Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

copperykeenclaws.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 25 posts

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#11

Post by [deleted] »

Meai wrote: post #8
Maci wrote: post #3

Why does this get upvoted ? If anything, all the author expresses is the disappointment of his own expectations while not adding anything constructive. Looking at the screenshots what he wants to achieve is perfectly doable cross browser but as per the author admission he's not much of a front-end guy. Shots point to here > http://bigmath.herokuapp.com/ which is offline.

That's his point..if someone can't write and position two characters of text and have it be cross platform easily, the HTML platform itself has failed. I had a similar thought like the author recently. Flash could have been awesome with a smaller runtime, 3D sooner, progressive rendering of content (text and images getting loaded in like in the browser instead of loading bars) Who would still use HTML? There would be…

[deleted]

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#12

Post by daleharvey »

Meai wrote: post #8
Maci wrote: post #3

Why does this get upvoted ? If anything, all the author expresses is the disappointment of his own expectations while not adding anything constructive. Looking at the screenshots what he wants to achieve is perfectly doable cross browser but as per the author admission he's not much of a front-end guy. Shots point to here > http://bigmath.herokuapp.com/ which is offline.

That's his point..if someone can't write and position two characters of text and have it be cross platform easily, the HTML platform itself has failed. I had a similar thought like the author recently. Flash could have been awesome with a smaller runtime, 3D sooner, progressive rendering of content (text and images getting loaded in like in the browser instead of loading bars) Who would still use HTML? There would be…

Despite being one of the first true ubiquitous computing platforms, becoming the main format of communication for the planet, HTML(s/the web) failed because someone couldnt read a CSS tutorial?

The authors example is terrible, that is an easy layout to do crossbrowser, HTML and CSS do have massive deficiencies in easily creating layouts, but so do most GUI toolkits, and compared to the other factors involved in the success of the web, fiddling around with css a little longer is a price well worth paying, for the majority at least

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#13

Post by watty »

daleharvey wrote: post #12
Meai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's his point..if someone can't write and position two characters of text and have it be cross platform easily, the HTML platform itself has failed. I had a similar thought like the author recently. Flash could have been awesome with a smaller runtime, 3D sooner, progressive rendering of content (text and images getting loaded in like in the browser instead of loading bars) Who would still use HTML? There would be…

Despite being one of the first true ubiquitous computing platforms, becoming the main format of communication for the planet, HTML(s/the web) failed because someone couldnt read a CSS tutorial? The authors example is terrible, that is an easy layout to do crossbrowser, HTML and CSS do have massive deficiencies in easily creating layouts, but so do most GUI toolkits, and compared to the other factors involved in the s…

I agree, I have no idea why he can't center content horizontally unless he's making a mistake.

However, those deficiencies you mentioned are only "well worth it" because it's our only option. It's this complacent attitude that helped generate a need for a plug-in. HTML and CSS are still tedious to use and often times requires hacks to work in specific browsers. Why? We shouldn't need a mess of frameworks on top of frameworks to fix these "massive deficiencies", it's simply not good enough.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#14

Post by Maci »

Meai wrote: post #8
Maci wrote: post #3

Why does this get upvoted ? If anything, all the author expresses is the disappointment of his own expectations while not adding anything constructive. Looking at the screenshots what he wants to achieve is perfectly doable cross browser but as per the author admission he's not much of a front-end guy. Shots point to here > http://bigmath.herokuapp.com/ which is offline.

That's his point..if someone can't write and position two characters of text and have it be cross platform easily, the HTML platform itself has failed. I had a similar thought like the author recently. Flash could have been awesome with a smaller runtime, 3D sooner, progressive rendering of content (text and images getting loaded in like in the browser instead of loading bars) Who would still use HTML? There would be…

Author's big numbers display, correct in IE 6.0+ and anything modern.

Old IE fixes a slight dirty, BUT can't get more basic HTML / CSS then this.

http://pastebin.com/TvPnFzrj

(Train delayed, Killing Time, Rainbows, etc.)

HTH Author.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#16

Post by tborthwick »

I agree I should have left a demo up- I had decided I should just start over so I took some screenshots for reference then scraped it. Later as an after-thought, I decided to write it up. I didn't really expect this much interest- I'll try to get it back up tonight.

The exercise was a little more than straight-up horizontal centering. It was to take two numbers randomly generated with possibly different number of digits, center them together along with an operator as a block, but right-align the text within. Also a text input field was put below. The line above the input field is just a simple border.

For reference, the CSS tutorial I looked at was http://www.noobcube.com/tutorials/html-css/horizontal-and-ve..., but I didn't add the IE elements because I thought it was only necessary for IE 6 and 7, not 9.

So the horizonal alignment problem in IE is probably because I used display:block. But why don't the numbers line up the same in chrome and firefox? What's up with the field border being all over the place? My point is not that I know html and css well, which I clearly don't, or that this stuff is impossible. It's that even with the latest browsers and techniques, it's still easy to get very different displays. I just didn't expect that, given the huge hype surrounding html5 and css3.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#17

Post by bgarbiak »

watty wrote: post #13
daleharvey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite being one of the first true ubiquitous computing platforms, becoming the main format of communication for the planet, HTML(s/the web) failed because someone couldnt read a CSS tutorial? The authors example is terrible, that is an easy layout to do crossbrowser, HTML and CSS do have massive deficiencies in easily creating layouts, but so do most GUI toolkits, and compared to the other factors involved in the s…

I agree, I have no idea why he can't center content horizontally unless he's making a mistake. However, those deficiencies you mentioned are only "well worth it" because it's our only option. It's this complacent attitude that helped generate a need for a plug-in. HTML and CSS are still tedious to use and often times requires hacks to work in specific browsers. Why? We shouldn't need a mess of frameworks on top of fr…

I deal with HTML and CSS everyday so I'm probably biased but for me all these cross-browser compatibility problems related to rendering stuff are grossly exaggerated. Aside from IE6 (which, I believe, should not be supported anymore) supporting everything else is relatively easy. IE7 usually needs a couple of "zoom: 100%" here and there; IE8 handles CSS2 quite nicely (it passed Acid 2 after all); IE9 is on the same level as Firefox 3.6 - which is quite great. CSS3 stuff is a bit tricky sometimes, especially if you're going for a pixel-perfect cross-browser compatibility. However, it's hard to expect that older browsers would support technology from the future. Flash 8 don't support Flash 11 features either. Still, in browsers the new stuff could be quite easily 'emulated' with filters, JS or ready-made solutions (PIE CSS), etc.

Latest Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome and IE10 - the bunch that supports both HTML5 and CSS3 from the start - are totally painless. That's the "HTML5 nirvana", IMHO. To be honest, breaking the compatibility between these the way the author did is quite an achievement - I really would like to see his code. Probably a quick and simple CSS Reset would solve these issues. Author's mistake is more probable though.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#18

Post by bgarbiak »

Meai wrote: post #8
Maci wrote: post #3

Why does this get upvoted ? If anything, all the author expresses is the disappointment of his own expectations while not adding anything constructive. Looking at the screenshots what he wants to achieve is perfectly doable cross browser but as per the author admission he's not much of a front-end guy. Shots point to here > http://bigmath.herokuapp.com/ which is offline.

That's his point..if someone can't write and position two characters of text and have it be cross platform easily, the HTML platform itself has failed. I had a similar thought like the author recently. Flash could have been awesome with a smaller runtime, 3D sooner, progressive rendering of content (text and images getting loaded in like in the browser instead of loading bars) Who would still use HTML? There would be…

Who would still use HTML? There would be no upside at all, Flash has always had better tools.

No upside at all? Open standards, semantic code, SEO optimization, separation of presentation and content, ability to look into the source code, ability to alter the content and/or visuals by user, better printing support, userscripts, ad blocking,... Just to mention a few.

Anyway, no matter how good Flash could have become it would always be only a plug-in. A third-party injection, not an integral part of the web - and as such it always was doomed in the long term perspective. Relaying on plugins is like - excuse an over-the-top metaphor - having nitro system in a family car. It's exciting for a while, but nowhere near an experience of having a real supercar. HTML5, in it's current state, is not yet a Ferrari but it has way bigger chance to become one than Flash (or Silverlight, or anything) ever had.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#19

Post by bgarbiak »

tborthwick wrote: post #16

I agree I should have left a demo up- I had decided I should just start over so I took some screenshots for reference then scraped it. Later as an after-thought, I decided to write it up. I didn't really expect this much interest- I'll try to get it back up tonight. The exercise was a little more than straight-up horizontal centering. It was to take two numbers randomly generated with possibly different number of dig…

The tutorial you've mentioned overcomplicate things a bit and uses tables for layout, which is a total no-go. However, even as a regular HTML5 defender I have to admit centering stuff in HTML/CSS in not exactly a trivial task. It's not very tough either, just not something that most of the 'newcomers' could solve in a minute. You can look up my solution here: http://garbiak.com/demos/hn/

Without seeing your code it's hard to tell what exactly gone wrong, however such huge level of browser inconsistency is indeed worrisome. Never believed HTML5 would solve these kind of issues completely but the differences shouldn't be that huge.

Re: Looking for HTML5 Nirvana

#20

Post by lwhi »

tomlin wrote: post #9
Maci wrote: post #3

Why does this get upvoted ? If anything, all the author expresses is the disappointment of his own expectations while not adding anything constructive. Looking at the screenshots what he wants to achieve is perfectly doable cross browser but as per the author admission he's not much of a front-end guy. Shots point to here > http://bigmath.herokuapp.com/ which is offline.

People should try to understand that the need for the capabilities of Flash and Flash itself are being lopped together in a single, partisan viewpoint. Regretfully. There is a need for crazy, highly interactive studio/movie sites, webcam support on the web , cross-browser reliability, fast drawing for animation and games, cross-browser 3D, audio API. Saying that these features will come one day is not an answer . "Yo…

Huh? I would have thought that criticising HTML5 and providing valid reasoning means you think negatively about HTML5.

The problem is, the author hasn't backed up anything. There's no real valid criticism other than conjecture.

Post reply on HN