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Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

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Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#41

Post by braindead_in »

dasil003 wrote: post #40
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Tables were not introduced until '95. I've been designing web pages since then and I went all CSS in 2001. If you were doing serious design things weren't quite so rosy as the picture you paint. Hobbyists and non-designers don't realize what designing with tables was really like. There were crazy idiosyncrasies like whitespace affecting table layout. The late 90s an incredible amount of effort was dumped into develop…

Or try learning latex!

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#42

Post by ja2ke »

dasil003 wrote: post #40
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Tables were not introduced until '95. I've been designing web pages since then and I went all CSS in 2001. If you were doing serious design things weren't quite so rosy as the picture you paint. Hobbyists and non-designers don't realize what designing with tables was really like. There were crazy idiosyncrasies like whitespace affecting table layout. The late 90s an incredible amount of effort was dumped into develop…

I still generally code in tables, but I agree with this. The flexibility of design, and the design possibilities available to the guys in my office who use CSS, are far beyond what I can accomplish with a table or mixed table/CSS design, unless I seriously hack the shit out of my page, which makes the coders go bananas.

It's definitely a transition to go from the table mentality of basically stretching the page out like a weird balloon from the top left corner or top center of the page, to the CSS mentality of having to sort of "press in from the outside" to keep things from blowing up all over the page and each other, but the more I learn about how web stylesheets work, the more I respect them.

CSS fans often cite the fact that the code looks cleaner or that the data is more modular, etc. I don't really think that's the case, at least not when compared to a table driven site which also just has a lot of class and ID tags for background images, text colors, which in practice is just as flexible. CSS shines though where it allows you to create things in sizes and configurations just not possible in tables without a lot of shitting all over yourself (the biggest one being having two elements overlap, which is useful for drop down menus, confirmation boxes, etc, etc.)

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#43

Post by ja2ke »

uniwiz wrote: post #19
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.

Any web designer who is worried that "regular Joe Sixpack can now go and create a decent looking webpage" which looks or functions better than something they would be willing to accept payment for, should probably not be trying to make it as a professional designer.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#44

Post by anatoli »

It's funny that this issue will only come up with someone who doesn't have to code designs for living or at least regularly. No offense, but if you actually got out of your little shell people and worked on some real designs, created by great designers, you would understand why CSS is superior.

This isn't even an argument.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#45

Post by mattmcknight »

This article won't load on my Blackberry. All of the pro-tables articles looked fine... (To be fair, it's probably a .js issue)

I haven't read much of the what's so wrong with tables argument in this debate. A lot people saying x is possible with divs and css is different from saying it's faster, better, cheaper. The div approach is harder to debug, the tables approach fails to set you apart from the hoi polloi...end of story?

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#46

Post by nshah »

To me this argument itself is wrong; One of the reasons why using CSS is considered difficult by some developers is because of the different levels of support shown by different browsers.

The whole argument that CSS has a learning curve, or that we need hacks, etc - all point to the same problem. The reason it takes such a long time to get the layout just right is because there is some browser out there (typically IE6) that does not behave the way you want it to.

We would not even be having this "war" if all the browsers were standards compliant, so my gripe as a developer is - why are we not fighting the correct war? As a developer, I must be able to write code, whether using div tags or table tags, and expect that it works just as it is supposed to, and not have to waste hours trying to hack it to work with non-compliant browsers!!

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#47

Post by braindead_in »

nshah wrote: post #46

To me this argument itself is wrong; One of the reasons why using CSS is considered difficult by some developers is because of the different levels of support shown by different browsers. The whole argument that CSS has a learning curve, or that we need hacks, etc - all point to the same problem. The reason it takes such a long time to get the layout just right is because there is some browser out there (typically IE…

how about, because the world is not perfect.

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#48

Post by nshah »

braindead_in wrote: post #47
nshah wrote: post #46

To me this argument itself is wrong; One of the reasons why using CSS is considered difficult by some developers is because of the different levels of support shown by different browsers. The whole argument that CSS has a learning curve, or that we need hacks, etc - all point to the same problem. The reason it takes such a long time to get the layout just right is because there is some browser out there (typically IE…

how about, because the world is not perfect.

The world is never going to be perfect... the question is: are you trying to steer it towards perfection or are you content going with the flow and just doing what everyone else does?

Re: Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout

#50

Post by braindead_in »

nshah wrote: post #48
braindead_in wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about, because the world is not perfect.

The world is never going to be perfect... the question is: are you trying to steer it towards perfection or are you content going with the flow and just doing what everyone else does?

Perfection. Of course. Its not a choice. Its a demand.
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