I’ve gone over the debate, and I will concede that my arguments regarding the use of floats and margins was at best weak, and more probably wrong… I went off on a tangent.

To summarise:

Using floats, margins and padding for page-level layout makes more sense (when you want separation of structure from formatting) than using tables since tables have an implied meaning (and a constrictive structure) while CSS attributes do not. For me, CSSP’s ‘raison d’être ‘ has always been (first and foremost,) the very useful separation of structure from formatting that CSSP provides and tables do not.

Having said that, I stand by my argument that CSS based page-level layouts is weak (largely due to the fact that the majority of the people on the Web use IE6) and as such, it is foolish to be blind of reality in favor of the Web Standards … people need to find balance in their approach to web design.

In a nutshell: you have to pay attention to the reality in the field. That means sometimes a hybrid website, where tables are used to establish the main layout, can sometimes make more sense than trying to hack together a CSSP based page.

I am closing this thread because I don’t want to find myself any further along in a nuanced debate about various academic interpretations of mark up and CSS - but it’s my fault for tacking on the section:

“Pseudo compliance? What does that mean!?”

- -

Rather, I am concerned with the practical implications of the Web Standards movement and its arguments as it relates to building web sites in real life.

My main points are:

1. The Web Standards movement has ignored practical/business considerations.
2. The arguements for zealous use of Web Standards are misleading - I will deal with this in part 2.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

“Well MY code is compliant to the Web Standards, it’s not my fault IE is so buggy, or FireFox isn’t quite there yet, but when it does get there the site will work great�.

That’s a symptom brought on by the zealot driven Web Standards movement - reality is ignored.

My goal with the article (and another to follow,) is to help people SEE what is going on here, and maybe make their lives easier - life is not easy when your client is smacking you over the head with a keyboard (because the site doesn’t work in IE,) while you are crying: “but it validates! It validates!”

“I find it interesting how many people believe you are attacking the standards, not the movement to push those standards down everyone’s throats. ”

Thank-you! Someone gets it!

- -

“when tables are stacked within tables are stacked within tables”

That was just plain stupid, Web Standards or not. If you start stacking anything like that, you will have problems.

- -

I was going to save this for part 2:

> Ideally tables should not be used for page-level layout ONLY because you want to keep formatting out of the HTML. But conditions are not ideal …

> The claims that tables will bloat code, make you go blind (any fool knows that only masturbation does that,) and slows down page downloads is simply untrue - if you don’t do silly things like nest tables 5 deep.

Anyway, more on that later.

Rather than focus on some of the areas that may be true/false or a matter of opinion, all I can say as a Project Manager it is very frustrating to have my team proudly tell me they are writing elegant, clean code that is all done in CSS and breaks the bounds of traditional HTML etc. etc. while adhering to the letter of the Web Standards as a bible.

Then when I do the testing phases, I find out that things don’t behave consistently (or at all sometimes!) in the most common browsers. When I go back to my team, I get “Well MY code is compliant to the Web Standards, it’s not my fault IE is so buggy, or Firefox isn’t quite there yet, but when it does get there the site will work great”.

I agree the movement has over-reached conventional application, and developers should code against supported browsers while keeping their eye on the web standards to ensure they are going in the right direction.

Not an easy task, but the direction of choice for those with a perspective on where things are heading while remaining functional in the here and now.

As far as using tables for layouts, the two arguments that I’d heard against them which meant the most to me (meaning I remembered them ;), was that when tables are stacked within tables are stacked within tables, it can really slow down the load time of a page, and tables are ridgid. If you want to add something to the middle of the row and you have to add a new column for it, you then have to re-code the entire table. Using CSS, things wrap so that adding in the middle of that information doesn’t take any more time than adding it at the end would.

That second instance is where the “not meant for anything but tabular data” argument is going to be most important. Having other sorts of data in a table can be clumsy to update and end up taking unnecessary time. Sometimes you can see where this would happen, but not always.

On a side note, I find it interesting how many people believe you are attacking the standards, not the movement to push those standards down everyone’s throats.

The use of tables is deprecated because it uses HTML markup to format a page. Any such use of HTML markup is deprecated because markup is only meant to be used to determine the STRUCTURE of a document rather than the formatting.

As for floats, margins, and padding, the suggested use depends on how it’s done. Implementing these using HTML attributes is discouraged because attributes are part of the markup. However, if they are implemented using CSS, their usage is just fine because CSS is not considered part of the markup.

• Bradley ( ezinewriter )

You said:

I would really like to see where you found this piece on information… “that was created to serve as a guide for browser manufactures�.

My answer:

I was building websites (and they were not pretty, let me tell you!) when the W3C was founded in 1994, so from my perspective, I thought this was common knowledge … I remember because I was really pissed at how bad the browsers were, and thought to myself: “The W3C, this is a good thing.”

The W3C was put together so that the big boys could agree on a standard … so they could then not follow the rules they helped established … jerks.

Don’t take it from me, from the source:

“Tim Berners-Lee and others created W3C as an industry consortium dedicated to building consensus around Web technologies.”

URL http://www.w3.org/Consortium/

Key words: ‘industry consortium’ - that basically meant Microsoft and Netscape in those days.

It stands to reason that we (as lowly web designers,) have to wait for the ‘roads’ to be built before we can drive on them …

- -

Besides that… do you really think that the web would be where it is today without “the movement�?

I can’t say, maybe, who knows? But, I’ve seen other technologies come together without the need for a ‘movement’.

For example:

JavaScript is well implemented across the browsers. And SQL89 is well implemented as well.

- -

Again, I am not saying the Web Standards movement is all bad, I am saying that it has gone too far with some of its claims etc …

You hit the nail on the head as to the one true advantage on CSSP - separation of content from structure. But at what cost and to what practical advantage?

In the day of CMS and Blogs and other database driven content delivery systems (that typically have just a few ‘templates’ to define the ‘views’,) within the context of these systems, do we really need to be worried about this?

In English:

I believe the web is moving in a direction, where the use of CMS or Blogs will act as the basis to most websites.

Typically a CMS will have just a handful of templates that are used to define the views (pages) of the web site - whether it turns out to be 10 or 10 000 pages.

So in that context, the need to separate the content from structure with client technology (CSS,) is much less important in terms of practical application.

This is due to the fact that we can get the same affect on the server (with PHP for example,) without the worries as to whether a layout will work well with a particular browser … and without the headaches associated with hacks.

- -

You make good points and I can see how, depending on your nerd-centric perspective, you can see it one way or another in terms of floats. But that is really peripheral to my point - the Web Standards movement has put real-world consideration on the back burner.

Last point:

“I have to agree that web standards needs to follow the economics and practicalities of businesses …”

My point exactly - there are cons to implementing the web standards - mainly due to buggy and a weak page-level layout model. Again I refer back to the CSS3 multi-column spec and the need for hackery.

The CSS zealots seem to put practicality and business considerations on the back burner, and I think several of the claims made about the pros. of implementing Web Standards are at best exaggerated and misleading. I am going to address this specifically in part 2.

And finally:

“.. but without coalitions of advocates, how will businesses know the pros and cons of implementing web standards to make an informed business decision? ”

Yes, but if they heard anything at all, it has probably been the sugar-coated zealot position. I wanted to bring a little balance back to the … table. HA!

Remember the article was not titled: “Web Standards are evil and should not be used.”

It was: “How the Web Standards movement has gone too far.”

I enjoyed your comments.

Stefan