Amidst all the nerd talk, it’s rare that you actually get a concise explanation of the ultimate purpose of the Web Standards … so I’ve decided to state it here for those who may be interested:

The raison d’être for the Web Standards: to simplify the web design work-flow.

Keep that in mind when you are doing your web design work; if you find you’re getting caught up in details that will not have any practical impact on the project’s success … you must learn to think (and work,) outside of the Web Standards box.

I’m not saying to forget the Standards (heaven forbid,) all I’m suggesting is that you remember that your ultimate goal is to build quality websites as quickly as possible.

Case in point: The use of IE conditional comments.

Instead of using questionable CSS hacks to make your web pages work in both IE and Standards compliant browsers (FireFox etc,) it is better to use a the non-standard IE conditional comments.

Why?

IE conditional comments are forward and backward compatible (in Internet Explorer,) and will not break functionality in the other browsers – thus you can safely use them to isolate CSS code for IE.

Conclusion:

IE conditional comments are NOT part of the Web Standards (that’s for sure!) but they offer a better solution than the hodgepodge of widely touted and soon to be breaking CSS hacks.

Yes, we are thinking and working outside of the Web Standards box … but by golly, it works better!

The web heretic. (a.k.a.: Stefan Mischook)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 at 6:02 pm and is filed under CSS, Professional Web Design, Real World Web Design, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.