Trip is in denial? CSS vs HTML

uoba said:
The question is, who are you designing for? Your client? Or your client's clients? It's the latter which should take priority (unless it's an intranet sort of site!) And, statistics show, that most browsers are IE6, IE5+ and whatever else thereafter. Therefore, designing with XHTML and CSS fall sweetly under these majority browsers.
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First, isn't it the one's who pay me who take priority?

Second, my sites look great in most browsers. What is the incentive here? I should switch from what works with 99.9% of systems in use on the internet today to something that only works with 97% (and excludes those who are paying me).

The logic in that please?

If I was a kid living at home with my parents and going to school for this stuff, then CSS looks great. Show me a site that uses both CSS and runs great in Communicator 4.7 that didn't require twice as much time to develop as a site made in plane HTML, and I'll give this another look.

I have bills to pay. Alienating people doesn't pay bills!

There are no worse business practices then not getting paid!

People transition at their own pace. It doesn't hurt me or any one else to be inclusive in my designs. It does hurt me and other people to discriminate.

I'm not personally asking of you (as if I could do anything about it anyway!) to stop all development until you learn the standards.
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When did HTML stop being a standard?

Also, your argument of client needs and money talks doesn't hold with me, one day a potential client is gonna ask...
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I'm a mathematician by training, not a designer. One day a client asked me if I could make a web site. Then someone who saw that site asked me to make theirs. Each time asking for more functionality or something I never did before. I get paid for that! I learn on the fly better then most people, and money is the only incentive for me doing web design at all!

You may do it for the art of it, or to forge a new standard, I do it to get paid so one day I won't have to do it anymore. All I care about is what the client asks for. All I do is provide solutions to peoples problems (I'm a computer consultant, not a web designer). The best solutions for their needs is what I provide (there is a lot of research involved). From what you guys have put forth here, CSS isn't a better solution than the standard HTML I currently use.

It has potential. Maybe someday soon. Today, for my clients needs (the only thing that matters), no.
 
RacerX said:
First, isn't it the one's who pay me who take priority?
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And wouldn't the client ask the same question of themselves?


Second, my sites look great in most browsers. What is the incentive here? I should switch from what works with 99.9% of systems in use on the internet today to something that only works with 97% (and excludes those who are paying me).
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Unfortunately, I cannot vouch for your sites validity. Do your sites work in Lynx, in PDAs, in Mobile phones? Public access terminals? Readers for the blind? There is the importance of the oncoming standardisations. However, I feel you are missing the point. CSS and XHTML is NOT exclusive. It will work on all modern browsers, including v4.

If I was a kid living at home with my parents and going to school for this stuff, then CSS looks great. Show me a site that uses both CSS and runs great in Communicator 4.7 that didn't require twice as much time to develop as a site made in plane HTML, and I'll give this another look.
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I wish I could, but I don't surf as much as should (or is that a good thing?) As for requiring twice as much time, again, nothing can be more tedious than dealing with nested tables, browser detection javascripts, proprietary code etc. Especially when having to go back and update sites. Separating the content from the structure cuts time drastically. Teething trouble undoubtedly kicks in initially, but like I've said, the benefits are starting to kick in after all the pain of relearning.

As for the kid analogy, hey great... these are the ones who gonna take your paychecks when no one really does use v4 browsers anymore!


When did HTML stop being a standard?
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Unfortunately, as the claim goes, most designers do not make good programmers. Being a mathematician, I can only assume your code is probably better than mine and most designers. This is where the problem has lay. Designers/bad practice in coding leading to HTML being misused (such as layout with tables which where ever only meant for tabled data).


I'm a mathematician by training, not a designer. One day a client asked me if I could make a web site. Then someone who saw that site asked me to make theirs. Each time asking for more functionality or something I never did before. I get paid for that! I learn on the fly better then most people, and money is the only incentive for me doing web design at all!
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Same here, protecting the future seems a safe bet as well. Web development has changed since 1997, since 2000 etc. If we didn't keep up to date, we'd truly be out of business (that's the royal we ;) )... As with your good self, I came from a different background (well, typography, but it wasn't web development!)... and like you, my clients asked for different things. It led us to where we are now. I guess our clients are asking different things of each of us.

You may do it for the art of it, or to forge a new standard, I do it to get paid so one day I won't have to do it anymore. All I care about is what the client asks for. All I do is provide solutions to peoples problems (I'm a computer consultant, not a web designer). The best solutions for their needs is what I provide (there is a lot of research involved). From what you guys have put forth here, CSS isn't a better solution than the standard HTML I currently use.
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Horses for courses. ;)

I have no problem with how you want to do things... I just like to discuss such things. If you don't wanna learn, it doesn't matter. There'll be 1000's of other developers (even fairly decent sized web companies) who know nothing about the changes with XHTML and CSS also. This thing'll take a longer time than the W3C hope.

Although I found the "inclusive" intentions appealing of CSS/XHTML etc... it was the workflow of the whole plan that appealed most. And I am not shy to announce that it HAS drastically cut my production time down. There'll still be problems with what I do, I'm not the greatest coder, but the simplicity of how my code fits together works great for me.
 
Yeah, the thing about xhtml and css is that it is all compatible with the html standards that came out 10 years ago, so in browsers that don't understand a @import directive or the link element, you can write your pages well so they appear just fine in any browser that isn't able to (or chooses not to) load style sheets.
If you go to one of the above sites on your pda what would you get? Exactly what omniweb 3.0 gets, relatively unstyled content, logically structured, and quite usable. But (now I don't have a pda, so this is all speculation) go to a site hard coded in tables and go to it on your pda and you will get some insane horizontal scroll because your pda with a resolution of 400x400 pixels will try to render a site that is coded at 800 pixels wide. Not to mention that it takes a huge code base to create a web browser to interpret loosely coded nested table style sites (IE 5.2.2 mac is almost 25mb!), and how could a pda possibly have enough room to keep such a bloated codebase on it's flash memory stick?
 
mr. K said:
Yeah, the thing about xhtml and css is that it is all compatible with the html standards that came out 10 years ago, so in browsers that don't understand a @import directive or the link element, you can write your pages well so they appear just fine in any browser that isn't able to (or chooses not to) load style sheets.
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But that isn't a problem for me right now.

For me, for my client's needs, CSS sure seems like a fix to a non-problem. The problem is that it isn't even an even trade off with HTML at this point. I lose more than I gain by leaving HTML.

The sad thing here is that in all the justifications for CSS I'm seeing a lot of denial of the trade offs. Denial of how severe the trade offs are at this time. Denial of the internet population that it over looks. Denial of the increase in work needed to reach the same people that HTML can.

It would be nice to see you guys deal with these issues directly and honestly. I assume that HTML isn't the best fit for every solution (it can't be). But you guys are working so hard to talk up CSS that you avoid or dismiss any of CSS's short comings to make your point.

I got an idea, why don't you guys drop the CSS at all costs chant and start outlining where it realistically works and doesn't work. I have no problems adding tools to my abilities, but I'm not about to join the Cult of CSS.

Please tell me this isn't the only way you can work. You do have alternatives... right? You don't go to a client and say "I only do CSS!" You do let them define what they need and then find the solution that fits their needs and not your religious beliefs... right?

If you go to one of the above sites on your pda what would you get? Exactly what omniweb 3.0 gets, relatively unstyled content, logically structured, and quite usable. But (now I don't have a pda, so this is all speculation) go to a site hard coded in tables and go to it on your pda and you will get some insane horizontal scroll because your pda with a resolution of 400x400 pixels will try to render a site that is coded at 800 pixels wide. Not to mention that it takes a huge code base to create a web browser to interpret loosely coded nested table style sites (IE 5.2.2 mac is almost 25mb!), and how could a pda possibly have enough room to keep such a bloated codebase on it's flash memory stick?
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First, why should I care about PDAs when they make up fewer internet users then people who are still using Communicator 4.7/4.8? That is exactly the type of uneven trade off I'm talking about. I don't know anyone who browses with a PDA. I know a lot of people (paying clients) that still use Communicator 4.7. If I knew a couple people that used PDAs for browsing I might take that into account. When I know as many people using PDAs as I know are using Communicator 4.7/4.8, I'll really sit up and take notice.

Funny that you would tout the compatibility of PDAs (a very small group) then IE/Netscape 4.x users (a larger group now then the PDA users).

Also the size of IE isn't to deal with tables. OmniWeb 3.0 is 9.1 MB and deals with tables just fine. Maybe broswers are getting bigger to deal with CSS, XML, XHTML and HTML. And I imagine that browsers spend most of their energy rendering images, not formatting tables.

One other thing that is sad to see in all this. I've been noticing that many of these CSS sites look the same. They all have the same feel. It reminds me of when Flash first came out and every site that used Flash looked like the Macromedia Flash demos. Most of the people I replaced for my clients had one or two templates that they used for everyone. Every site looked the same with different content. I sure hope this isn't something that you guys are doing with CSS (or that CSS is forcing you guys to do). The single hardest part of web design for me takes place before the coding of the site. It is coming up with a site that is unique and special and reflects the clients and not me.

Are there CSS sites that don't have the Flash-style design problem?
 
Then am afraid you haven't looked hard enough. Do Flash sites all look the same now? No! You have to expect a period of emulation and finding-your-feet when an industry embarks on something new. This is indicative through design history (over-used Photoshop filters anyone? Gradient tinted text in Quark anyone? All early 90s phenomena.)

CSS was thought of way back in around 97. Nobody listened. M$ and Netscape where hell bent on ignoring it for their own proprietary code.

You seem to believe that there is HTML, then there is XHTML and CSS! You could quite easily incorporate CSS into your very own HTML without any trade-offs. The level of which you did this is upto how far you want to go with it. Whether it be simply not using the <font> tag (which is now depreciated) and styling your type with CSS. Every browser, at its most basic, and I mean every browser... supports this small wonder.

It is hard to create sites that could have been developed with overly complex nested tables, there's no point denying it. That's why XHTML 1 Transitional exists. You can have tables, and all that HTML based structural code quite happily passing as valid XHTML.
 
Geez, give it a rest already. RacerX seems to be a special case among the web designers here. I can see both sides of the issue: CSS in all its incarnations (level 1, level 2, even level 3) is the wave of the future and permits for easy (yes, it's actually quite easy to do layout with CSS if you don't use tables and all the old HTML formatting tricks) design creation.

However, the bottom line for creating a site is for whom you are creating it. If you are creating it for yourself, great, you don't even have to upload it to enjoy it. If you are creating for "most of the people out there" or companies that embrace looking to the future, then fine, design for that 97%. But if, like RacerX, you're designing for someone who for some strange reason uses an antiquated browser, then you have to do whatever works.

After all, it's whatever works.

That being said, I do have a suggestion for RacerX (and this is only a suggestion, of course): Try designing a site that adheres 100% to XHTML/CSS guidelines. Then test it in your old, outdated browsers and see what you have to fix. This should give you a good idea of what you can and can't do with CSS and it should help you design sites for your customers that both work and adhere to some form of current standards.

Sure, HTML 4 is a standard... but it is facing serious deprecation in favor of XHTML and CSS, and while you may have to use only HTML for your clients, some day you will have to use only XHTML with CSS styling. That's the future.
 
Racer X: While CSS is incompatible with other browsers, this doesn't mean at all that your content will look like shit in Communicator 4.7. CSS is a standard, just like HTML, compatible with HTML and non-exclusive: it gives you more possibilities and flexibility than plain old HTML 4. It does not necessarily exclude any browser, no matter how old, you can still ues tables and javascript if you so please and the clients require it. What is the single greatest advatage of CSS is the separation of style from content. You can provide different styles to different platforms and browsers: you add potentiality, you do not exclude anyone.
When you are designing beyond the curve you exclude people, but nobody said you have to. With XHTML and CSS you can do exactly the same as in HTML 4 and more. That's the whole point of the W3C standards: backwards compatibility. Even if you go ahead of the curve, you can simply hide too advanced elements for older browsers, without reducing the functionality of your site.

To see what is the power of CSS, try taking a look at CSSZenGarden or at CSS Edge. I do not have the older browsers you mention and I am very curious what you think about them. Also I am very curious about sites you designed.
 
RacerX,

You're still cheating :p Zeldman and ALA were NN4 compatible a year ago. Then they looked at their browser stats, and off they went to CSS.

Look at Happy Cog (Zeldman's) Studios. Their planning form (the document they use to target the customers' demand) has a line saying "Do you need compatibility with older browsers". If checked, they build NN4 fully compatible webistes. Evidence: http://www.happycog.com/ . Try it in NN4, there you are.

You invoke customers as a reason to stick to old programming, I invoke the same argument. You talk of money in the process. Losing a tiny portion of your customer base is losing money, but programming with CSS and XHTML is gaining time and bandwidth, which are money too.

Now, all you are left to do is to have a plain simple cost/benefit substraction. It worked out positive for me, for Zeldman, for many others, it didn't for you. This I can understand that, obviously -- but I'm sure you can also figure why and when switching to CSS is all benefits and almost no hassle.
 
Well, the CSS sites that you posted Cat, didn't work in OmniWeb 3.0 (see images) but I'll go through and read them when I get a chance. Thanks.

Toast, finally a site that I could show to my clients and expect to get paid (see image). My main question is how much extra work would that type of design require verses straight HTML or straight XHTML/CSS?
 

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One of the things that I'm most disappointed about right now is how the support for css is very poor. The newer browsers support it brilliantly - Mozilla, Safari, opera is fairly good, even IE6 is catching up. But then average users out there still have their copies of IE 5.5, or even IE v4. For a list of browser statistics head on over to http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp, they have a good list going. Less then 2% of the browsers out there are NN\IE v4, and almost 95% are flavors of IE. And none of these browsers fully support css2, the most current standard. Now I know css isn't a serve all, and there are other options to designing a site, but is table based design really better then css? What other alternatives are there (please don't say flash)? XUL will become an option maybe ten years from now, and I'm sure other languages will get cooked up, but for awhile now all we have is xml based sgml. Now maybe the pda example is a little bit far off, but when all of the small communities of users are bunched together (I'm talking about pda's, phones, screen-readers, and people using legacy browsers) I think that css does a better job to serve the masses. Surely there are downsides to using css, and there are tradeoffs to css as much as any other web based media (mais pas beacuop plus...) but for so much of the web right now css serves the right people in the right places and it isn't a hard thing to learn to do.
 
*Claps*

Well said Mr. K. Those were my thoughts exactly as I was coming home from school today. Right on the dot.
 
Yes,

If you can't beat them...join them! :D

I mean, just look at me. Erm, nothing to show right now, but I'm working on something. :)
 
I can't wait -- we can start a new thread for critiquing his new work, and I bet it will be just as effective as this one.
 
Question for you all...

Do you have any first hand experience of screen readers (and similar technologies) and if so how well have your sites done with them?

It would be interesting to know how old style HTML sites (as racerX is talking about) do compared with newer xhmtl/css sites. I read plenty telling me that xhtml/css is much more accessible and it looks like it sure should be but I've never actually had first hand experience of it.

Just to be clear, I now work pretty much exclusively in XHTML/CSS and would rather quit than go back to old days of spaghetti code (or perhaps that was just my code!).
 
I bet you guys never thought you'd convert me to the ways of XHTML and CSS, well guess what?!

http://www.tannersite.com/

XHTML VALIDATED!

That's right! I finally got around to not only creating a simple portfolio for schools/firms I also got around to working with XHTML/CSS! And I owe it all to you guys! Thanks so much! It works so much faster than before, and it's a lot cleaner and it even works on all of my household computers!

Special thanks to:

Darkshadow - For showing me the ropes, and helping me get XHTML down!
 
Trip, I think you may have become too carried away with getting your code to validate. Sure it might validate now but to be honest that isn't good code on the link you provide.

I don't mean to have a go at you so please don't take this the wrong way.

Your code may technically validate but it doesn't really follow the spirit of what XHTML/CSS is about. You've used inline styles, too many classes, no actual selectable text, empty paragraph tags. None of which are particularly great ideas.

That said, the actual page does look quite nice ;)
 
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