The Truth about CSS and Forward Compatibility.
December 28th, 2008I’ve been critical of web design zealots for years now and have gotten into some pretty heated battles over what I would consider to be overly zealous interpretation and adherence to the all not-so-mighty Web Standards.
I don’t want to argue the issue again, but in a nutshell: I always felt it unwise to ignore the practical realities of the browsers actually being used in favor of the Web Standards. I argued that the Web Standards, though noble in thought, were not reflective of the reality on the ground. As such, I advised web designers (years ago) to pay much more attention to browsers that people used, rather than to the Web Standards and the W3C validator.
Heresy!!
“… When people start surfing the Web with the W3C validator, I’ll start testing my sites with it. In the meantime, I will test with IE and Firefox since that’s what people use!”
The forward compatibility myth and the Web Standards
One of the big arguments put forth by the Web Standards zealots was that if you follow the Web Standards, your pages would be “forward compatible” … your web pages would more likely render properly in web browsers that have yet to be created.
Well, recent evidence is showing me that these academic shills were wrong once again.
The PS3 web browser prefers tables!
Being a hardcore nerd, I went out and bought the best blu-ray player on the market: the PS3. One of the reasons I got the PS3, is that it is equipped with a web browser. Yes, I like to surf the Web on my big tv.
Anyway, what I’ve discovered is that the PS3 browser screws up only on ‘forward compatible’ Web Standard compliant web sites. Whereas with old school table based layouts – never a problem.
It seems to me that the fine people at Sony (like so many others) realized that there are hundreds of millions of pages that are built with old school techniques and that they better support them. One thing academic nerds can never understand: pragmatic business decision making. Instead, they are defenders of the faith and thus, are very dogmatic in their decision making.
… Reminds when IE7 came out and it broke all these ‘forward compatible’ websites because they were using CSS hacks rather than safe and sure (non standard) IE Conditional comments. Man, many CSS books had to be corrected and reprinted!
Conclusion
I think this post is best summed up by what one my assistants (and formally Web Standards zealot) said when he started actually having to produce web pages in the real life:
“It’s hard to believe that these zealots are actually building web sites!? … When you’re trying to follow the strict standards in real day to day work … it simply isn’t always practical.”
Happy new year!
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
I totally agree. I just got into over at website that suck. I think THAT website sucks! I have built over 200 websites and have 4 internet businesses and I feel that the Internet is an evolving beast and will forever be in flux and orbiting around so called standards or it will be outmoded and replaced by a more evolving beast.
My only gripe is that I.E. get up to speed as a browser and play nicer with web desingers!
Even if forward compatability doesn’t exist, if you understand your own web design code structure and the css used, it shouldnt be much work to tweak a site to new browser standards. We did it in IE6 when we went to 7 and we are still doing it to maintain backwards compatability. But you’re right it would be nice if everyone played nicely together.
Hi Dan,
My main point is that you shouldn’t get caught up in the mantra of standards. Actually, you shouldn’t get caught up in any hard-line point of view!
What you ought to do, is pay attention to reality on the ground. In web design, this is of course the web browsers that people are using. These days that means:
- IE7
- Firefox
- Safari
The rest out there have such a small market share, that there is simply no point.
Stefan