[UPHPU] More CSS frustration

[Brandon Stout]

cole at colejoplin.com wrote:
> Hmmm, well I have. "Pure css" is a bit too utopian for me, I use
> transitional instead of strict. Consider high volume sites (like my
> company, with over 700,000 pages), with common, cached 20k css files
> handling all the layout info. HTML filesizes are at least cut in half.
> Less bandwidth saves real money, just ask ESPN.
>
> In the last four months, I have been tasked with over a dozen minor
> tweaks, and layout changes. I changed one or two css files, where it
> took just me a few hours. We have 3,000 legacy pages that do not use
> css layouts. It took four people six weeks to make the same changes.
> Comparing the time involved, and the outlay for salaries, there is no
> comparison.
>
> On the flipside, if everyone did css, maybe a lot of people wouldn't
> have jobs to do it the table way, and that's how they make a living.
> So, you may have a really good point there, depending on the person.

<snip />

> While I may be impressed with the technical benefits of css (like
> vastly faster downloading and rendering of all my pages), I don't bore
> the suits with it. The financial benfits of css stand on their own
> when used on a site of magnitude that can realize the financial
> benefit. The bigger the site and traffic, the greater the financial
> benefit.

<snip />

> Yes, that's why I use css. The bigger picture is when the CFO presents
> Profit & Loss statements. Technology choices are the path. Financial
> results measure the effectiveness. In that light, css justifies itself
> nicely.

I'll back Cole up on this one.  I've not been in charge of a website at
that scale yet, but here's a URL I posted 7 months ago in the last CSS-
vs table-layout war - which even split up into 2 threads - a URL that
with solid facts that back up what Cole said above:

http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/throwing_tables/

I summed up the article in that post:

> In this article, you'll find a table that sums up his points nicely.
> With a CSS makover using Microsoft.com as an example, he cuts down 62%
> overhead.  This includes removing spacer.gif files and their
> associated <img> tags (from 122 to 6), and using a single codeline for
> multiple browsers instead of different code for different browsers.

And just to turn thread this thread into an IE flame war, I quote myself
further:

> Of course, 95% of our problem is IE non-compliance.  Microsoft
> integrates its browser in 1998, and then stops releasing new versions
> since 2001.  They made their browser take the bulk of the browser
> market, then stopped supporting new standards for the past 5 years.

See the June 2006 archives about CSS and IE, and Validation for more
quality reading ;)

Brandon Stout
http://mscis.org