Zeldman : 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete

[Chuckie]

This is a exerpt from his new book that is due out early next year.. He bashes a lot of people, and probably bashed indirectly alot of web designers that come to this forum. He has some valid points, and is on the right track, but to offensivly come at you with his idea's on standards. It seems to me that he is trying to jam it down your throat. Without giving you a chance to swallow ..

What is your take on it?

http://www.digital-web.com/features/..._2002-09.shtml

[Wizardx8]

I think anyone who knows of Jeffrey Zeldman and his articles will not be surpsied by this, but unfortunately I do not see him backing up enough of what he writes... Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with him, and am shocked at the amount of badly coded sites out there, but with his articles he does not provide web designers with enough "proof" to put up a decent argument to the clients, and they are who pay the bills in the end...

I also believe there are a HUGE number of "web designers" who do not even have a clue that standards exist, and we really need to be working on promoting their existence. Tell me, when you started web designing did you know about w3c? How bout Opera, or Mozilla? Nope? Me neither... Makes it hard to learn properly when you cannot find the resources to do so, and yes while it is up to the designer to do the research, and figure it out, it is hard to search for something that you do not even know exists.

I am shocked at my previous work before I found SPF, but at least I think now I can safely say I know what I am talking about. Does not get me any extra work though, only from different clients. Mr Automechanic from round the corner does not know about web standards, and while I can show him a page that works perfectly in IE5, why would he have any reason to believe that it is not correct?

The problem is, I have no idea how to go about educating the masses of web syandards, usability and accessability, but in a perfect world, all next gen browsers will simply not render badly coded pages...

So, after all that, and getting slightly off-topic, I will certainly be buying Zeldman's book as I am interested to see if he really does provide some solid backup for his statements, and will just continue to hope more and more designers come across sites like SPF that can point them in the right direction...

[coffeeKid]

not sure if you folks have seen this... pretty interesting
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/07/WebAgency-Requirements

[Chuckie]

That was good reading, very nicely written.

[TheOriginalH]

Originally posted by coffeeKid
not sure if you folks have seen this... pretty interesting
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/07/WebAgency-Requirements

Heh - very similar to the requirements we've had of third-party agencies for a while now.

Good link though, gonna recommend it to people seeking advice (a daily occurence).

[Mark Harbottle]

We are currently several chapters into a book about building standards compliant Websites. i.e. Creating table-less sites using CSS and other cool design tricks!

It's being written by Dan Shafer, you may know of him from builder.com. Dan is very experienced on this topic.

If you are interested in hearing more about this subscribe to this thread or contact editor@sitepoint to help us edit/review the chapters as they're submitted.

Cheers,

Mark

[Wizardx8]

Sounds fantastic Mark, I look forward to seeing some of it.

[dshafer]

Now that Mark has spilled the beans about the book I'm writing, I invite you to submit CSS topics you'd like to see covered, things that confuse you, examples of great CSS usage from which to grab ideas, pointers to off-the-beaten-path sites that dicuss or demonstrate CSS, and anything else you think would help make this book more useful to you.

The primary audience for this book is folks who are beginning to intermediate users of CSS, so some topics are obviously not going to make the cut in this book, but I won't be surprised if I end up doing a second, more advanced title for SitePoint down the road, so all ideas are welcome! (Besides I'm kind of a CSS junkie, so I always enjoy reading those things even if they don't make good book fodder!)

I'll be following this discussion and popping in as time permits.

[Wizardx8]

Dan, I could write a list as long as my arm, but will refrain for now... LOL

Somethings that I wouldm love to see covered are:

• The correct use of the "display" properties, such as "display:table".
• For beginners, the correct use of Classes vs ID's.
• In depth explanation into the current box model problems, including Tantek Celic's hacks.
• Using CSS to create mouse over effects by hiding divs, effectivley ruling out the need of some scripting. I can provide examples if neccessary.

I'll add to this if I can in the future...

[Ian Glass]

I'm hurt Chuckie and coffeeKid! Don't you two pay any attention around here?! >:-(

;-p

Hey, Dan, I've always been frustrated by the lack of stuff out there that tell n00bs preciously why using old-style table hacks and such is bad. Many seem to think, "If it looks good, then why does it matter?" Most stuff just has a cursory look at the topic of compatibility issues of non-standard code or use ridicules examples of long off technology (like an Internet refrigerator). Something more down to earth--why standards are needed now--would be great. A recording of the results of a speech browser might be convincing. :-)

~~Ian

[elemental70]

An excellent book on practical use of CSS is Eric Meyer's Eric Meyer on CSS. I' d had books that showed code and went into theorizing, but practical application + pages taht look good weren't there. This book does it and makes me feel comfortable and confident using more and more CSS.
Take a look atEric Meyer on Css
Cheers
Erik