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Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

wiki.csswg.org

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Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#2

Post by edent »

When I occasionally venture I to standards-land, I always ask "what user research have you done on this?"

So many weird design choices in computing are because one person said "this seems right to me" without considering other viewpoints or consulting with the wider community.

Sure, you probably dont want death by committee, but a tiny cabal engaging in groupthink often produces unhelpful results.

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#4

Post by nfw2 »

I'd like to propose for the list:

Default heading styles should not have equal top and bottom margin. Headings should be closer to the content they label than to the content they are setting their content apart from.

h1, h2, h3 should not have different styles. it's an anti-pattern that leads to broken accessibility

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#5

Post by dang »

kuharich wrote: post #3

Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38363698

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Mistakes in the Design of CSS (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38363698 - Nov 2023 (143 comments)

Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25891435 - Jan 2021 (68 comments)

Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18297757 - Oct 2018 (150 comments)

Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10453850 - Oct 2015 (106 comments)

Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7665667 - April 2014 (1 comment)

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#6

Post by anonymars »

I will never understand the bizarre scene of the web's smug collective declaration that tables were dead and not to be used juxtaposed against the years it took to regain the ability to reliably center things. Assuming one agrees that we even did regain it.

Related: I also love when I can't paste tabular data into Excel/etc. anymore

For the record, I don't hate the idea of stylesheets, but...sheesh

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#7

Post by groby_b »

It is extremely funny to me that the list thinks the mistake about !important was using the exclamation mark sigil, and not the concept of a single priority level.

In the words of one of my CS profs, from a few decades ago: "There are only 3 numbers - zero, one, and infinity. And 'one' is often a mistake"

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#8

Post by ModernMech »

anonymars wrote: post #6

I will never understand the bizarre scene of the web's smug collective declaration that tables were dead and not to be used juxtaposed against the years it took to regain the ability to reliably center things. Assuming one agrees that we even did regain it. Related: I also love when I can't paste tabular data into Excel/etc. anymore For the record, I don't hate the idea of stylesheets, but...sheesh

My favorite part about that is how we came back around to display:grid

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#9

Post by afavour »

anonymars wrote: post #6

I will never understand the bizarre scene of the web's smug collective declaration that tables were dead and not to be used juxtaposed against the years it took to regain the ability to reliably center things. Assuming one agrees that we even did regain it. Related: I also love when I can't paste tabular data into Excel/etc. anymore For the record, I don't hate the idea of stylesheets, but...sheesh

Tables aren’t dead, they never were… when displaying tabular data. When it comes to layout I think you might be wearing rose tinted glasses. Remember having to put a 1px image in a table cell to avoid it disappearing? Remember “best viewed at 800x600”? I’m personally not nostalgic for either.

Re: Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS

#10

Post by windows2020 »

ModernMech wrote: post #8
anonymars wrote: post #6

I will never understand the bizarre scene of the web's smug collective declaration that tables were dead and not to be used juxtaposed against the years it took to regain the ability to reliably center things. Assuming one agrees that we even did regain it. Related: I also love when I can't paste tabular data into Excel/etc. anymore For the record, I don't hate the idea of stylesheets, but...sheesh

My favorite part about that is how we came back around to display:grid

Until then, display: table kept everyone calm.
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