Given the recent IE7 development, where many commonly used CSS hacks will now break many websites in the future (forward compatibility myth destroyed …) because (ironically) IE7 will be Web Standards compliant.
Many CSS books will have to be pulled from the shelves given a liberal use of hackery in many titles including:
* Eric Meyer on CSS
* More Eric Meyer on CSS
* The Zen of CSS design
* 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets
* Web Standards Solutions
* Designing with Web Standards
All these books (and several more,) make use of hacks and as such are outdated.
BTW: many of the titles are well written and have some good information in them (I’ve read them all and given several of them positive reviews … overall,) but nonetheless, the aforementioned flaws make these titles land mines for the unsuspecting web designer.
False prophets be gone.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/10/18/to-hack-with-it/
@JT,
Thanks for the link.
I think that general position of ‘wait and see’ is the way to go for websites that are up already- you can also add that IE7 won’t have much penetration for (probably) another couple of years.
That being said, once a product hits beta 2 (like IE7,) the major behaviour is typically in place - as such, I would advise people to not use hacks for new websites and fall back to IE conditional comments if your design needs it.
Eric is also right in that you’ll never know what will happen until it does.
I would add that this is especially so in the ultra-volatile world of the Internet and web design. This is one of the reasons I think forward compatibility is at best a shaky propositions … but I will concede that it sounds nice!
My hope would be for everything will work just fine for everyone, without the need for revisions … but I doubt that will be the case.
Oh yea,
I bet Macromedia is happy to hear this news … when the old browser issues rear their ugly heads, Flash look kinda nice again!
This is also interesting …
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/10/17/ie7-and-ie7/
Dean Edwards cooments that Microsoft are using his IE7 script on the BETA site at http://beta.asp.net
Dean’s script: http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
Dear Mr. Answer Man
What are books? people keep talking about books and typewriters and other things that have nothing to do with real life…
signed,
Confused (next thing they will say is that MTV did not exist 20 years ago and bands used names from animals like Beetles and Monkeys…)
*snicker*
The IE7 script is cool and a great tool for development but it’s not something for production websites since it requires JavaScript to be working.
The main reason for turning off Javascript is security
Those worried about security would either be running the latest version of IE ..or not use IE at all
Then there the different types of user agents that do not support JavaScript either & browsers are only one form of user agent… and the companies that do not give the employees a choice and turn the JS off for security reasons as you say.
Kyle, The sript is only required for IE to bring it up to standard, other browsers and agents will not be required to implement the script
I am yet to see a company that has javascript disabled, and if the company is concerned about security and disables javascript, they would also upgrade to IE7 once released, which again will not require the script (hopefully)
JT,
Yes, but from last I heard, the stats show about 10% of the surfers out don’t have JavaScript.
And why do they disable javascript?
Mostly for fear that their computers might get attacked by some script … I know, it makes no sense but a lot of people are worried about JavaScript.
The fact the browser makers gave them the option to shut it off doesn’t help …
I remember when they came out with that ability, I knew it was going to be trouble.
As they security is the fear, they will upgrade there browser to IE7 (once released) or already be using a broswer with a better security record than IE
What Im try to say is once IE7 is release the number of user using IE6 with Javascript disabled would be small, if at all
@JT,
Maybe, but that is a big assumption …
Whatever the case maybe, we still have a couple of years before IE 7 becomes widely used.
JT,you seem to be assuming that IE7 can replace IE6. It can not.
IE7’s securityimprovements are soley based on it’s connection to Vista. Companies and private persons are hardley going to run out and By Vista just to have IE7.
IE7 has yet to be annouced as a full version for XP. All talk is at this time of Beta versions. Once can assume thatif tested on XP then it will be available for XP… but that is not yet fact. The Beta is only available for XP. So at best XP and Vista users will have IE7, but everyone else will be using IE6 for years to come.
IE6 was the last version you can just download and install.
Midat - the school I went to for web design had JavaScript turned off, the teacher had to request our group be allowed to have so we could learn it. The securtiy company aswell as the international railway company I worked for all had JS turned off as well. So that is three i worked at personally.
All the CSS I know I’ve learned from sites such as sitepoint. Why on earth would anybody pay to own a book nowadays?