[UPHPU] More CSS frustration

[John David Anderson]

On Jan 23, 2007, at 11:34 AM, Joshua Simpson wrote:

> On 1/22/07, cole at colejoplin.com <cole at colejoplin.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I have decades of flashbacks, watching peers not embrace emerging
>> technologies in their field. The consequences, to my mind, are very
>> tragic, both in spirit and finances. It's not hard to fall behind,
>> pleased with the status quo, while opportunities narrow. As I get
>> older, my peers get younger and younger (with a few happy  
>> exceptions).
>> Nothing lasts forever. There's always something new and exciting,
>> which in due time will not be good enough, compared to the next new
>> and exciting. Sometimes a frustrating learning curve is just part of
>> the deal.
>
>
> Amongst my many other psychoses, I too have flashbacks.  Of watching
> 'peers'  embrace technology too early and before standards are  
> met.  I will
> use pure CSS when I don't have to worry about browser  
> incompatibilities
> within the standard.  It has nothing to do with learning CSS;  I  
> have no
> problem grasping the concept.  But until browsers are much closer to
> adopting standards,  I'll be the same.

IE, usually viewed as behind the CSS curve, got initial CSS support  
in July of 1996.

Unless you're adding drop shadows to text, trying to add multiple  
backgrounds, or something else bleeding edge, CSS support in modern  
browsers (Read: IE 4+ and its contemporaries) is here today.

> And still using tables for some layouts doth not a dinosaur make me.

I guess it depends on your own definition of "dinosaur", but I  
personally want to move away from using a technique that started to  
disappear ten years ago. Sure, you need to take every situation into  
consideration, but the general feeling should probably be to cut down  
on the practice.

> Just like not using a relational database for every data storage  
> problem.  Or not
> using AJAX for every user interface design.

Yeah - anyone who uses  <table> for... tables... all the time isn't  
flexible enough. ;) Seriously, though, I don't think CSS is some  
bleeding edge fad. This has been around for a long time, and using it  
for everything (*gasp*) is actually what it was designed for.

-- John