Do anti-CSS people have a point?

**vgarcia** · Oct 16, 2003, 11:02

Originally Posted by jofa

And the article's date? ... 16 February 2001 !

2 years after XHTML was published, 4 years after HTML 4.0 was published, and 5 years after CSS1 was published!

**AlexW** · Oct 16, 2003, 21:47

I think this guy is doing his very best to make a buck with his table-based templates (good luck to him), and has had potential clients approach him asking about CSS versions. As this isn't his skillset, he's decided to deliver a crushing attack on CSS layout.

Unfortunately he hasn't done his cause very many favours with the arguments he has run with.

**firegryphon3207** · Oct 16, 2003, 22:01

Originally Posted by AlexW

I think this guy is doing his very best to make a buck with his table-based templates (good luck to him), and has had potential clients approach him asking about CSS versions. As this isn't his skillset, he's decided to deliver a crushing attack on CSS layout.

Unfortunately he hasn't done his cause very many favours with the arguments he has run with.

perhaps it's time for a little expansion. Web design is a constantly expanding medium. You can't stay in one place forever. As a professional, not only do you do a disservice to your clients, but you do a disservice to yourself. Eventually he will have to break down and gain the skillset. IMO the longer you hold off, the more you have to catch up later on.

**mcg_sg** · Oct 17, 2003, 07:42

Even as a gamer, i switched from tables to CSS...

**vgarcia** · Oct 17, 2003, 07:50

http://www.decloak.com/Products/Dre...esOrLayers.aspx

Why is there no contact address for this guy? I'd like to exchange a few ideas with him

.

**samsm** · Oct 17, 2003, 10:38

Eh? http://www.decloak.com/Contact.html

**vgarcia** · Oct 17, 2003, 10:51

Originally Posted by samsm

Eh? http://www.decloak.com/Contact.html

I'll be mailing him tonight with my "rebuttal" to his article

.

**bbolte** · Oct 17, 2003, 10:56

you going to let us read your rebuttal vinnie?

**vgarcia** · Oct 17, 2003, 10:58

Originally Posted by bbolte

you going to let us read your rebuttal vinnie?

Yeah, I'll post it; I just want to give myself enough time to hit on every one of his points.

**jofa** · Oct 17, 2003, 11:09

Off Topic:

The Forum Destroyer Strikes Back

**wwb_99** · Oct 17, 2003, 11:52

Hehe. The guy who wrote this is, uhm, a bit of an anti-css fanatic. See dc1000's flames in this discussion at builder.com. I would not take any of his writings seriously.

As for my take on the whole issue, I use the easy way out. The basic, overarching layout is usually a simple table. Then I use CSS for nearly everything on the inside. Builds alot faster than trying to make all the divs play nicely together, and degrades a bit more gracefully for the NN4 freaks still about.

WWB

**vgarcia** · Oct 17, 2003, 11:58

Originally Posted by wwb_99

Hehe. The guy who wrote this is, uhm, a bit of an anti-css fanatic. See dc1000's flames in this discussion at builder.com. I would not take any of his writings seriously.

Wow. I'm seriously reconsidering everything I've learned in the past 2 years because of his convincing and irrefutable arguments.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I should even waste the keystrokes in sending him a reply to his little rant. I probably still will, but I'm sure it will go in one ear and out the other.

**ComputerBob** · Oct 17, 2003, 13:33

Originally Posted by vgarcia

Wow. I'm seriously reconsidering everything I've learned in the past 2 years because of his convincing and irrefutable arguments.

What's funny to me is that, although I wouldn't have agreed with all of his points, a few months ago, I felt a lot like that anti-CSS guy, as some of you may remember from my "Is CSS Ready For Prime Time?" and other similar threads here in which I expressed frustration back then.

Then I read Zeldman's "Designing With Web Standards" book, which caused me to seriously reconsider everything I had thought about CSS for the past few years.

That motivated me to read tons of online CSS articles, and then to redo my entire site in XHTML/CSS, with help from several people here at critical points in the process. By the time I finished my site redesign, I was a "Web Standards Guy."

Now I happily stroll from village to village, lute in hand, singing the virtues of Web standards to any and all who will listen.

**Zoef** · Oct 17, 2003, 14:30

Originally Posted by wwb_99

Hehe. The guy who wrote this is, uhm, a bit of an anti-css fanatic. See dc1000's flames in this discussion at builder.com. I would not take any of his writings seriously.

That's where I first found out about this 'so called article'.

Vinnie, I wouldn't bother with this chap, also check out
this discussion. He gets so abusive it's not even funny anymore.

But if you do, I want to read every message and reply.

Rik

**firegryphon3207** · Oct 17, 2003, 15:20

Originally Posted by Zoef

That's where I first found out about this 'so called article'.

Vinnie, I wouldn't bother with this chap, also check out
this discussion. He gets so abusive it's not even funny anymore.

my goodness, he all but said CSS has the cooties.

Originally Posted by Zoef

But if you do, I want to read every message and reply.

Rik

Best to just post them, so all us gossip hounds can read.

**mind21_98** · Oct 17, 2003, 18:56

My favorite:

absolute positioning
x, y, z is good if you have static content but when you grab text from a database for example, you can throw that absolute positioning out the window.

My beef with CSS is that they created a brand new syntax for us to learn, complete with pseudo thingamagingers. Those non-standard MS additions like filters and transitions don't help the learning curve either.

From: ntcse@hotmail.com Date: 08/12/03

**AlexW** · Oct 17, 2003, 22:28

Vinnie, I'm guessing this guy has already received one or two helpful CSS emails.

He probably has a theory linking the rise of CSS to a secretive group of Jewish bankers, who control global money markets and will run the world until the aliens have had time to hybridize with us and take their position as rulers of the global new world order. Or something like that...

He won't listen to you because he knows you are one of 'them'.

**bbolte** · Oct 17, 2003, 22:33

**firegryphon3207** · Oct 17, 2003, 22:57

Originally Posted by AlexW

He won't listen to you because he knows you are one of 'them'.

Well, the answers might be entertaining if nothing else.

**John Colby** · Oct 17, 2003, 23:56

Originally Posted by AlexW

He probably has a theory linking the rise of CSS to a secretive group of Jewish bankers, who control global money markets and will run the world until the aliens have had time to hybridize with us and take their position as rulers of the global new world order. Or something like that...

ARRGGGHHHHHH! They've found us out!

**vgarcia** · Oct 18, 2003, 06:12

Originally Posted by AlexW

He probably has a theory linking the rise of CSS to a secretive group of Jewish bankers, who control global money markets and will run the world until the aliens have had time to hybridize with us and take their position as rulers of the global new world order. Or something like that...

He won't listen to you because he knows you are one of 'them'.

Damn, I've been found out! Time to take that other pill...

**DiDoKa** · Oct 19, 2003, 05:37

Hello everyone,

I have been following this discussion for a while, just never bothered to register, well i can't be a quiet reader any longer.

I read the article, and laughed out loud, it is clearly written by a person, who as no knowledge and no experience with css. He sure tried, and failed and that hurts his ego, but instead of trying a bit harder and using some brain cells he publishes crap that's just not true, but you know what? It is not our problem! He clearly isn't informed about certain laws and regulations, (our big agency in town isn't either, or why doesn't the state website they resently built follow the state technology laws that are pretty darn close to section 508?).

This kind of behavior is nothing new. I personally have heard anything from "css is ugly" to "css is not working" to "it's just a big hype" and i don't really understand where the anti-css people get that information from. To me the use of css does not only simplify my life, no it makes sense and i consider it "healthy practice". The Internet has been abused as some kind of "picture book" for a long time, pixel perfect design, that pleases the client was and still is considered professional and the fact, that the internet is supposed to be an information medium has been overseen, instead of focusing on the information part (meaning, make the information accessable to everyone, not just high speed users with all the plugins), the "professional" webdesigner focuses on the visual part and that is wrong.

I recall reading the statement "Until the WYSIWYG editors can produce pages that dont rely on html markup for the layout and style properties you will never see a conversion to standards" Ooh i believe that, considering the fact, that many "web butchers" out there, don't even know html, why learn it, if my editor does it for me and i get paid for pressing buttons? Now i am asking myself, what are these people doing as webdesigners, why are the doing a job, they can't keep up with, why are they trying to "bad talk" newer methods that make sense? They are simply not able to take any kind of responsibility that comes along with css, because they don't know how to use css, if they knew, they wouldn't say such things on top of that, changing your everyday habits is a difficult thing to do for most human beings.

Writing this guy and giving him your "two cents" will not work. I tried to educate many of my fellow webdesigner, but they won't listen, they always find some kind of lame excuse (i love the "far in the future" one, no it's not far in the future, statistics show that the use of mobile devices will increase tremendously in 2004 and as we all know, mobile devices can interprete "bad html")

Save your strength for more important issues, tell the people, who want to listen, not those, that will just disappear from the market, because they wouldn't listen. I am sure you all are doing a wonderful job using css, keep up the good work and prosper in the near future, tell your clients about the benefits (which outweigh the disadvantages big time) and create a healthy internet environment that is accessable to all users, it will pay of.

Reading Zeldmans "designing with webstandards" sure is an eye opener. I read it after converting my site to xhtml strict (which got me a listing on builtforthefuture.com in no time), i vaguely knew that it is important that i learn that stuff, but after reading Zeldmans book, i knew for sure, it is an issue that should be on top of every webworkers priorty list. I can't help those, who still don't get it.

**firegryphon3207** · Oct 19, 2003, 08:30

Originally Posted by DiDoKa

Save your strength for more important issues,

aaah, but how many "quiet readers" like yourself don't know if CSS is the real deal? More often than not, as this particular topic comes up every other week here, this usually starts because someone who doesn't know CSS wants to know if it is worth the effort to bother with or they have become frustrated.

**Hierophant** · Oct 19, 2003, 08:36

I say we go back to HTML 2.0 and proprietary tags and forget about which secondary browsers people can use.

Standards compliance makes people too soft and they forget how to really work to make a website. Bring back the "Best in Internet Explorer" buttons and move on.

**firegryphon3207** · Oct 19, 2003, 08:38

Originally Posted by W. Luke

I say we go back to HTML 2.0 and proprietary tags and forget about which secondary browsers people can use.

Standards compliance makes people too soft and they forget how to really work to make a website. Bring back the "Best in Internet Explorer" buttons and move on.

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