Revisiting "Table Layouts, Revisited"

Posted on September 05, 2002

in Commentary & Society

by Bill Mason (bmason)

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Bill Mason

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User since: October 10, 2000

Last login: April 15, 2007

Articles written: 5

I read Zeldman's recent Table Layouts, Revisited with some bemusement. I'll try and tell you why by the end. The article makes three main points:

Layouts using a table for basic layout and CSS for the bulk of the presentation work give acceptable results in version 4 browsers, if that's what you need.
Some organizations and clients will want good layout support for version 4 browsers.
Browser bugs can appear in even your customer's latest version 6/7 browsers and you need to consider that.

To me, the thirteen paragraphs that make these points could all boil down to "know your client and their audience."

Tables can work

...we find ourselves creating transitional layouts that incorporate simplified table structures; use sophisticated CSS to add the kind of details that used to require nested tables, spacer gifs, and other presentational hacks; and serve a basic style sheet to 4.0 browsers that approximates the display in modern ones.

Hasn't everyone been doing that before and now? The world didn't go from table and font to pure CSS, did it? At my last full-time job, with Oxygen Media, my projects -- requiring good version 4 browser layout support -- certainly did a mix of basic layout tables and CSS. And I know I wasn't a visionary, for heaven's sake.... It was routine since we were required to give good presentation to version 4 browsers.

The Internet did not run to pure CSS layout the moment the specification was released...or the browsers caught up to the specification...or when the Web Standards Project launched their browser upgrade initiative. In short, this technique isn't news. Everyone should already have a few years of experience with it.

Version 4 stuff hasn't gone away

While reports will tell you that Netscape is down to 3.4 percent of the market, the same reports will note that this percentage varies from country to country (and is higher in several countries, including the United States). Whole organizations are on Netscape 4.x, and aren't moving from it for whatever reason: lack of a perceived need, unwilling to spend the money involved, etc. Raw data cannot tell the whole story.

More important than the raw numbers is knowing about your site's (or your client's site's) audience. You should know before writing one line of code if you need to give version 4 browsers good layout support.

New browsers are buggy too

Every browser has bugs. But Internet Explorer 6 final has been out for around a year. If A List Apart really gets 50 letters a day from a bug in it that blocks access to content, it should not take that long to start considering adjusting the code. Flagging the bug with the browser maker is fine, but what about your visitors? You have to respond to your audience, because the site they're visiting is yours. Not the browser makers'.

So...

To summarize, I read Zeldman and learned:

Know how to do "legacy" layout coding for version 4 browsers.
Know if you need to give good layout to a version 4 browser audience.
Fix bugs that affect your visitors' experience at your site.

Or, as I felt after finishing reading Zeldman:

Well, duh. No kidding.

Front-end web development (mostly) and an interest/focus in web accessibility. I also recently co-authored my first book, The Web Professional's Handbook, published by the late great glasshaus.

I've been out of work since October 2001. Be kind and glance over my portfolio....

45 comments on this article. Log in to add your comment | Rate this article:

Why tear someone apart for a blog entry?

Submitted by hyperizer on September 7, 2002 - 08:56.

First off, this was a daily entry in Zeldman's blog, not an article, so I daresay Zeldman didn't expect you to learn something new. He's merely making a concession. For years, he's been preaching the abandon table layouts, abandon Netscape 4.x mantra. At the same time he's been creating sites for clients which have table layouts. I think he's just acknowledging that he's torn between his roles as a Web guru/role model and someone trying to make a living as a Web designer.

Of course many of us make the same decisions. CSS-only layouts for our more cutting-edge sites but table layouts for our consulting sites. Why can't Zeldman point this out for the newbies without being criticized?

Re: Why tear someone apart for a blog entry?

Submitted by bmason on September 7, 2002 - 10:02.

Frankly, if you think that is tearing someone apart, you should have read my first draft. I thought I was pretty even-handed and fair about it. Let's not pretend that no one ever criticizes anything someone else says in a blog.

I respect Zeldman and think he says a lot of interesting things. I've certainly learned a thing or two from either things he's written personally or that I've found on A List Apart. I just feel that, if anything, his writing in this case was a too-late acknowledgement of the blatantly obvious.

If I left anything unsaid or implicit in this article, it's my belief that those voices recognized as leaders have certain responsibilities. One of those is to be aware of the impact of one's words. "To Hell with Bad Browsers" touched only very lightly on the potential for a developer to still need layout tables, and/or for a client to have a need for them. The WaSP's original browser upgrade campaign announcement, even less so. I believe (and I'm not the first to suggest it) people just jumped on the CSS layout bandwagon because it's simpler to pretend the older browsers aren't a factor, and because they had a campaign/cause to rally around. The original message didn't take enough responsibility for educating people about balancing the tables vs. CSS decision against the needs of the client.

Like Zeldman, I'm not about to argue that CSS layout is A Bad Thing. What I am arguing is that there was a responsibility to be saying "take care of your client's needs and the site's visitors first and foremost" explicitly from the start. It does not take a year and a half to figure this out. It doesn't take one day to figure that out. It's irresponsible for these voices of leadership in the development community to not do it sooner, if not from the start.

True, but the sad part is...

Submitted by kiddailey on September 7, 2002 - 11:56.

"What I am arguing is that there was a responsibility to be saying "take care of your client's needs and the site's visitors first and foremost" explicitly from the start. It does not take a year and a half to figure this out. It doesn't take one day to figure that out. It's irresponsible for these voices of leadership in the development community to not do it sooner, if not from the start."

Yes, this is true. Unfortuantely, the sadest part is that for every one person that gets it, there are litterally hundreds (if not thousands) of hacks who don't get it and still think, to this day, that they are designing for themselves and their portfolio, just don't know any better, or don't care.

For those people, it does take a year and a half or more to figure it out. I quit my job with my last employer partly because my "boss" was one of these people who will never get it.

While not the audience of Zeldman's comments, many of my clients don't even understand this basic premise (understanding visitor needs) and I consider it my duty to help them understand.

What I'm arguing is that restating the obvious in this case is a good thing. And keep saying it, because every night I see commercials for "start your own web business" and "learn to be a web page designer" on TV and groan knowing that there's more hacks arriving in our neck of the woods charging pennies for crap work that my company will someday have to repair. I'd rather those hacks be a little more informed :)

Stating the Obvious

Submitted by hyperizer on September 7, 2002 - 22:59.

What I am arguing is that there was a responsibility to be saying "take care of your client's needs and the site's visitors first and foremost" explicitly from the start.

The WaSP folks probably figured this was obvious to anyone who develops sites for clients. It's perhaps not obvious to people who are just making personal sites. I would guess that some people who fall into the latter category were calling Zeldman a hypocrite and he's responding.

Re: Stating the Obvious

Submitted by bmason on September 7, 2002 - 23:46.

I disagree that his work is a reply to those making personal sites. Phrases such as "marketable work" and "organizations...saddled with 4.0 browsers" suggest commercial sites.

Hindsight is always 20-20, of course. Perhaps it did seem too obvious to restate for people developing sites for clients. But I think it's clear that the message got mishandled somehow and now here we all are "revisiting tables" when it didn't have to happen that way.

IE6 bug

Submitted by c3o on September 8, 2002 - 07:47.

ALA has found and implemented a workaround/bug fix for the page loading problem, as Zeldman mentions in this Metafilter discussion, so it's not fair to accuse him of not responding to his audience.
Sorry, but all in all I found this article to be more a promotion of your portfolio than of any substance.

Re: IE6 bug

Submitted by bmason on September 8, 2002 - 08:00.

If taking a year plus to do something is not responding, I would love to hear what you would define it as. Besides which, I:

Completed and submitted this article before that even happened, so it didn't factor into what I wrote, and
that was not the entire focus of what I wrote anyway, in case you hadn't noticed (or cared).

In Summary

Submitted by hyperizer on September 8, 2002 - 10:58.

I disagree that his work is a reply to those making personal sites. Phrases such as "marketable work" and "organizations...saddled with 4.0 browsers" suggest commercial sites.

He's explaining to personal site makers why professional site makers have to continue using table layouts. That's my take, anyway. Professional developers ought to already know why table layouts are usually the way to go.

Bmason, you complained that Zeldman stated the obvious, then you complained that Zeldman should have stated the obvious earlier. It sounds like you just have a bone to pick. Your article is even less helpful than Zeldman's blog entry, because all you do is restate Zeldman's observations and complain that they're too obvious.

Re: In Summary

Submitted by bmason on September 8, 2002 - 12:58.

There is a difference in context. This message incorporated into the larger CSS layout campaign forms a integral piece of a whole. Standing alone, it just hangs out there in the wind -- in my opinion.

And that's why up top left it reads "Commentary & Society" and not "The Way Things Are, Says Me". If others read Zeldman and got something from it, great. If you don't like mine, OK. It's a big web and I simply felt motivated enough after reading his essay to write down and add my opinion to the universe.

I've already commented on my opinion about Zeldman's works as a whole, so I don't feel the need to reply further to cracks about bones to pick.

For this transitional period: the middle road

Submitted by lisrael on September 8, 2002 - 18:54.

I thought Zeldman's recent comments, including those cited in the article, have been a welcome concession, and have summarized a very practical way to code. It's about time someone with the prominence and reputation of Zeldman (which I happen to think is very well deserved) pointed out this alternative. (Maybe he isn't the first one to do so, but so what?) Zeldman points us to a "middle road" that is halfway between two camps:

(a) Those who are still using nested tables, spacer gifs and other hacks developed years ago who refuse to ditch these practices and even their font tags in favor of CSS for fear their pages will break in Netscape 4 or other old browsers.
(b) Those who are arguing that everyone should ditch tables altogether. They have moved forward to the next era by using tableless layouts and advanced CSS. Many of these folks are prepared to say (both in words and in coding practice) "to hell with bad browsers" and those who use them (to quote Zeldman himself!).

This middle road is great for this particular slice of time, a few years, while the public is making the transition to browsers that fully support CSS. I applaud Zeldman for pointing the way to this very practical path.

Similar transitions will be coming later on, some of which we can only guess at. The next one after this appears to be from (X)HTML and CSS to XML and its related technologies and languages. I hope the web development community can point to the practical ways to make these transitions at the time they occur and before.

article is valid

Submitted by branko on September 9, 2002 - 02:56.

If I remember correctly (I cannot verify this, as the ALA forums for old issues are no longer up), Zeldman's stance on using tables was without compromise. If you still used tables for lay-out, you were either stupid or evil. I seem to remember some flames about this.

Now, a year and a half later, he makes a 180 degree turn, without even commenting on that. Again, Zeldman casts himself as the voice of reason, even if the words that come from that voice say the exact opposite as what they said before.

Just for noticing that, Bill Mason's commentary is warranted.

Mind you, I have no beef with Zeldman, but when a web luminary like him makes an about face like that, then that is remarkable and it is not wrong to write about it.

Jumping with one foot

Submitted by Zaccix on September 9, 2002 - 04:25.

bmason wrote: "I believe (and I'm not the first to suggest it) people just jumped on the CSS layout bandwagon because it's simpler to pretend the older browsers aren't a factor, and because they had a campaign/cause to rally around."

Well said. Lots of people have been jumping on this bandwagon under the banner of "pushing the web forward", without realising that not every person in every country has the same access to free web browsers like they have. Case in point: Last week I returned from a month-long stay in Croatia, where the web is only now taking off. To assume that every person there (and in lots of other countries too) has access to the latest browsers and has the knowhow to upgrade to them, just so some fancy CSS layout will work, is short sighted and even a bit selfish.

If table layouts work for the site you're designing, then to hell what anyone else says. The web doesn't move forward through campaigns or people shouting from the rooftops, but by natural evolution.

Critical of criticism

Submitted by gkep on September 9, 2002 - 21:56.

So you've written an article that teaches nothing about an article that you learnt nothing from???

While we are on the topic of criticism for criticism's sake: I looked at your folio (as intended) and was struck by an obvious lack of synergy between designer and developer. Any lacklustre comsci student can build a v4 compatible site but the question is can they make it look good too?

Re: Critical of criticism

Submitted by bmason on September 9, 2002 - 22:20.

Considering you have no idea who the designers are, or met them, that was probably the funniest comment in this whole thread.

Strange

Submitted by junjun on September 10, 2002 - 09:04.

There are many kinds of web developers out there. Still *many* corporate sites made with minimum CSS. Don't ask me why.. That the author of this article knows how to use CSS smartly already (like me), doesn't really justify writing an article about it.. I don't want to put gas on any fire here, but I fail to see the main idea behind this article. I sit left with an impression of "He tells us to use CSS, ha! I've used it long time already"

Re: Strange

Submitted by bmason on September 10, 2002 - 09:25.

...but I fail to see the main idea behind this article. I sit left with an impression of "He tells us to use CSS, ha! I've used it long time already"

Put that phrase in my mouth, directed at Zeldman, and you've pretty much have the main idea of this article.

I simply felt it was worth examining this sudden reversal of his viewpoint. Particularly, as was noted up a few comments ago, since it comes relatively quietly (by comparison) on his blog, compared to the huge uproar/shouting from the hills of the browser upgrade/to hell with campaign that became the centerpiece of A List Apart.

People keep accusing me of writing this entire essay to stick a one-line link to my resume in it, which is amusing enough. But Zeldman does this complete reversal, which is also a topic of his upcoming book by his own statement, and that should completely unchallenged? Says who?

The point: Separate content from presentation

Submitted by webinista on September 11, 2002 - 07:55.

One thing I think we're forgetting is the idea behind CSS: to separate content and presentation. So what if your site doesn't look good in Netscape 4 as long as your audience can still use the content (view 37 Signals' site in Netscape 4 for an example). I personally think not enough people have jumped on the CSS band wagon, considering that (a) most visitors to most sites (in the U.S. at least) will be using a browser that supports CSS2; (b) it's possible to *design* for newer browsers while retaining *functionality* for older ones (including Netscape 2); and (c) CSS provides built-in support for PDAs, cell phones, screen readers, braille devices, etc. When we remember the purpose of HTML and CSS, Zeldman's "to hell with old browsers" comments seem a lot less absurd.

37 Signals is no role model

Submitted by bertilow on September 11, 2002 - 09:33.

So what if your site doesn't look good in Netscape 4 as long as your audience can still use the content (view 37 Signals' site in Netscape 4 for an example).

Unfortunately 37 Signals' site is no good example. It might work well in Netscape 4, but it does not work well in (all) modern standards compliant browsers that do understand CSS. The design depends on fixed font sizes, and falls apart if the text turns out to be larger than the designers counted on - a very common design mistake (and the hall mark of cluelessness). Just try it with Mozilla and some large font size settings (play with text zoom and minumum font size). As is turns out such sites often work better in very old browsers. Perhaps that's what the designers are aiming for...

Nitpicking a bit?

Submitted by webinista on September 11, 2002 - 10:50.

No, bertilow, 37 Signals' site is not perfect, but it's a rare example of a CSS/XHTML site that is largely backward-compatible. 37 signals did make trade-offs in terms of aesthetics vs. accessibility, as do most designers/developers. But that probably works for the vast majority of their audience. Perhaps a better example is A List Apart.

Kind of harsh I thought

Submitted by jesteruk on September 18, 2002 - 09:16.

I think sometimes people fail to remember that not everyone knows these things and articles that explain things that make some people say "Well, dun, no kidding" do actually help some less experienced developers. Everyone starts somewhere.

We all know new browsers are buggy too, all software is buggy, it's inevitable. My stance on this is: People don't expect to run windows XP with 8MB of memory, do they? So why do these people who are stuck in the past using browsers like that god-awful Netscape 4.x expect web developers to continue to support them? One day NS 4.x support will be dropped, they need to get up to date. To utilise some of these developing web technologies we need clients on newer browser, otherwise we'll get nowhere.

The web looks so much nicer in a newer browser, I'm aware some people don't want to upgrade, can't upgrade, or whatever -- but one day they're going to have to. They upgrade their memory so they can use current software, that's a must with computers. I feel upgrading your browser -- so you can use the internet to its full potential -- is a must for internet users.

Version 4 browsers were ncie in their day, but, come on people, get up-to-date!

relative newbies thoughts

Submitted by corrs_fan on September 18, 2002 - 16:58.

im a relative newbie to web design, and find this argument fascintaing. I cannot comment on this guy zeldman's thoughts, as i im only just getting into the webdev forums too. However as for css versus tables, it certainly appears that css is the way to go, and for me al least id like to learn as little bad habits as possible. At least by the time i become an acomplished Designer, the browsers should be a fair bit more conformant to css 2 & poss 3, such is the rate things currerntly at :) The buggy browser/software version its a moot issue, it happens; Windows 2000/xp/.net pre SP1 is an example. As for the V4 compatability, how long has IE 5 been out, [~3years}, heck IE 6 has been out near enough a year, with NS6 well over a year, so im afraid i have little time for these hangers on.

Thanks for this article

Submitted by holloway on September 18, 2002 - 17:22.

The problem here, as Zeldman has conceeded, is that in practice you can't write to the newer standards (or even CSS-P) and expect older browsers to get a usable page. These older browsers (or even new browsers with CSS bugs) weren't built to do what CSS asks of them. Duh.

There are some bizarre lengths that people are willing to go to in order to achieve certain coding styles. A full CSS layout and design isn't the quick and clean task that minimises maintenance it was heralded to be. It's still the art that exploits bugs in the IE5 CSS parser's handling of certain characters. Sometimes, a crummy old site can be less maintenance than a CSS site. Quite sensibly there's a case to be made for both, and if you code your site using a server-side scripting language you can minimise many of the problems with older website techniques. It's all something to consider, and Zeldman finally admiting this is, well, sanity.

Those who want to make statements with their markup language about what is best for the future are fine, but newer standards only coincidentally provide what's best for the user. It's always going to be a balance, with hacks and clever tricks, and CSS isn't so clean. That CSS layout will fall to pieces in an older browser and pancake down the page which isn't good for viewing. Most browsers default to a serif font, and we've all read the same studies showing better readability onscreen for the body of text with a sans-serif font. These are all things to consider, and I'm glad Zeldman is finally being more reasonable, and less righteous.

(my original take on this)

Yep

Submitted by jesteruk on September 19, 2002 - 06:13.

It is a balance, we all know that. I use CSS quite alot but I never attempt a CSS-only layout, it breaks. My sites don't look how I want them to in version 4 browsers, but they are usable.

Someone once said to me: "Don't worry about it, NS 4.x users are used to pages looking bad. Although compared to viewing it in IE, a newer Mozilla or Opera, it looks pretty bad, to NS 4.x users and the standards they're used to it'll probably look pretty nice."

Sums it up I reckon, hehe.

If they want to use old software they need to understand they can't see some pages how they're supposed to be viewed, it's as simple as that. All we can do is try to make it usable for them. As I say, one day they realy will have to upgrade, but when they do we'll probably end up back here yapping on about how much NS 6 users suck.

yeah but

Submitted by corrs_fan on September 19, 2002 - 06:53.

As I say, one day they realy will have to upgrade, but when they do we'll probably end up back here yapping on about how much NS 6 users suck. yeah but at least NS 6 is a damn sight more standards complient than 4 (Aparently, never tried to code for it yet) , so making it work is less hastle, than the hoops required for 4. Also if these folk rarley upgrade why would they only go for NN6. why not go with 7, or whatever is the best at the time is when they finally upgrade their ageing PC, then stick to that one.

old software != bad software

Submitted by branko on September 19, 2002 - 06:57.

Jesteruk,

I taste in your comments that you equate old software with bad software. There is nothing inherent in the age of software that makes it bad. Software consists of bits, and bits do not decay.

This is especially true in the area of web browsers, where in the ten years the web has existed, there have been very few improvements worth mentioning. OK, maybe tabbed browsing, but that is mainly there to circumvent badly designed OSes. All the important features were present in the first few browsers, and some have even been taken out. The only other advance I can see is that browsers do not crash as much as in the Mosaic/Netscape 1 days.

There are many reasons why people still use Netscape 4, but two fairly important reasons are that NN4 has got features that no other Windows' browser contains and that large companies (your customers' favourite customers!) loathe migrating.

Of course, if you want to make your customers angry then go ahead, stop supporting NN4. I predict it will take at least one year from now before the number of NN4 users has dwindled into insignificance.

re: jesteruk

Submitted by holloway on September 19, 2002 - 13:34.

If they want to use old software they need to understand they can't see some pages how they're supposed to be viewed, it's as simple as that.

Yeah, because the browser someone using is always by choice. Infact, 100% of users just go around trying different browsers. You know, installing, comparing rendering speed, standards compliance to CSS 3 columns, that sort of thing.

My philosophy

Submitted by gkep on September 19, 2002 - 17:50.

Clean, functional and minimal in version 4 browsers.
Full visual design in all other browsers.

So long as users can access the information in an efficient manner then plain visuals in redundant browsers is a small price to pay for the advantages of standards conformity.

um.. yeah.

Submitted by daverau on September 20, 2002 - 08:38.

bmason says "All you gotta know is I've been out of work since October 2001."

Let us pay close attention to those doing the work of practicing what they preach. Armchair quarterbacks have their place, I just expected it wasn't evolt. Ya gotta have a jobby job first there son.

Working on the Web is a compromise; there are limitations. Zeldman and the 37 crew do damn fine work within those limitations, no doubt with costs of compromise. They also have jobs. Let's focus energies on doing some work, getting the right messages out there, and changing the Web. Bashing the people having the most sucess with the above ain't part of the solution. It's always gonna be a compromise.

My contribution; an XHTML/CSS tutorial from the ground up:
http://www.sizefactory.com/xhtml/

And lots of others.

Re: yeah

Submitted by bmason on September 20, 2002 - 09:33.

"Ya gotta have a jobby job first there son."

Oh I see, you would invalidate six years of experience because I don't have a paying job right now. You infer that your voice matters because you contribute something and I do not? I guess...

Writing a couple Evolt articles
Joining the QA ranks in the Mozilla Bugzilla ranks
Volunteering in the uncoming Accessibility Internet Rally for California

...for starters, don't count for anything.

And you have the nerve, "son," to suggest to me that bashing isn't part of a solution? The attitude of some in this thread is truly frightening, uninformed and hypocritical.

yEp.

Submitted by daverau on September 20, 2002 - 11:02.

I wasn't discounting any experience you might have. I was discounting this article as something that poses solutions to stated problems. How does the above contribute to the issue of practicing or education about Web standards?

I didn't infer my voice matters; I am making the contributions I desire and feel are necessary. Whether or not people think my voice matters is for them to choose, not for me to say.

Again, bashing the people having the most sucess with the above ain't part of the solution; I don't feel you are part of the solution. Bash. Bash. Bash.

bastard.

Submitted by daverau on September 20, 2002 - 11:42.

bmason, I am sorry if I came across as a bastard about the no job comment. I'm not trying to bash anything other than your position. I feel you should be proactive in your campaign to make the change, not to criticize others for their own campaign efforts.

Hummmmmm

Submitted by jesteruk on September 21, 2002 - 16:59.

taste in your comments that you equate old software with bad software. There is nothing inherent in the age of software that makes it bad. Software consists of bits, and bits do not decay.

I don't agree with that at all. these days software that old really is bad software. Computers continue to grow and advance, and old programs obviously contain errors and don't support new technologies. Maybe they're a little faster and cleaner, sure, because they were designed to run on 32MB of memory.

Saying software is made of bits and bits don't decay is irrevelant. Of course bits don't decay, but the way the bits are ordered gets out of date. The bits are blind to advances. It's annoying updating, but that's how computers are, they're advancing so quickly you have to update your hardware and software regularly.

if you wan't speed download opera 6, very quick, very nice, very customisable and very standards compliant.

We all know we need to try and suport version 4 users, but that doesn't mean we have to be happy about it. Besides which, I'm not keen on any of the mozilla-based browsers. Enough said on the topic.

Markavian thinks..

Submitted by Markavian on September 24, 2002 - 16:36.

I'm glad everyone is speaking out on issues that matter to them.

todays good software....is tomorrow's bad

Submitted by nagrom on September 26, 2002 - 12:26.

I think what Zeldman is *really* saying, is that designers stepped up to the plate, and the software giants didn't deliver. The new round of 6 and 7 browsers still have problems. Being stuck with these malfunctioning tools for delivery, we of course have to use all the dev tools we can to make a clean and proftiable product for our clients. Zeldman's not saying he was wrong, if anything he's saying he was ahead of his time.

do you even know how to code?

Submitted by sasha22 on September 29, 2002 - 11:56.

So why do these people who are stuck in the past using browsers like that god-awful Netscape 4.x expect web developers to continue to support them?

And which are you actually complaining about? NS 4.x from a user's standpoint or from a designer's standpoint? While I personally would not chose to use NS 4 as my browser, I find that from a designer's standpoint, it really isn't that bad.

NS 4.x supports a good portion of CSS-1, and most "designers" use little from CSS-2 other than a:hover and positioning. There are really not that many "hacks" necessary to get NS to behave, and almost all the ones I use are valid CSS/HTML.

What I find puzzling is that so many complain about how "bad" they believe NS 4.x to be (which usually comes from the newbie crowd) when IE 6 still doesn't natively support partial transparencies of PNG images. If you ask me, that lack of support is also "holding back" technology.

Maybe some people need to stop thinking with that "rich" [American] mindset that every country in the world has unlimited internet access (many European contries have to pay per minute for the phone) or broadband internet flowing like water. Not every country is "rich" enough to afford computers fast enough to run the "latest" browser software (and few know of Opera's "lightweight" nature).

I have the full support for the author

Submitted by ghurtado on September 29, 2002 - 13:55.

I have no clue why so many uninformed, Guru-driven people have been ripping on this article. I find it the most corageous stance that I have seen so far on the issue, one that does not take into account one's best self interest, or even the interest of the web designer community as a whole, but rather, the interest of the people that use the web, which in the end, are those who give it reason to live. Bill was right on the mark pointing out that the Zealous-Zeldman bunch are just now starting to realize that it's not always about how loudly you try to impose a "radical" idea on others (like the whole WaSP campaign was, if I recall correctly, intended to *force* users into upgrading by means of making sites unavaliable to them), but rather about whether it makes sense or not in the real world. Those who abstract the web from its human factor in an attemp to make it evolve more "rationally" are doomed to fail. The final effort is and will always be, to create something worthwhile, something that works for all of your users. Compromising as much as 2-5% of that audience because of the preachings of Gurus that live thousands of feet away from the real world is in my opinion, foolish.

Thank you very much Bill, for writing the article, for having the courage to defend your stance, and , in short, for starting the real debate.

Put me in ghurtado's camp . . .

Submitted by tgoodson on September 30, 2002 - 10:41.

I wholeheartedly agree with ghurtado's comments regarding the original article. His comment makes it plain enough:

"Bill was right on the mark pointing out that the Zealous-Zeldman bunch are just now starting to realize that it's not always about how loudly you try to impose a "radical" idea on others (like the whole WaSP campaign was, if I recall correctly, intended to *force* users into upgrading by means of making sites unavaliable to them), but rather about whether it makes sense or not in the real world."

If you are not on board the Standards bandwagon yet (whether intentionally or unintentionally), go here to read about how lazy and ignorant you are:

http://www.digital-web.com/interviews/interview_2002-09.shtml

For a more reasonable and friendly explanation of why standards are a good thing and why you should be at least aware of importance of them, try this:

http://www.meyerweb.com/

Re: Put me in ghurtado's camp . .

Submitted by holloway on September 30, 2002 - 13:38.

If you are not on board the Standards bandwagon yet (whether intentionally or unintentionally), go here to read about how lazy and ignorant you are

I very much doubt that you can wholeheartedly agree with ghurtado's comments while speaking such a one-sided opinion. Without CSS the default font - in most browsers - will be a serif which has lesser readability than sans-serif. The bizarre protectionism of Zeldman to a rational article here is dissapointing There are many reasonable people using tables for layout because it's better in their situation. Serif fonts (usually the default without a font definition) have well-observed lesser readability than sans-serif. Columns in a CSS-P layout will collapse in older browsers, leaving words to stretch across the entire page, and for all will make a page less readable and usable in older browsers. These are all things to consider, depending on your audience, along side the technical benefits and "best for the future" political stance of modern standards such as CSS-P.

--

Submitted by Markavian on September 30, 2002 - 14:13.

Whos Zeldman?

I'm compatable, i'm compatable :-) It took me one long sunday afternoon, but I made a PHP template which is w3c HTML 4.0 compliant, uses HTML and CSS 2... and.. I used tables.. and Flash (and a replacement image for browsers which don't support flash objects) and.. and.. and now what?

Who this Zeldman guy again? Why do you care? Do you care? Is there anyone else we can look up to for insight into web design other then "Zeldman"?

Re: Put me in ghurtado's camp . . .

Submitted by tgoodson on October 1, 2002 - 04:14.

"If you are not on board the Standards bandwagon yet (whether intentionally or unintentionally), go here to read about how lazy and ignorant you are."

holloway said:

"I very much doubt that you can wholeheartedly agree with ghurtado's comments while speaking such a one-sided opinion."

Uh, holloway? That was meant as sarcasm. Sorry you didn't get it.

Re: Put me in ghurtado's camp . . .

Submitted by holloway on October 1, 2002 - 13:24.

That was meant as sarcasm. Sorry you didn't get it.

So am I, tgoodson, so am I...

*washes eyes out with soap*

ARGH!!

Designing for the web is always a compromise

Submitted by LintHuman on October 2, 2002 - 07:47.

Somewhere at the root of the topic under discussion is the relationship between the nature of the web itself and our attempts as designers and developers to shape it.

Print designers can control all aspects of their work: the quality of the paper, the precise layout of elements, colours, font-sizes, etc. Web designers have no such control because of the nature of the web. All we have are the markup languages and other tools that allow us to manipulate content. How that content is displayed is in the hands of the browsing devices (computers, TVs, PDAs, phones, etc) and their users' preferences.

The various mid to late 90s extensions of HTML to "improve" visual layout were an attempt to mimic print design on the web. Many designers came from this field and wanted the technology to give them the control they had previously in print.

Now, a different idea of the web is emerging, one that better fulfills the needs of users and designers, and recognizes the fluid nature of the medium.

The recommendations of the W3C (so-called "web standards") are useful to designers working in such a flexible medium, because they provide mechanisms of making content intelligible to a vast array of different browsers (interoperability) and users (accessibility), and they have the potential to work very well together — XHTML and CSS, for example (compatibility).

There's no shame in using tables for layout, as long as the content still makes sense when linearized. Likewise, spacer GIFs are OK, provided that they are marked up as such with appropriate ALT and TITLE tags. I think this is what is Zeldman is advocating — using some elements of HTML against the spirit of the recommendations is fine, as long as designers employ the in-built features to help make sense of the content, and begin to consider alternatives (like CSS) that help broaden access to the web.

I made the leap a while ago and I've been designing table-less, CSS-formatted layouts for about 18 months, with varying degrees of success. It is possible, if you're prepared to sacrifice the precision that tables and lots of decorative images allow. I think (hope!) that this is the new web that's beginning to emerge, and I hope (think!) that new web designers without the need for control will appreciate this.

re: Designing for the web is always a compromise

Submitted by ghurtado on October 2, 2002 - 13:11.

LintHuman, that is a very good point that you brought up. I am very excited about the possibilities of CSS layouts, and am a very hardcore advocate of the advantages it can bring to users and designers alike. Nevertheless, I do not see myself switching over 100% any time soon, or until CSS layouts provide at least the same posibilities as table based ones, and there are certainly more than a few table layouts that I have designed in the past, that would not be possible with CSS only. CSS is a great technology, with a great potential and all the right ideas, it just needs time to mature, as do the browsers and net community to evolve and support it.

Switching to CSS layout

Submitted by gbird on October 3, 2002 - 10:06.

I'm currently working on designs for a well-known organisation in the UK, and we have taken a decision to go with a CSS layout. The reason we did this was that our Netscape 4 visitor percentage has come down to only 1.5%. Our project will not launch until next year, but with luck we'll be able to stay with CSS and kiss table layout goodbye. I have been working on CSS layouts for some time now, and I'd say that there are very few possibilities that they do not give you (RE: ghurtado's comment above). The key is to really learn CSS well, and learn to use it creatively. Don't give up. It's more versatile that I ever thought it could be. Remember, Netscape 4 IS dropping off. It won't be long now.

In reply to "sasha22 "

Submitted by jesteruk on October 3, 2002 - 13:39.

Yes I do know how to code.

I think it's quite obvious I'm complaining from a designer's point of view.

Nit-picking won't get you anywhere, no browser is perfect and of course the new browsers have their flaws, we all know that. The point is, a point I think you are failing to see, NS 4.x is out of date and is not standards compliant, it's as simple as that.

Not every country is "rich" enough to afford computers fast enough to run the "latest" browser software (and few know of Opera's "lightweight" nature).

The majority of internet surfers can afford a computer (or have access to a computer) with at least 64MB of memory and at least a 300MHz CPU, I find IE 6 runs fine and my computer is far from brand spanking new. It's people like you making excuses that are the problem, continue supporting them and they'll always be around.

Anyways, I tire of this argument, some people think old browsers should be supported, some don't. One thing is for certain, if you don't want to lose visitors then make sure your site is usable in old browsers aswell as new, there's still quite a few people whom pollute their computers with version 4 browsers.

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