“Take CSS layout for example, my pet peeve. As a designer, there is not a single justification for this new holy creed, promulgated by a Czarist government of designers, by programmers, for programmers.“

So true. Let this CSS bullshit away and let’s create something which can be created visually. Programmers mock it of course (they want to keep their business). But those CSS are an incredible regression. Do you code your page when you use a word processing software like Word, or something like Indesign ? You would laugh at this idea. We are in 2008, not 1985 anymore. And even in 1985, there wasn’t something as past-due as a word-processing software which would have obliged to code yourself your layout.

Programmers say that people who say that are people who aren’t smart enough to code. And they add that coding is easy, or not so difficult. But if coding is so complicated that a software isn’t able to automate the programming of a page, a software written by the finest programmers, how could I (or the average people) be able to do it properly ?

And where those stupidities have lead us ? To the bloggisation of the web. Creating a site with an average cool design is so much complicated with CSS, that people have stopped to create website. They just use blog softwares.

People could use the old fashioned tables. But tables are also quite complicated, because they have flaws and you must know little tricks like the 1×1 pixel gif, and other stupid things like that to make them work. And beginners can’t have any answer about those issues. Because there are only CSS aficionados on the forums. So, each time you ask a question, they don’t answer you and tell you to learn CSS, that it is not so hard, etc… It is hard for non programmers people.

So for millions of people, bye bye web design. Hello blogs.

Those that set standards should be intrested in the development of the web as a whole for everyone not private intrest groups or business.

The only way to do that is inviting browsers vendors to the board and agree on standards, which is exactly what happens.

Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t have standards is a fool.

….or a complete newbie I would say.

Here is a little excerpt from page 114

Avoid using tables for visual design, however. People using screen reader and Braille displays gain nothing from such use except confusion. They expect tables to organize information, and when they are instead used to fix page size, it is confusing.

There is not a single argument in favor of CSS layout that cannot readily be shot full of holes.

Do you fancy to write attributes straight into the tags? Well it sucks. You can’t obviously code a page even in HTML, you surely use Dreamweaver or similar. Unluckily(?), a web page is not a photoshop image with some clickable hotspots. You don’t understand the need for CSS coz you are not a webdesigner but a graphic artist doing more than you should do.

Accordingly, everything about the display of common features (What?) and text. Flash is one step ahead, it has a strict platform, unified display of features (text, drawings, video, coding). Identic display throughout browsers is the key to have the possibility of building something very cool!

After this revolution, I don’t want to have to build a website for every version of every existing browser. I want one version of my website to work exactly the same on all browsers! I want HTML to be strict as C. No guessing.

When people started to talk, they were talking differently I know. It’s time for the HTML and CSS workers to unify their language, no?

The net effect is that table designers can no longer get a job, unless they conform to the nazi dictatorship of the W3C “recommendations.”

Table designers are not HTML authors. They were taught 100% WYSIWYG because that is what the 90s demanded. HTML authors write HTML documents based around information and the presentation of that information.

I am a pragmatist who uses the HTML standards to enable a team to work on a project and to not be reliant on 3rd party software to ensure some level of sanity. If part of a project means straying from the “letter of the W3C law” then I do it becuase it is about communication and commerce. The browser industry’s migration toward standards support means that less and less I have to worry, “Will this work in browser X?” and more I can design and develop sites that allow users to see the information in the way it is intended without bloat, without lazy-making tools like WYSYWYG tools that allow untrained monkeys to “build” websites.

Web design is all about compromise and while I think that sometimes the Standardistas go too far I don’t think that it is any different than Grammarians who aim for people to speak and write to a minimum standard. Agreement in some form of minimum standard will allow better communication and allow for better education in real web design instead of many design training courses that spend the bulk of efforts teaching application usage over actual web design and development.

Cheers,

Jay Gilmore

There must always be a base set of rules for everything. That’s the way an organized society of any size works. You can’t have 3 different definitions of one element. Imagine if FF, IE, and Opera each had different definitions of what a was? It would throw the entire web community into chaos.

Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t have standards is a fool.

Although I agree that browser vendors should NOT be limited by a committee with regards to coming up with new technology, browser vendors SHOULD comply to a basic set of rules.

In fact, they should legally be forced to do so.

However, outside of the basic rules, they should be allowed to introduce whatever it is they want, and then the standards groups can then review each innovation, and see which one should be turned into a “standard”.

Take XForms–that’s an excellent standard, but is requiring a plugin with partial support and/or a server-side application to create an Ajax site really beneficial? Why not create your own framework to do the same (e.g. Rails, et. al.)? In the end, you end up with the same code.

In this light, Andy’s desire to kick out the browser maker’s is completely backwards. Perhaps what’s needed is to reduce the standard to what’s currently available and enable the browser makers to go back to innovating and driving the future standards by working together. The W3C could then be the community mediator to help competitors standardize emerging technologies to help the designers and developers build one app across all platforms.

Then again, I’ve begun wondering why standards are such a big deal. After all, desktop developers have to port apps for different systems, and web developers can detect browsers with Javascript, so why not build browser detection into your development framework and build to each browser’s specs? Then you can enhance the user experience accordingly. (I’d prefer all browsers work alike, but as a browser maker, what’s the incentive to innovate in that environment?)

It’s the designers and developers!

The extreme vast majority of designers and developers all seem to forget one simple, yet highly important to the point of being crucial, fact: The web is NOT there for designers and developers. It is NOT up to us to define the web. It is there for the users and they define it by their needs. We are only conduits by which they receive their information. Less even, we are only the makers of those conduits.

So many people on the web, so called experts, point at other experts and say, “No, it’s them who is wrong! How can I be wrong? I’m right! Right people can’t be wrong!” when in the end, to me, it seems no one is even getting it right so everyone must be wrong. At the end of the day Web Standards won’t save or destroy the web. Push it in a direction maybe but it’s not so highly important or restrictive that it will kill the web. We just need to make sure that it’s not every half a decade that it gets redone. Annually or even bi-annually would be much better, not years.

Yes browser vendors aren’t helping, they’re definitely hurting. Opera just as much as Microsoft as far as I’m concerned. Microsoft because they ignore the rest of the community and just do what they think will make them more money. Opera is on the flip side and with their almost nazi adherence to web standards are stopping designers and developers from experimenting outside the realm of those standards. At the end of the day, both hurt their users.

No system will be perfect and no system can predict the future. It’s not possible, not now and probably not ever. The best we can hope to do is create a system that is flexible enough to be able to adapt when the future hits us with something we didn’t think would happen. The W3C isn’t ideal, but it could be if it was fixed by those who know, those from all sides of the argument. Those who say the W3C isn’t working and should just be gotten rid of should shut up and start talking about what would need to be done to get it fixed. Recognise that not everything will be or can be fixed but try to get it to a place where everyone can accept it. Those on the side that say the W3C is perfect and not to touch it, shut up you’re also wrong nothing is perfect. Start listening to those who think it’s not and figure out what can be done.

And if nothing else remember, it’s not about you it’s about the users. If it’s harder for you but easier for the user, that’s right. If it’s easier for you and easier for the user, that’s right. If it’s harder for the user, doesn’t matter if it’s easy or hard for you, it’s wrong. Very wrong.