[UPHPU] Validation

[Tyler Gee]

> One of my objections to the way many people use XHTML+CSS is that they
> depend completely on CSS for positioning anything or giving any kind of
> indication as to a block's purpose or function in a page. So when you look
> at their markup document, it looks like a bunch of text snippets and
> nothing more. The markup is used purely for containers, and often not even
> nested ones. That to me is taking it to the other extreme, where instead
> of using markup to convey structure _and_ layout/appearance, to making the
> markup not even convey a structure at all.
>
> Mac

This means you are not writing pages correctly.  Your containers
should be logical place-holders and every single item on your page
should have an ID and a CLASS attribute.  In this way your page has a
logical markup and who cares (in the abstract sense) what your
appearance looks like, because that will inevitably change.  Once you
have "marked up" your page with tables you have just created a page
that is tied into your current design flavour-of-the-month.  What
happens three months down the line when a client comes and says,
"Never mind, I want it to look like X"  Well, with your table data it
means you need to literally re-write the whole thing.  You have zero
separation of content and design.  This is a bad thing.

If, on the other hand, you had a properly marked up and standardized
website, you could tell your designer to come up with something new
and all they have to do is give you a new style sheet.  Voila!  You
can sit in a meeting and load one style sheet, see how it looks, and
then load another, without changing a single item on your .html page.
Hell, it means you can even have the same page look different for
different people based on their login permssions.

The http://www.csszengarden.com example that someone sent in the other
thread is a great example.  There is absolutely no way you could
accomplish the same thing with tables controlling your layout or
without proper XHTML+CSS design.

You absolutely always want to separate your logic from your design.
It is hard to think that way when you are a one person team, but once
you are a web developer, working with a web designer and a graphic
artist, it becomes quite clear that your job is to develop the page
and you don't need to care at all what it looks like, you only need
worry that it is properly marked up.  It is the designer job to make
it look good.

-- 
~Tyler