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HTML is object code

rondam.blogspot.com

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Re: HTML is object code

#31

Post by wvenable »

derefr wrote: post #26
wvenable wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the real question is, what exactly is the problem with HTML? HTML is ok, it's CSS that's got the problem. It's the difference between Microsoft Word and Publisher; CSS doesn't provide enough layout primitives to do common web layouts easily. Instead, you have to specifically structure your HTML for it and layer on the tags and copious amounts of CSS code.

The problem is that, unlike Word vs. Publisher, we don't have a set medium that we're working toward (e.g. paper.) When CSS was created, it controlled and formatted all the things that browsers could present, which wasn't very darn much. Then we thought of more things for browsers to do, and had to make our CSS much more complicated to get the same effects. To give an even older parallel, when HTML was created, it ha…

I agree! But the main failing of the original design of CSS (which could resolve most of these arguments) is that they didn't include a way to do page layout in the way that tables work. Many years later, with CSS3, they've finally adding it. But it seems like an obvious layout deficiency given the previous use of tables for layout.

Re: HTML is object code

#32

Post by tumult »

shawnjgoff wrote: post #28

The problem is that your "object code" is someone else's "source code". When you follow standards, it's easy for people to use what you've published; when you don't, it's painful. A simplistic example: say you put out a typical web page with a navigation area and content area. Maybe for some reason, your website is much easier for me to use if I put the navigation above or below the content or maybe you put it on the…

can you show an example? most sites with pure CSS layouts must have the HTML elements ordered specifically, otherwise it breaks, due to the limitations of CSS.

the best way to customize sites in a client is with something like greasemonkey, where you can use javascript to manipulate the page. you can do it with just css too of course (like stylish) but usually that's limited to just changing the sizes, colors and visibility of things.

Re: HTML is object code

#33

Post by mahmud »

ori_b wrote: post #15

A huge part of the problem is that HTML is a really bad object code for UIs.

HTML should not be used for UI, it's for inserting content and from elements into a presentation. CSS, with the help of graphics and javascript for interactivity should do the UI.

Doing something like:

  with-html
    :ul :id "site-menu"
    dolist (menu-item (list "home" "news" "blog" "aboutus"))
      :li (:a :href concat(*server-root* menu-item) menu-item)
Should generate this:

  
    home
    news
    blog
    aboutus
Then in a CSS page referenced by that presentation, you do whatever you want to #site-menu; you make it a vertical menu, horizontal, tabbed, or even generate big fat fish-eye icons that look like the Mac's. HTML knows nothing of that.

Used in this sense, HTML is a very good object code.

Re: HTML is object code

#34

Post by mahmud »

anc2020 wrote: post #5
edw519 wrote: post #2

This a a major leap. Once you understand that HTML is object code, a whole new world of architectural possibilities opens up to you. Not exactly a new idea either. pg talked about this years ago... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50159

Ron Garret reads or has read HN, so its very possible he knew about that comment.

Not only is HTML object code, but the code that generates my HTML is also object code. Macrology is fun :-)

Re: HTML is object code

#35

Post by aboodman »

derefr wrote: post #26
wvenable wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the real question is, what exactly is the problem with HTML? HTML is ok, it's CSS that's got the problem. It's the difference between Microsoft Word and Publisher; CSS doesn't provide enough layout primitives to do common web layouts easily. Instead, you have to specifically structure your HTML for it and layer on the tags and copious amounts of CSS code.

The problem is that, unlike Word vs. Publisher, we don't have a set medium that we're working toward (e.g. paper.) When CSS was created, it controlled and formatted all the things that browsers could present, which wasn't very darn much. Then we thought of more things for browsers to do, and had to make our CSS much more complicated to get the same effects. To give an even older parallel, when HTML was created, it ha…

It's a lovely story, but it isn't true.

Designers have been trying to create grid-based layouts since the beginning of the graphical web. CSS was created after that, and its creators did not see fit to bestow on us the basic tools (flexible boxes) that could be used to create these layouts elegantly.

As a result HTML and CSS have always been coupled. Only by using both together, can engineers create the layouts designers want.

This most certainly is a failing of CSS. Sadly, it is also a failing of the web development community, who looked for progress from the one group of people who were completely incapable of delivering it.

Re: HTML is object code

#36

Post by baddox »

Funny, I thought HTML was a markup language. The article says HTML is (or can be) both source code and object code. I say it's neither. HTML isn't the source code for some application or piece of software, and it's not the application or software itself. It doesn't tell a cpu what to do, it tells a browser what to show.

Re: HTML is object code

#37

Post by ubernostrum »

haberman wrote: post #22

The "tables vs. CSS" argument has a clear answer and I can't believe we are still arguing about it. CSS people who argue against tables are obeying their instinct that content and presentation should be separate. They are mostly right about this (I say mostly because the more graphical a webpage is, the more the content and the presentation are inextricably linked). What the CSS people refuse to acknowledge is that C…

"The table-based paradigm is a very natural way to describe layouts -- that's why everyone used tables for this prior to CSS!"

Wrong and wrong.

Tables for layout didn't really take off until the late 90's, and mostly were popularized by the work of one person (Dave Siegel, who wrote a book where he referred to table-based techniques as part of "third-generation" web design, implying just how much had come before).

And even when they did take off, tables were still burdened with the sorts of quirks and browser incompatibilities people complain about with CSS (remember font-size inheritance? Remember the two different baseline alignment models?); too many people seem to have forgotten all the tricks they had to learn to make those layouts work properly, and how complex the resulting HTML had to be.

Re: HTML is object code

#38

Post by jfoutz »

derefr wrote: post #26
wvenable wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the real question is, what exactly is the problem with HTML? HTML is ok, it's CSS that's got the problem. It's the difference between Microsoft Word and Publisher; CSS doesn't provide enough layout primitives to do common web layouts easily. Instead, you have to specifically structure your HTML for it and layer on the tags and copious amounts of CSS code.

The problem is that, unlike Word vs. Publisher, we don't have a set medium that we're working toward (e.g. paper.) When CSS was created, it controlled and formatted all the things that browsers could present, which wasn't very darn much. Then we thought of more things for browsers to do, and had to make our CSS much more complicated to get the same effects. To give an even older parallel, when HTML was created, it ha…

First, I agree wholeheartedly that the language we use is never powerful enough for us to express ourselves. I'd say that even goes for print... but whatever.

I spent a few hours reading old RFC's because of this whole thread.

It looks to me like rfc 1942 got popular, and the CSS folks never came to grips with that. CSS1 is pretty given the constraints of the day. I think about CSS in two terms (I don't think there's a standard for this, i just made them up) Formatting, setting fonts, colors and padding; and layout, i think old newspaper guys would call it paste up, where the big blocks go on the page.

CSS is great at formatting. It sucks at layout.

This was their approach to layout, http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/Stylesheets/model.html

Mosaic had support for tables five months before that, http://www.eskimo.com/~bloo/indexdot/history/mosaic.htm

They must have known, and i don't think they had a credible solution to layout problems. they weren't willing to make a full layout language, so tables won.

Re: HTML is object code

#39

Post by halo »

haberman wrote: post #22

The "tables vs. CSS" argument has a clear answer and I can't believe we are still arguing about it. CSS people who argue against tables are obeying their instinct that content and presentation should be separate. They are mostly right about this (I say mostly because the more graphical a webpage is, the more the content and the presentation are inextricably linked). What the CSS people refuse to acknowledge is that C…

The issue is that they're both flawed solutions and you should pick the solution that's the least worst depending on what you're trying to do. Sometimes that's tables, sometimes that's CSS, sometimes it's some combination of the two. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Saying "CSS dropped the ball, and that CSS failed to incorporate tools for describing layouts in table-based ways" is an incredibly oversimplified summary. Back in 1996, CSS1 was published and while the styling was incredibly well-thought-out, the layout part of it was somewhat tacked on (somewhat to its detriment), with the aim that CSS2 would tackle the complex layout issues that needed to be addressed. CSS2 was introduced in 1998, except no-one implemented much of it for years, most notably display:table which gets the most of the advantages of using CSS and tables within CSS. Sometime around 2002 or so (after the death of Netscape) someone realised you could hack around with 'float' property (introduced in CSS1 and well-supported) to achieve column-like layouts.

Once IE6 and IE7 dies we can finally switch to display: table. I'll give an optimistic estimate of this happening in 2013, but it really depends on how long XP/Vista last.

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