I’ll be honest, I’ve NEVER understood the need or desire to use those – EVER. They are part of the “I don’t get the point” bits of the newer specs… Now if you were talking :first-child, :last-child or :nth-child then sure, I’d love to use those… but I don’t NEED to use those.
Which I think is the problem I have with a lot of the new stuff – it doesn’t do ANYTHING I need done, it’s not any more EFFICIENT than how I’m currently working, it often seems needlessly complex – and in many cases it’s a step BACKWARDS to 1997 – So what’s the point?
I liken + and > to the C language difference between “j–” and “–j”; If your code is so complex the difference between them matters, you’ve probably over-thought the solution to your problem.
Which if you comment why you use them and stick to the well known ones, it’s no more or less clear what’s going on…
… and no more or less effort. Generally less effort because frankly, the IE CSS hacks are better documented and better behaved cross browser than most of the stuff you “can’t use” from CSS 2.1/newer if you care about legacy support!
It’s like when you end up with a gecko rendering bug, pain in the ass to hack around since it’s bug fixes are less well documented, more complex, and even MENTIONING that something is a bug either gets you shot down with “it’s a feature” or every FLOSS fanboy on the planet ripping you a new hold for DARING to say there’s anything wrong with it.
GOD FORBID you point out a bug on Bugzilla… and God forbid they actually FIX a bug on Bugzilla while at it… At least with IE the problems are documented with fixes/workarounds.
Right 915? Bugzilla 9:15 says open source just kicked it’s own ass.
At my current job I’m stuck with IE 7 for awhile. I’m slowly converting anything that needs to be printed to PDF (HTML printouts will not do - the browser’s inclusion of URL information in header and footer cannot be tolerated in this application) so we can leave IE 7 behind. The problem is that the site uses an Active X application called “ScriptX” which will not run in IE 8 or 9 unless they are forced into 7 compat mode
IE 7 doesn’t have anywhere near the inertia that IE 6 garnered, so dropping it won’t be as difficult - but it still depends on the client.
I thought it would make an interesting question for discussion too which is why I raised it.
No. 2.1 is not a draft, it was made the standard many years ago. Even some parts of CSS 3 are now part of the standard. CSS 3 has been broken up into modules and those are being made standard as they are finished. The situation is entirely different from HTML where HTML 4 is still the latest standard and everything after it is draft.
No browser supports CSS 2.0. There were a number of things in that standard that no browser has ever supported - it was mostly to remove those parts from the standard that CSS 2.1 was created. Some of them are being added back in CSS 3.
There are many things that you can do using the current standard CSS that will work in all current browsers except IE6 and IE7. I am not sure if IE8 supports all of the parts of CSS 3 that are a part of the standard but it at least supports all of CSS 2.1 (at least as well as alll the other browsers do - each has a few very minor issues).
Well, just look at the sites of people who disagree – where they are often so full of adverts you either can’t find the content, or end up with a giant blank page of nothing on browsers like Opera where the adblock is built in or after a adblock in FF is applied… From there you typically find 10k of markup, couple hundred plus k of javascript for nothing all to deliver what? 1 or 2k of plaintext and no actual content images? Here’s a tip, if their markup to content ratio is 10:1 on a page that doesn’t even have a form on it, they probably don’t know how to write HTML properly.
… and what’s that scripting really doing? Usually something stupid like a scroll-sticky menu that’s broken on large font/120dpi systems, stupid animated garbage that just makes the interface more annoying to use, and of course not just the “more advertisements than ANYONE is EVER going to click on” but also three or four separate tracking packages all to do what analog or webalizer can do without the extra crap server-side.
Then you dig into their code you see enough validation errors that it’s not even HTML, it’s gibberish – nothing even resembling semantic markup apart from slapping P and UL/LI/DD/DT around the WRONG elements with nonsensical heading orders (if headings are used at all)… this of course is followed up with inline style on elements that are the same across multiple pages, and overall enough presentation still in the markup you end up asking what the devil the 5-6k of CSS is even there FOR.
… and that’s typical of the websites of the people who say they are dropping legacy browsers… and yet these are usually the same people who make claims about how CSS resets are pointless even though their pages don’t even work right in Webkit or Presto or should you not be using the magic combination of the right resolution and same font metric they happen to be using.
Bonus points as to what site I based that assessment on. Right Felgall?
Pay particular attention to: W3C Working Draft 07 December 2010
It WAS moved up to candidate for all of 6 months, but it’s been dropped back to draft just recently. It is NOT a recommendation, it’s a DRAFT. 2.0 is the most recent CSS flavor to have reached W3C recommendation!
So a ten year old browser even being CLOSE to being able to use ANY of it is actually quite impressive… and if people would slow down and not be in such a rush for ‘features’ that add ZERO REAL FUNCTIONALITY apart from some pointless bling-bling, the web would be a much nicer place for users AND developers.
Recommendation, draft, who cares? The W3C has become irrelevant. If it works in the big four browser engines great. If not, oh well. But the W3C has had no positive influence on progress and these days their ability to hinder progress is rapidly diminishing, especially with the break of What3G.
I honestly cannot remember a standards body or community more useless than the W3C other than the UN.
Funny, I thought their following the WhatWG is part of what’s hindering progress; or more specifically undoing a decade worth of it – least so far as that train wreck of IDIOCY known as HTML 5 goes.
Never worked on the hill in Military acquisitions I take it?
I do believe you’ve laid a curse on North America…
A curse that we now here rehearse in Philadelphia…
A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere;
or a cataclysmic earthquake I’d accept with some despair;
But, no! you sent us Congress!!!
Good God, sir, was that fair? – 1776
It’s the typical results of “design by committee” – sometimes it really is more efficient to kick democracy square between the legs and get a benevolent dictator in there… at least then you can have progress for a few years.
The CSS Working Group encourages authors and implementors to reference CSS 2.1 (or its successor) instead of this document and when features common to CSS2 and CSS 2.1 are defined differently to follow the definitions in CSS 2.1.
That’s what she said ; )
The way I see it, they know CSS2 to be so flawed, but instead of bringing it back from the dead (making it a draft, after being a bad recommendation!) they chose to turn CSS 2.1 a draft again, to address the issues of CSS2, until CSS3 matures. Simple. CSS2 bad. CSS 2.1 good.
Errors in the CSS2 specification have subsequently been corrected via the publication of various errata, but there has not yet been an opportunity for the specification to be changed based on experience gained.
While many of these issues will be addressed by the upcoming CSS3 specifications, the current state of affairs hinders the implementation and interoperability of CSS2. The CSS 2.1 specification attempts to address this situation
That makes CSS 2.1 to be the most reliable spec to date. Since 2004.
But since CSS 2.1 is a subset of CSS 2.0 all of the CSS 2.1 draft is still a part of the latest recommended standard. All CSS 2.1 did was to remove some parts of the CSS 2.0 standard so their dropping it back to draft means that they are reconsidering whether those parts of CSS 2.0 should be driopped.
IE 6 and 7 support less of CSS 2.0 than they do of CSS 2.1 and there is no popular browser that supports all of CSS 2.0. All the popular browsers except for IE6 and IE7 do support all of CSS 2.1 though.
So whether CSS 2.1 is or isn’t an official standard makes no difference. It is a defacto standard in that it is the baseline CSS that all modern web browsers support. When IE9 is released then the latest defacto standard for HTML will be XHTML 1.0 while at the moment it is still HTML 4.01 because there is no version of IE that has gone live that actually supports XHTML 1.0 - it is what all the latest browser versions support that defines what is the latest standard and not whether that standard is labelled as recommendation, candidate, or draft. In fact since all of the latest browser versions do support CSS 2.1 it is rather silly that it isn’t upgraded to being labelled as an actual standard since that is what it effectively is (even recommendation is too low a status for it to have once all the latest browsers already support it).
The latest actual standard CSS that IE7 fully supports is CSS 1.0.
Therefore once you make the decision to drop support for IE6 you end up with IE7 being the only browser that prevents you from using the full features of CSS 2.1 (irrespective of hiow official that is as a standard) since all the other commonly used browsers do support all of it.
CSS 2.0 is really irrelevant as it is unlikely that any browser will ever fully support that standard and certainly no current browser does.
Anyway all the discussion about which versions are and are not standards is really irrelevant. The latest release versions of all browsers support CSS 2.1 and as many sites are dropping support for IE6 that leaves IE7 as the only popular browser that doesn’t support CSS 2.1 and so for those who want to use the full power of CSS 2.1 (and as much more of CSS 2.0 and CSS 3.0 as all browsers already support) being able to abandon IE7 is the next step along the way after dropping IE6. There are a number of different criteria that people will be considering using in determining when the appropriate time is to drop IE7 support which will depend in part on how many visitors are still using IE7 and in part on the amount of simplification of the CSS that will be able to be done by removing the convolutions that were needed to get the pages to look the same in IE7 as in modern browsers. So what criteria would you use to make the decision to drop IE7 support?
I think this thread is getting a bit off topic and heated. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and can boast what they know about standards and specs, etc.
I don’t really care if I know the in’s and out’s of this CSS version, standard or whatever. There are some educated folks on here who like to boast about every detail outlined in the W3C spec. (Here come the flame wars. haha) Hey kudos to you. You know more about it then most folks and I’m impressed with your knowledge.
Point is in 16 years of coding I use techniques that work cross browser without much hindrance coding for inferior IE browsers. Do I know every technique, selector, blah blah blah? No. And I don’t care to.
I use what works from experience. Therefore I still support IE6 and IE7.
It’s a bit odd, what you’re saying there, AtSea webdesign. This is a tech forum, and details about specs are what counts in an argument. A properly sustained argument. I know for a fact, that tables for layout works, from experience. ; )
I’m sorry you don’t know every bit of this and that, but I don’t know either. But I choose to discuss about them, so I would know better. If you have a problem with other showing their knowledge, feel free to not participate. I am learning from this thread.
But don’t try to shut down a tech talk just because it goes over your head. Thank you. You wouldn’t know “what works” if others wouldn’t take the time to “boast what they know about standards and specs”.
And I’m sure you realise you’re the one heating up the wrong way this thread with your latest post. You make it look like people knowing detailed stuff is somehow a wrong thing, and that having an empirical approach towards web dev is better than a documented one.
If people know and use selector like + and >, that’s not a direct offence towards you. : ) But you do offend a tech forum by saying you don’t care. Please let others that care be.
This thread was started asking should IE7 be supported or not. It turned into a war of words of who knows what about what.
yes I do learn everyday, especially from people like Paul and Ralph as well as Stephen and I appreciate the advice people have to offer here. There are quite a few knowledgeable people on this forum and that’s why I choose to participate.
What I don’t like is you accusing me of something I never did. I simply posted facts based on my experiences. I bad mouthed no one but you make me out as the bad guy. Tsk, tsk. Perhaps you should learn something about customer relations before you start pointing the finger and making accusations at someone A. you don’t know and B. don’t understand my coding techniques.
I was simply offering my opinion based on the thread topic. If I offended anyone I apologize. I do care. That’s why I’m here.
I think it’s great the pros have the knowledge they do and are willing to share it with the rest of us.
Done properly tables for layout only works if you ignore IE6 and IE7 since those two browsers don’t support the layout table part of the CSS 2.1 standard and so you can’t define your layout tables in CSS and have it work in those browsers.
Being able to use layout tables where appropriate is one reason why people might decide to drop support for IE7 .
(and yes I do know you meant HTML layout tables and not CSS layout tables in your comment).
Ok guys lets get back on track and not make this personal.
We all have different opinions so argue your cases as strongly as you like but we don’t have to agree on anything - that’s the beauty of a discussion. If you present your case well then you have a chance of winning people over to your way of thinking. Present it badly and you may lose even if you may be right
