PhotoDude.com

Mon. Mar 11, 2002

Arrogant CSS Authors

Arrogant CSS Authors – You’ll have to scroll down this table-based page to get to the content: "I do not understand some people’s insistence that web pages should, indeed must, be laid out in Cascading Style Sheets."

Well, I don’t understand it either, even though my site is linked as one of those people.

I certainly didn’t demand anything like that in the article referenced. It was a response to Dave Winer’s list of 5 things CSS must overcome. I would never insist that anyone ”must” use anything on their site. In fact, I said "Those whose primary concern is ease of publishing don’t need to worry about CSS. Or HTML." An individual’s web site is theirs to do with as they please, just as they may paint the walls of their home chartreuse and embed hay in it for all I care. I don’t have to live there, or maintain it.

"Using CSS is inherently arrogant: Implicit is the assumption that your content is worth downloading software I don’t otherwise need to see it correctly."

Nice troll, but lacking in foundation. You don’t have to download a thing to see my site. I assume this has to do with some tattered old favorite browser that just can’t be replaced (let me guess, Netscape 4.x?), since you titled your article ”Old Technology.”

Every scrap of content on my site is viewable in Netscape 2.0 and up. Every word, every pixel. You just don’t get to see the extra presentation that CSS provides, because your browser doesn’t understand valid code. You may not get the same layout, but it’s the same content. And I’ve even built a special version of the home page layout just for non-compliant browsers. So you didn’t really have to download a thing to see my site, did you?

"I have no attention of saying any such thing to either of my readers."

As is your right. Personally, I have no intention of rebuilding 1,000+ HTML documents with tables when I want to redesign. I’ll just change two or three CSS documents. As is my right.

In February, my site stats indicate 8% of my visitors were using a non-compliant browser. For those people, over time the web is going to get plainer and less functional. And the trend won’t be changed by blaming web authors for 5 year old browsers that have never understood valid compliant code. It’s like blaming Interstate engineers for the fact your Model T can’t do the speed limit they set. Your Model T is a tiny minority that is no longer being catered to by those engineers.

But you can still drive it on the road. Just expect to have your doors blown off now and then by more modern creations.