.

Great! I think the internets would be a better place if more people embraced "be quiet and enjoy it for myself". If other people are missing out, oh well. That's a competitive advantage. It seems like people on both sides of this debate are seeking validation rather than trying to help people.

Partisanship has benefits, and I hope people aren't being quiet and enjoying awesome things that I don't know about.

Fight for what you think is right!

(Disclaimer: I'm not advocating for senseless opposition; rather for reasoned partisanship and against "be quiet and enjoy it for myself".)

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#13

Post by joshwa »

ejs wrote: post #2

This whole argument seems to be spiraling out of control, and I doubt a single person will change their mind either way. Things not to bother arguing about in public (since no one will change their mind): Religion Politics CSS vs Tables for layout...?

Canon vs. Nikon ;)

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#14

Post by cedsav »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #8
alabut wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it hasn't changed my mind away from being pro-CSS. It has however, made me realize how much of a learning curve CSS must be for many programmers compared to tables, much more than I thought, so I'm less likely to debate the finer points with coders that use tables and just stick to enjoying the benefits of stylesheets for myself.

It's not about the learning curve. In my view, it's about the productivity of competent web developers and designers. Referring to the learning curve is just repeating the disputed claim that people who deny the suitability of CSS for layout are just invariably incompetent. That's an excuse. And I don't agree with ejs. I think it's an important debate because CSS layout problems are a major reason why so many people…

You could look at the html source of csszengarden. I'm guessing it uses a bit less markup and is a bit more readable than an equivalent table based layout.

CssZenGarden also shows that refactoring a CSS-driven site is easier since you can do it without changing your templates.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#15

Post by KrisJordan »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #8
alabut wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it hasn't changed my mind away from being pro-CSS. It has however, made me realize how much of a learning curve CSS must be for many programmers compared to tables, much more than I thought, so I'm less likely to debate the finer points with coders that use tables and just stick to enjoying the benefits of stylesheets for myself.

It's not about the learning curve. In my view, it's about the productivity of competent web developers and designers. Referring to the learning curve is just repeating the disputed claim that people who deny the suitability of CSS for layout are just invariably incompetent. That's an excuse. And I don't agree with ejs. I think it's an important debate because CSS layout problems are a major reason why so many people…

Saying "CSS is a better solution than Tables for reasons [X,Y,Z] but it is at the cost of a higher learning curve," is much different than saying "CSS is a better solution than Tables for reasons [X,Y,Z] but you're too incompetent to understand."

CSS layout problems are not why so many people use Flash. Flash has popularity because for pure designers working in a GUI on a canvas where you can pixel place every item with drag-and-drop is natural and taught in school.

As for examples, the article calls out the canonical CSS layout example site made specifically for this purpose years ago: http://csszengarden.com/

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#16

Post by cedsav »

KrisJordan wrote: post #4
briancooley wrote: post #3

Context-sensitive Presentation, Better Accessibility, and the most complex designs are easier with CSS. These seem to fall under the YAGNI rule. In particular, if it took me a couple of hours to build using tables versus a couple of weeks using CSS (see the Ron Garret post), the above listed benefits would be cold comfort for the wasted time. The first rule should be to get something working quickly, even if it's sub…

The jury is not still out on whether tables are suboptimal. They're easier, that's their only advantage. The rule of getting something working quickly should not increase the cost of doing it right in the future.

They are actually not that easier to use. More intuitive perhaps, but they have enough quirks on their own.

I briefly taught a web design class and I remember students struggling with their table-based layouts. Layouts would be inconsistent from one page to the next because of content stretching the cells, and they could never figure out why dimensions set on a table or cell would be ignored by the browser.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#17

Post by chairface »

cedsav wrote: post #14
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the learning curve. In my view, it's about the productivity of competent web developers and designers. Referring to the learning curve is just repeating the disputed claim that people who deny the suitability of CSS for layout are just invariably incompetent. That's an excuse. And I don't agree with ejs. I think it's an important debate because CSS layout problems are a major reason why so many people…

You could look at the html source of csszengarden. I'm guessing it uses a bit less markup and is a bit more readable than an equivalent table based layout. CssZenGarden also shows that refactoring a CSS-driven site is easier since you can do it without changing your templates.

> CssZenGarden also shows that refactoring a CSS-driven site is easier since you can do it without changing your templates.

In my experience, this just doesn't happen in the real world.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#18

Post by jacquesm »

ejs wrote: post #2

This whole argument seems to be spiraling out of control, and I doubt a single person will change their mind either way. Things not to bother arguing about in public (since no one will change their mind): Religion Politics CSS vs Tables for layout...?

It took me all of 5 minutes to learn how to use tables back in oh... '94 or so, I remember the tutorial by some lady working for the fledgling netscape corporation.

To this date - and I don't think I qualify as stupid - I haven't fully grokked the css way of doing layout, there is always the little 'clear' or some other detail that keeps me from getting it right in one go. CSS works, but it is harder than it should be, the idea of something new superceding something older is that it is better and easier to use at the same time.

If CSS was really that great we wouldn't be having these debates, people would have switched en masse years ago and the 'table' tag would have been deprecated. I think any such attempt by w3c would be met with a fairly serious revolt.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#19

Post by uniwiz »

cedsav wrote: post #12

There's also quite a few css frameworks out there that take the hard part out of laying out a page: Blueprint, YUI grid. See also: http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/content/a-css-framework

CSS frameworks are great way to get the job done quickly, with no need to worry about the different browsers and their issues.

CSS extermists will tell you how using those frameworks is evil, lame, etc. I think the problem is that web developers feel threatened of loosing their jobs (gigs), since regular Joe Sixpack can now go and create a decent looking website in XHTML/CSS with minimal effort.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#20

Post by cedsav »

Front-end/Web design has evolved into a discipline of its own.

If you come from a different field, say programming, I can see how CSS looks like a bad solution to an already solved problem. So you're incentive is to stick to what you know and use tables for everything.

However, there's much more to front-end design that just having text and images show up where you want: user-agent targeting, SEO, accessibility, typography, graphic design, etc... There's a lot to learn, and CSS is just a small part of it.

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