Internet Explorer 7 breaks commonly used CSS hacks!
It looks as though IE7 will be breaking many commonly used CSS hacks and thus many Web Standards based pages – this adding credibility to my articles critical of the overly zealous Web Standards movement.
Direct from the IE7 blog:
“We’re starting to see the first round of sites and pages breaking due to the CSS fixes we have made. We would like to ask your help in cleaning up existing CSS hacks in your pages for IE7. It is has been our policy since IE6 that under quirks doctype we will not make any behavioral changes so that existing pages will continue to render unmodified, but under the strict doctype we want to change behavior to be as compliant as possible with the web standards. For IE7, we introduced new CSS functionality (see Chris’ blog post for the full list) and cleaned up our parser bugs. This leads now to several CSS hacks failing. If you are using IE7 (you are MSDN subscriber or received a copy at the PDC) you may notice major sites breaking due to the use of CSS hacks and the strict doctype. ”
In a nutshell: the forward compatibility argument is now proving to be flawed (as I’ve been stating for a long while) and now many of these Web Standards based websites will have to be updated to work in IE7! So much for forward compatibility…
What is the ‘forward-compatibility’ argument?
One of the mantras of the Web Standards movement is the idea that if you build your websites to standards, your sites will work for years and years without the need to change or update your websites – forward compatible.
Sounds good, except for the fact that for many Web Standards based layouts to work, people have had to to use hacks that rely on flaws in Internet Explorer.
NOTE: Since IE is the dominate browser with 70-80% market share, you have to make IE your priority.
The major flaw with the hacks is that they rely on things that are broken … a bad idea since in time they could likely get fixed.
I’ve questioned the use of hacks more than once, and have been attacked for it. The point is, now that we know IE7 will break many of the hacks, this confirms my position.
The irony:
The irony is that people who use table-based (quirks mode,) design, will not need to make any changes to their websites for them to work in IE7 and all the major browsers.
- -
As I stated several times: when you ignore reality ‘in the field’, you’ll likely get burned.
The IE Blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/10/12/480242.aspx
Stefan Mischook
“Do only what makes sense, and not one thing more.”
October 17th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
You should post a HUGE “I Told You So” at the top of this page to all of the bozos who are still hanging on to the “Web Standards Only” thinking. Kudos to you for expressing your feelings and sticking to your guns!
October 17th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
“the forward compatibility argument is now proving to be flawed”
Hacks are not part of WC3 Standards – they are a necessary evil
While IE conditional comments are a better option they are still hacks for an inadequate browser
From your article it appears you are suggesting -
1. Determine the browser with highest market share
2. Design and code for the browser with the highest market share
3. Return to point one often and update all sites developed
IE has not always had a majority of the market, and there are no guarantees for the future
Designing with W3C standards does provide forward compatibility and is not flawed, a true standards zealot would not use hacks and let IE users suffer
October 17th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
“Hacks are not part of WC3 Standards – they are a necessary evil”
I’m not saying hacks are part of the standards … please. I am saying that in the over zealous pursuit of trying to satisfying the standards, hacks are commonly used – that practice is silly and counter productive.
“IE has not always had a majority of the market, and there are no guarantees for the future”
IE has been the overwhelming leader for what, 8-10 years? And guess what, most people don’t care what browser they use, and unless some miracle should occur, I can’t see IE disappearing.
Like Windows, chances are IE will be dominate for many years to come.
JT said:
“Designing with W3C standards does provide forward compatibility”
AND
“a true standards zealot would not use hacks and let IE users suffer”
Now I understand your position:
forget about the majority of the Web surfers (”let IE users suffer”) and build to standards. Then (one day) when they upgrade their browsers, they will have the ‘right’ to view your website properly.
Yea, that makes lots of sense… (sarcasm)
In the real world, most people would like their websites to work today. I expect IE6 to be a major browser for at least another 3 years.
My main argument comes down to this:
October 17th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
“hacks are commonly used – that practice is silly and counter productive.”
Taken from your site styles.. apparently its Mozilla that needs fixing?
#headerimg> #topMenuDiv {margin-left:30px; margin-top:164px;}/*Mozilla Fix*/
October 17th, 2005 at 7:52 pm
No, IE has the problem relative to the W3C standards.
Again, my point is that of moderation. You will notice that I only use 1 CSS hack and I would consider it very minor because it shifts pixel positions a touch in my layout. If the hack should fail, my layout would still work with just a minor shift in positioning.
October 17th, 2005 at 10:12 pm
Great post Stefan.
I think though you are confusing web standards with CSS implementation.
Even a HTML4, table-based (quirks mode) website should be built to the W3C standards and pass validation. If they employ CSS or not. It makes the code cleaner, manageble and robust.
IE6’s support of the CSS standard and has been patchy to say the least and I look forward to IE7, but IE6 is going to around for a long time to come (some have dubbed it the new NN4.7) so the code changes, whilst slight, will need to happen they can be done gradually.
I don’t think the forward-compatibility argument is flawed, rather I tend to see it making even more sense. It just depends how much of who’s kool-aid you’ve digested before looking at the “big picture”.
October 17th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Hey Dave!
Good to hear from you!
My critique is of the Web Standards movement, not the standards themselves. That being said, my point is that the WSM is over zealous where it does not make practical sense to be 100% standards compliant because the majority of users are not using a 100% standards compliant browser – IE6.
“It just depends how much of who’s kool-aid you’ve digested before looking at the “big pictureâ€?. ”
Now your getting into theoretical parsings … let’s keep our feet on the ground!
The forward-compatibility argument is flawed because for it to work, you have to sacrifice the reality of today: many websites need to use hacks to make websites ‘forward compatible’.
The problem is the hacks themselves prevent the sites from being forward compatible – e.g.: the IE7 problem. It’s a catch-22.
I agree that if the IE6 problem didn’t exist, then sure. But that’s not the reality today.
Just read the blog post – people are pissed off because they “wasted countless hours” getting IE6 to work and now it breaks in IE7 – clearly the forward compatibility theory has failed no matter how you try to spin it.
The hacks are methods accepted by the community (for a few years now) and again they have clearly failed this first test of the theory of forward-compatibility – you can’t have your cake and eat it …
Good to hear from you.
Stefan
October 18th, 2005 at 8:11 am
“The hacks are methods accepted by the community (for a few years now) and again they have clearly failed this first test of the theory of forward-compatibility”
Hacks are not figured into the idea of forward compatibility. So to use that as an argument for forward-comp failing your argument is flawed.
Most designers understand that when coding a site to work with microsoft they are probably going to have to do some recoding with microsoft updates.
Finally, if the person writing the code is writing clean well-formed code the number of hacks will go down greatly. I have just finished the layout for a site that is pixel perfect across browsers and does not use a single hack, thus the site is forward compatible. The better I get with css the fewer hacks I need.
October 18th, 2005 at 8:29 am
@Larry,
You are one of the few who can avoid the use of hacks, great job!
Let me try to summarize this:
1. Hacks are required for many CSS layouts, due to bugs in (mostly) IE6.
2. The Web Standards zealots promoted, wrote articles about and created a culture of ‘hackery’ – hacks were and are an accepted part of the process within the community.
3. The ‘process’ had a clear goal: build forward compatible websites.
4. With IE7, we see that the process failed the first time out ‘at bat’ – the websites were NOT forward compatible with a Web Standards compliant browser!
You can spin it all you want, but you can’t hide from this fact.
October 18th, 2005 at 8:32 am
@Bob C,
Thanks for the kind words.
October 18th, 2005 at 9:56 am
With forward compatibility, are they aiming at trying to get code to work more efficiently over server browser platforms?
I do admit I must look into this forward compatibility issue..
October 18th, 2005 at 9:58 am
Pardon me….
Previous post server was ment to be several. Thats what I get for thinking two completely diffrerent thoughts at the same time.
October 18th, 2005 at 10:41 am
In a nutshell:
The W3C has a specification (for markup (HTML) and CSS) that the browser makers are supposed to follow – the Web Standards.
In theory, when building your web sites, if you stick to the W3C specification, your web sites will work (without the need for updates) in all browsers since the browser makers will be following the specification as well.
Since the Web Standards are an official standard, it is assumed that browser makers will continue to support the standards into the future – thus forward compatibility.
The problem is that today, the most popular browser (IE6) fails at supporting the official standard, so if you build your websites to follow the spec perfectly, your web sites will ‘break’ in IE6.
To compensate for this, the bunch of nerds that I collectively refer to as the ‘Web Standards zealots’, have come up with a bunch of workarounds called ‘hacks’ to take make Web Standards based websites work with IE6. One of their main goals is to build the affable forward compatible website.
The problem is that the use of hacks has prevented this from working – the hacked-up websites ‘break’ in Web Standards compliant IE7.
So thus far, in the real-world, where you recognize that IE is the dominate browser (by far,) the forward compatible argument has turned out to be a myth – a nice theoretical construct put forth by the Web Standards zealots in an attempt to get people to follow the spec when building their websites.
Note:
Web Standards based design works just about perfectly except when it comes to page-level layout. And it boils down to the classic tables vs. CSSP debate.
October 18th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Hi Stephen,
a well put case. The shame is that whilst there is a lot of arguing on this and previous articles we all probably agree on one thing. Web standards are a fantastic concept but hugely flawed in *ALL* browsers. I have spent many days of otherwise productive time attempting to separate the content and the styling using CSS and the like, costing many pounds of my and my dev team’s time. In the end, our customers generally want one thing. A site that looks the same in all of the major browsers at a realistic price. CSS vs tables? They could not care less.
Richard
October 18th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
“the bunch of nerds that I collectively refer to as the ‘Web Standards zealots’, have come up with a bunch of workarounds called ‘hacks’ to take make Web Standards based websites work with IE6″
It appears you have some issues, you appear to be jumping at any chance to attack the web standards movement… an unresolved confrontation maybe?
Collectively labeling ‘web standards zealots’ as promoting the use of hacks is down right wrong, sure many hacks there been documented, I have never come across statements saying ‘use hacks for forward compatibility’ or ‘hack or die’
Many of the developers who have spent many hours documenting various browser bugs, have given this information away for free, some may suggest filters to avoid these bugs, but many also show ways to avoid problems without resorting to hacks, just by knowing what where and how these bugs are occuring
You yourself use and promote web standards. YOU are a part of the movement you criticise, saying this movement as a whole promotes the use of hacks is completely wrong
Many of these so called nerds have worked with Microsoft to help make IE7 a better product in terms of standards
Instead of throwing mud you should try and educate and help the forward progress
October 19th, 2005 at 12:08 am
@JT:
When someone ’suggest’ hacks, gives them names and publishes them in books or on very popular websites, it is no big leap to assume there is an implied suggestion of use.
-
I think Web Standard zealots (WSZ,) are very well meaning and good people. I appreciate certain aspects of what they are doing – I have benefited to some extent.
That being said, my arguments are no less valid – the ‘movement’ has gone too far and has missed the ‘big picture’:
1. Web Standards were created to make life easier for web designers – to save money and time. When the Web Standards makes the opposite happen (by putting theory in front of reality), you have to think twice about things …
2. Web Standards are for browser makers to implement first, and then web designers should follow – you can’t drive a car until they build the road.
I think things have gone overboard due to the lack of experience (of many WSZ’s,) in system design, project management and software development: any experienced project manager or programmer knows the evil of thinking some technical speck is akin to the 10 commandments.
This type of over zealous evangelism is simply old news to me … I’ve seen it a few times before in things like Java and even martial arts!
In the martial arts world, traditional martial artist would practice their techniques in the isolation of their schools (like validating WSZ’s,) thinking their techniques made them unbeatable. Then something called mix-martial arts came out, and they ALL learned quickly how their theories fell apart quickly in the ring and in real life.
-
I’ve been warning about this on the Killersites forum and newsletter for a long time. I was practically the only voice on the web to bring these issues to light (AFAIK). Probably because I’ve been attacked repeatedly by WSZ’s … but I have held my ground, and now, the IE7 debacle proves my point beyond a reasonable doubt.
I am not trying to attack anyone, all I’m saying is to pay attention to what’s going on ‘in the field’. Don’t be married to a technology or standard.
October 19th, 2005 at 1:10 am
“Don’t be married to a technology or standard.”
Dont be married to a browser
October 19th, 2005 at 1:27 am
The use of conditional comments is not new either for filtering css styles to IE
CSS Archive Febuary 2002 (Archive starts in January)
http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/1942
October 19th, 2005 at 9:08 am
“Dont be married to a browser”
I’m not married to a browser in particular, I’m married to the browser that everyone uses – this time around it happens to be IE.
To make an analogy:
it’s pretty clear that the international language of business is English. As such, just about everybody in the world who wants to do business knows English.
Why:
This is because for the last 100 years or so, the financial powerhouses of the world have been English speaking nations – first Britain and now the USA. This reality ‘in the field’, forces people to learn and speak English.
Heck, I was in meetings with tech companies from China last January at the Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas, and they all took English names like: Bob and Mary. Why did they change their given names? Because they knew their clients would be English speaking and respected it enough to adapt accordingly.
Why shouldn’t web designers do the same thing … it’s only good business. And yes, most of us are in the web design business – we do this to make cash. Otherwise I would be running around like Paris Hilton acting the fool too!
October 19th, 2005 at 9:16 am
@JT,
Using IE conditional comments may be a way to go. But I haven’t considered it or used it myself.
An example for people to see:
<!–[if IE 5]>
@import "foo5.css";
< ![endif]–>
Another option:
You could always use PHP or some other server side language to filter for browser types and then write in CSS code accordingly. There may be a problem since certain versions of Opera would identify themselves as being IE …
That being said, if the IE conditional comments work without fail (not affected if JScript is on or off,) then this would be the better solution because it would probably be a touch less work.
Thanks for bringing that to our attention JT.
Stef
October 19th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Hi Stef,
To hack or not to hack. Hey, a seesaw needs two people. Your always going to have the folks who will want to bend or twist the standards to get what they need or want. Sure, sometimes it’s needed. All this hoopla for IE7. Big deal. Web standards is never going to stand still for any of us. In five years or so we will again have our opinions of all the changes that will continue to happen. This stuff sells books, creates blogs of interest and keeps folks like me and you wanting to learn as much as we can. Where will we all be if we get to the point where we know it all and have nothing to learn or keep our interest? That scares the hell out of me.
So I will continue to learn from you and all the new books that come out and when my site is finally up, or a blog, hopefully my code validates.
Thanks for all the wisdom you have shared. I have learned many things from your site and newsletter. Thanks! So let’s have a toast to nothing standing still and we get to play catch up! Never happen.
October 19th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Hi all,
To hack or not to hack…
I agree that using standards is the way to go, but within reason as previously stated. This point comes back to good, solid design. Sites built to be bleeding edge always have problems, are often hacked up and typically work great in one or two non-compliant browsers or only work with the most compliant browsers (check out Solar Dreams http://www.solardreamstudios.com/)
Having standards that both browser builders and site designers use is a great concept, except someone forgot to send the message to M$. Being the current dominant browser is no claim to fame. Had NN been on their toes they would have hung on to the AOL contract and they now would be the dominant browser, imagine that if you will. Just so we are clear; IE rose to the top because of AOL and not the other way around.
Another point of standards enabling cross platform compatibility is not only for PC like browsers but it is supposed to aid in moving forward with mobile device compatibility, so that my site renders well no matter the device, screen size, connection speed and so on. So in theory standards a re a good thing.
I just wish IE know how to handle them. But since it can’t we try real hard to avoid any hacking of CSS. This makes it vary difficult at times to create attractive and creative presentations, but we do what we can.
My last point is on the car and street analogy; so are you saying that the browser is the street and that the “cloud” is the car? I find I must disagree. It has not been called the “Information Highway” for nothing. Thus rendering the browser as a means to an end for getting from point A to point B. My IE is a junker, but my FF is a Cadi!
So one last question; how the heck are we to bridge the gap between 6 and 7? We have to do certain things to make certain things work in 6 and some of those things, as pointed out, fail in 7, what are we to do to? Browser detection may be the next big mini boom and it may become a standard part of design while M$ grasps around in the dark trying to find its way to standards.
FYI – Thanx for the great Newsletters, lessons, article and such. I have been a fan for a couple of years. I found you while researching CSS and compatibility. I have learned much and profited from the shared knowledge and applied experiences, Thanx Stefan.
October 20th, 2005 at 11:49 am
There are some things that you are overlooking here.
“Web Standards Zealots,” as you call them, would stick to just the spec, if they could.
The hacks are temporary work arounds. AND YOU ONLY CHANGE THEM IN YOUR ONE CSS FILE if they are broken. It’s not like the use of tables as layout tools. That’s a hack (tables are for tabular data, not layout), and it will force you to change EVERY page if someone supports tables differently or something breaks. I think that, if you are forced to use hacks, it would be better to use them in one file used for presentation rather than on every page in your content.
So it’s the browser, not the standards or the Web Standards Zealots, that’s broken. And the hacks are the “attention to reality” that you speak so highly of. Using hacks, or using tables, to get your presentation right comes from the same school of thought.
October 20th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
“(using tables) … and it will force you to change EVERY page if someone supports tables differently or something breaks.”
True but for one thing: the hacks (many times,) rely on something that is ‘broken’, and thus likely to change. Whereas tables have been a stable aspect of HTML for many years now – they work as they should in all browsers.
My point: hacks are more likely to ‘break’ whereas tables are not. My proof – IE7. In IE7 the hacks break but not the tables – ironic isn’t it!
“So it’s the browser, not the standards or the Web Standards Zealots, that’s broken.”
Yes, the browsers are broken, no doubt… But they ARE the platform and have to be respected first and foremost.
“hacks are the “attention to realityâ€? ” : yes and no.
It would better to say that the hacks are an attempt at paying attention to reality – a failed attempt (IE7,) that I have been warning people about for a while.
The question is:
How to get your Web Standards based sites to work in IE6 and IE7 at the same time?
1. Don’t use the strict doctype – again something I warned against for a while.
2. Use IE conditional code to load the IE style sheet.
3. Use a server-side script like PHP or ASP etc … to ’sniff’ for the browser and load the right style sheet.
Solution 3 is probably the best overall if you care about validating your code and all the stuff.
I will be testing these options soon and write an article with my findings.
Thanks for debate Michael.
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:49 pm
[...] VIDEO TUTORIALS « Internet Explorer 7 breaks commonly used CSS hacks! – [...]
October 25th, 2005 at 2:54 am
*heavy sigh* When I found this site a year ago [just after learning html table layout] I decided it was early enuff in the game to learn CSS and do up our little farm site “the right way” before I invested too much of my limited cognitive functioning on learning the “old fashioned wrong way of tables”. As I’ve become physically and cognitively disabled from disease, I thought the least I could do was learn some of this stuff and get us online like the rest of the world. I’ve been a huge fan of this site and your books because you speak in a straight-forward language that even I can wrap my 2 functioning brain cells around… eventually. Now, what is the path of least resistance? Take our site down? Send a snot-o-gram to Bill?
How does it happen that the most popular “car maker” is building vehicles to run on cable-car-wires when all the highways are wire-free pavement?
This is just too much for my poor little pea brain to handle
~lost in a fibro-fog~
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:05 am
[...] UPDATE:Forward compatibility myth proven false. [...]
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:04 am
I think the way to go is to use IE conditional comments to load the IE style sheet.
Since all other browsers will think the comments are just normal HTML comments, using this IE specific code will not have a negative impact.
November 9th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
[...] CSS hacks are a recipe for disaster that I’ve been predicting for a while, a disaster that seems to be happening: it looks as though IE7 will be breaking CSS hacks and thus, the Web Standards myth of forward compatibility. [...]
December 11th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
I’ve been developing in CSS for a while now and I am happy that I resisted the temptation to use any hacks. I’ve used not a single one.
However, just for layout purposes I’ve been forced to tweak a lot of pieces to be able to deal with the issues relating to IE.
It will be interesting to see how IE7 deals with my 100% clean CSS….
To all the “zealot” comments: fanaticism is never a good idea.
December 23rd, 2005 at 6:10 pm
Why not making the website w3c complaint and provide link to e.g. http://browsehappy.com/
)
If more and more websites would do it, I bet IE would became the most standard complaint browser.
That would finally end this mess…
(currently you either making website for IE or for alternative browsers)
January 14th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Just to add my 2 cents:
Forward Compatability should be exactly that. If you use a hack to get around an IE6 flaw, then make the hack only affect IE6… not IE in general, and definately not browsers which haven’t even been finalised, released and bug-tested.
Create a standards based site wherever possible. Use the “Strict” DocType if you think your code is 100% compliant (and MS have repeatedly said IE7 should respect that). Add hacks for various browsers if necessary, but make them specific to the faulty version.
This is a lesson I learned with Netscape long ago. Remember NN4.04 vs NN 4.06 anyone?
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:48 am
First off – Stefan Mischook : thanks for supplying a great way to discuss this as i am pleased to see / hear / read other peoples thoughts / views on this topic.
Right ill stop gushing and ill get on with my point.
I think that pretty soon that things are going to change in the browser wars, as more and more companies are supplying mogzilla as a browser of choice over IE.
Don’t forget that GBrowser is starting to be seen popping up in stats (admitadly still in developement) and that is also using the mogzilla engine… now i know both are reporting that this is tosh – but that is to give them a market edge.
Hopefully within 5 years there will be mac’s and GPC’s and microsoft will have found out that life isnt so rosie and the only people using ie6/7 are developers / designers thinking about the old days.
Now where is my spectrum 64k Emulator!
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Bah, IE7 has just shown up in my high priority updates… :s
July 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Quoted: JT
“a true standards zealot would not use hacks and let IE users suffer”
Can’t agree more.
I was W3C standard zealot and I leave the IE users to burn to hell for using the least compliant and least reliable browser on the planet today (IE7 is not much improvement).
“Was” because I have to use IE hacks now for the company I am working because their majority customers are using IE6 and IE7.
But regardless, I agree that the sites created with the W3C standards are forward-compatible and IE hacks makes this concept useless.
Really, thanks to IE, the whole idea of W3C goes to waste. Depending on where you are and your target audience, you must always check your site against IE6 and IE7. If your site visitors are non-IE users, then good for you!
^_^
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Stefan, great articles! To be clear though, I’m a CSSP user, I think you are too, to a point.
What all of these articles seem to bring to my attention (so far I’ve found three where you are harping on the WSZ’s) is that:
a) You regard IE6 highly (or not highly, but as a 100% necessity)
b) Tables are much easier for you to do than CSSP, and somehow you are able to keep tables clean.
c) You agree with us all that the standards are a great idea, but the zealots are a problem
and finally,
d) IE7 proves the myth of forward compatibility to be false.
I can’t help but get frustrated a bit, for a few reasons. I agree with you entirely on a). IE6 must look just as good as the rest of your browsers you check for. What client says yes to a wishy washy html guru that says “My layout will only look good in browsers that appreciate the proper theory behind my cleanliness and hardcore standards.” They don’t give two seconds thought to turning him down. So yes, you do need to code to be sure IE6 is going to look good.
Tables have always been difficult for me. The organization of the code is a nightmare for me most of the time, where code is much easier and more natural for me using CSSP. Markup that is ridiculously slim is something that CSSP provides me. But you claim to be able to do very clean tabled designs.
My kudos, making a tabled design look as elegant as a CSSP (properly planned and implemented mind you) is something of a bear for me to tackle, and so I avoid it. Then naturally the flexibility of that table is generally horrible. I think someone in a previous blog post had a wonderful point, sticking something in the middle of a table is never an easy task after its been designed. Throwing a new P tag between other P tags is simple. Even throwing a new div in is simple, and the key here is, how slim can you get your code, because CSS lets us abuse any element as a wrapper. Nest up DIVs like they’re tables and you’ll be in the same boat, sinking fast. I just feel that CSSP tends to lend itself (if you devote some time to it) to cleaner, more easily maintainable sites (regardless of whether tables get it right or not all the time, if the layout changes, its very difficult to get going again. Atleast for me, you probably have a fantastic mix going on).
I’m with you on the zealots. I swear to god, Molly frustrates me to no end, she’s become brash, cocky, and fierce, but bless her stupid little head, she’s gotten more done with IE and M$ than I’ve ever seen anyone else do. If I were to ever hear her evangelize however, I don’t think I could sit through the entire session, and I LOVE being a CSS guru. I think the whole forward compatibility does have merit, and the cleanly code as well as the content separation. I think all three of those things have merit, but file size? I’m with you on this, thats ridiculous. Rendering speed, bah, if you do CSS wrong, you’ll get a flash of the ugliest thing on the planet (FOUC) because of rendering CSS incorrectly. Or god forbid you select all your content to reset it with a * attribute ( EX: html * { Background: margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } ). There are ways to do CSS badly, really badly in fact, just as you can nest tables to all hell and back and really screw yourself. So yeah, you bring some valid, straw-grasping points to light, and I hear ya, and shake my head whole-heartedly yes with you. But here’s where I disagree with you:
The forward compatibility bit. I think your wrong about this bit. It’s unfortunate that what you read lead you to believe that hacks were -pushed- and -encouraged-. I read, most likely, the same books and websites from the CSS Gawds (sarcasm), and was still able to walk away and say “I see the benefits of using tabless layouts, I know its going to be hard, but I refuse to use hacks, from the very beginning.” Understanding what is going on with the browser and why the author created the hack is half the battle, the other is to use a different tool from your plethora of CSSP techniques. I have yet to run into, after 5 years of continuous study, an issue I HAD TO tackle with hacks. Your right, these type of people are few and far between, but its possible. I don’t like however how you dismiss us so easily. “Congratulations, your one of the few,” is silly to do. Look at what we’re doing! It’s working in all the browsers and we’re all happy, I think you should pay a bit more attention to people who can do this.
Web standards offer a way to be forward compatible, provided (and here’s the kicker) you don’t hack your way through them because they are too hard in the beginning and take too long. Spend a bit of time without them, working around them, and you’ll find yourself with sexy clean code, a single stylesheet, and no crazy selectors that will screw you in the end.
Myself as well as my CSS Burner team refuse to use hacks, conditional comments, or filters. If the client requires them 100%, after much discussion, we scream the same warnings you do, it’s gonna break in the near future, and they lose their money back guarantee.
Your right, but not right about web standards not being forward compatible, what your right about is that web standards -hacks- are not forward compatible. And so the kool-aid I’m passing around is this: you can do it without the hacks. Reach into your toolbox, get creative, open your eyes to all of the containers you can tap into in a properly planned page, and burn past the hacks. It IS possible, you just have to want it more than the WSZ’s want to shove a hack down your throat.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I also may be beating a dead horse, so forgive me if I am, but your still coming up #1 on google under some search words I hit daily
March 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I really hate to burst your bubble, but IE hacks are still possible and will be possible according to a developer at Microsoft, he says as the world is changing and thous less fortunate to upgrade there browser that the still are offering the same standards just new ones to the old ones.
March 24th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Oh, did you know that IE is no longer the leader as the statics will show you for the past too months…
2008 IE7 IE6 IE5 Fx Moz S O
February 22.0% 30.7% 1.7% 36.5% 1.1% 2.0% 1.4%
January 21.2% 32.0% 1.5% 36.4% 1.3% 1.9% 1.4%
March 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Hi,
Why use fragile hacks when all you need do is use IE conditional comments.
Stefan
March 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hi,
“… that IE is no longer the leader as the statics will show ..”
I don’t know about that:
22.0% + 30.7% > 36%
… as far as I know.
Stefan