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Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

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Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#71

Post by imsteve »

run4yourlives wrote: post #67
Xichekolas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who maintains 'hundreds of pages' of HTML? Don't you offload everything into templates or dynamically generate it? The last time I managed hundreds of pages of html, or even html with dynamic content spliced in, was in 2001, and that was against my will. A quick rewrite took care of that too. HTML is an output format, not a language.

As an output format, it should be easily altered to display in various forms. CSS with semantic HTML achieves this, embedded presentation does not.

> achieves this

The hell it does... Not to mention that separating the two is such a futile waste of time in so many cases.

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#72

Post by pg »

dcurtis wrote: post #68
pg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. How is using tables ignoring web standards? 2. Html is object code. What matters is the readability of the source code that generates it. Worrying about the readability of the output of a compiler is akin to premature optimization. 3. The front page of News.YC is 30k. If you think that's bloated, I hope you don't visit sites that contain images. Do you understand what I mean about the distinction between source an…

1. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombina... 2. Ill admit defeat on this point. (but see below) 3. With all the td, tr, etc tags, it seems messy. I don't know for sure, but I think using a stylesheet could reduce the size. I'll code hacker news in CSS when I have a few minutes and try to get the HTML+CSS under 30k. Relatively, its a small site. That's awesome because it loads fast and I can comm…

You're changing the question on 1. Obviously whether or not I use tables is a separate question from whether the HTML I generate conforms exactly to the spec.

As for speed, no: when you've got a site down to 30k, you shouldn't be spending time making it smaller.

Are you sure HTML was designed to be looked at? I thought it was a subset of SGML, which as far as I know was a portable representation for the kind of documents that would ordinarily be seen with a WYSYWG editor. But even if HTML had been designed to be manipulated by hand, the general trend in technology is always away from that. Machine language was designed to be looked at. Then technology advanced and people started using programs to generate it.

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#73

Post by euccastro »

run4yourlives wrote: post #61
palish wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is simply, what's the reasoning behind my inability to type: child{ center: horizontal; } That would be very newcomer-friendly. Possibly naive, but I'm interested to know why.

1. center to what? 1a. child is 0px wide. 2. semantics: You're basically saying "Why isn't language x exactly like language y/how I want it to be?" 3. margin is what you're adjusting, so saying margin-auto makes sense. 4. Layers and layering are an important aspect of CSS, you've just broken all of them.

This is what comes to mind to me, a CSS ignorant:

1. To the parent, the width of which is known by the layout code of the browser at any moment at 'runtime'.

1a. Fair enough, then it won't show up. But it will not-be-there centered, goddammit!! >:)

2. Which is a very fair question, and how languages get better.

3. That is one way to look at it, the one the language seems to force into you, and apparently it's the least intuitive.

4. If you can get an exactly equivalent effect with other expression, how come you can't have "center horizontally" just become an alias/shortcut/abstraction for that, if newbies expect it?

Then again, this is only an issue for hand-coded CSS. If you use your HTML/CSS as object code, this is easy enough to abstract in your generating code.

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#74

Post by dcurtis »

pg wrote: post #72
dcurtis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombina... 2. Ill admit defeat on this point. (but see below) 3. With all the td, tr, etc tags, it seems messy. I don't know for sure, but I think using a stylesheet could reduce the size. I'll code hacker news in CSS when I have a few minutes and try to get the HTML+CSS under 30k. Relatively, its a small site. That's awesome because it loads fast and I can comm…

You're changing the question on 1. Obviously whether or not I use tables is a separate question from whether the HTML I generate conforms exactly to the spec. As for speed, no: when you've got a site down to 30k, you shouldn't be spending time making it smaller. Are you sure HTML was designed to be looked at? I thought it was a subset of SGML, which as far as I know was a portable representation for the kind of docum…

My point on 1 wasn't specific to tables. Hacker News genuinely ignores W3C standards.

Are you saying that the future of HTML looks like what happened to machine language?

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#75

Post by pg »

run4yourlives wrote: post #66
pg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. How is using tables ignoring web standards? 2. Html is object code. What matters is the readability of the source code that generates it. Worrying about the readability of the output of a compiler is akin to premature optimization. 3. The front page of News.YC is 30k. If you think that's bloated, I hope you don't visit sites that contain images. Do you understand what I mean about the distinction between source an…

1. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/#structure It most certainly ignores accessibility standards; also the spirit of all the other W3C standards. 2. I guess we know where you stand on the semantic web, don't we! :-) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web ) 3. It's your bandwidth money. I'm not paying for it. (Of course, I would disagree with the GP that HN is bloated)

That document you link to isn't part of the HTML standard. It seems to be an additional document from the W3C outlining how they'd like people to behave. Conforming to software standards is one thing; you have to do that to make programs work together. But complying with the W3C's wishes on how the web ought to be used is a very different matter. I feel like doing exactly what the W3C says on broader questions is not merely optional, but probably a mistake, considering the people who make it up. It would be like running your company according to a list of "best practices" compiled by a committee at General Motors.

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#76

Post by [deleted] »

run4yourlives wrote: post #41
ericb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm open to new perspectives. In what way I should I see the page such that "center me in my parent" is unreasonable unless the parent has a fixed width? What, in particular, about the box model makes this impossible?

The notion of "center" doesn't exist without a width. Now, you could give the object in question a width and simply give it margin-left/right: auto. That would center it in the width-less parent, but it wouldn't fix its position to the particular spot you're currently seeing it in. For understanding, take it up to the highest level, the browser window. Make your browser 1024x768. Now make it bigger or larger - where…

[deleted]

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#78

Post by palish »

euccastro wrote: post #73
run4yourlives wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. center to what? 1a. child is 0px wide. 2. semantics: You're basically saying "Why isn't language x exactly like language y/how I want it to be?" 3. margin is what you're adjusting, so saying margin-auto makes sense. 4. Layers and layering are an important aspect of CSS, you've just broken all of them.

This is what comes to mind to me, a CSS ignorant: 1. To the parent, the width of which is known by the layout code of the browser at any moment at 'runtime'. 1a. Fair enough, then it won't show up. But it will not-be-there centered, goddammit!! >:) 2. Which is a very fair question, and how languages get better. 3. That is one way to look at it, the one the language seems to force into you, and apparently it's the lea…

If you use your HTML/CSS as object code, this is easy enough to abstract in your generating code.

Bingo! And that's one reason Arc is pretty exciting. I'll be able to do the equivalent of center: horizontal, and the details can be abstracted.

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#79

Post by euccastro »

palish wrote: post #78
euccastro wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what comes to mind to me, a CSS ignorant: 1. To the parent, the width of which is known by the layout code of the browser at any moment at 'runtime'. 1a. Fair enough, then it won't show up. But it will not-be-there centered, goddammit!! >:) 2. Which is a very fair question, and how languages get better. 3. That is one way to look at it, the one the language seems to force into you, and apparently it's the lea…

If you use your HTML/CSS as object code, this is easy enough to abstract in your generating code. Bingo! And that's one reason Arc is pretty exciting. I'll be able to do the equivalent of center: horizontal, and the details can be abstracted.

What makes you think Arc will improve on other Lisps in this respect?

Re: Ask YC: Why is YC's layout table based?

#80

Post by sbraford »

cedsav wrote: post #22
mrtron wrote: post #6

smacks head Not this again... The answer being who gives a shit? Does it look fine in most browsers?

Does it matter for this site? No. Should you, as a developer (ahem... I mean hacker), care about the quality of the markup your app is producing. Definitively yes..

My only problem with table nazis is when they do their job poorly.

i.e. they insist on a tableless layout, yet when you look at their design in IE6/7, the right sidebar always seems to end up at the bottom of the page.

So instead of working on real code / markup, you always seem to be fixing a broken sidebar CSS issue, due to insistence on not using tables. (i fix these problems in 5min w/ a table-based layout)

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