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All these books (and several more,) make use of hacks and as such are outdated.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.

People have gone a little ‘cucu for coco-pops’ when it comes to the Web Standards.

The Web Standards zealots have taken a specification (that was created to serve as a guide for browser manufactures,) and made it into a set of ‘holy commandments’ for web designers.

This ‘movement’, that is largely based on false and erroneous claims; claims that have caused counted countless wasted hours, and has brought many web designers to tears … and all for little to no practical benefit.

The Web Standards are a great thing … it is the Web Standards movement that has gone way to far – and to the benefit of who I wonder?

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This is just the first in a series of articles that will reveal the truth about this mess.

I will challenge (and disprove) the (supposed) advantages of zealous adherence to the Web Standards.

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