8 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks CSS + JS on top of HTML broke the conceptual model beyond hope? The fact you can make any element look and behave the almost the s

Am I the only one who thinks CSS + JS on top of HTML broke the conceptual model beyond hope? The fact you can make any element look and behave the almost the same way – ignoring compatibility and usability issues – is a minefield. We could create a guide like this for basically everything and demonstrate 99% of the web isn't compliant.

Sembiance 5y ago
I’m making a website right now that only uses HTML, no CSS/styles and no JavaScript and it is a breath of fresh air :)
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  The only problem with this is that, for historical reasons (and lack of caring?), the default stylesheets for unstyled HTML in the leading browsers are terrible. Best to apply a simple classless style sheet once then forget about it.
  - oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
    There's not that much that is objectively bad about the default styles. About the only thing that I can really put my finger on is equal top/bottom margins on headings. Possibly default line height, too. I wonder if one of the browsers will (or already has?) ever change that.
mosdl 5y ago
You can fake things in most UI systems, nothing new here.
- hcarvalhoalves 5y ago
  Well, that's true, but HTML wasn't invented to create general UIs in the first place, so it's even worse.
  - MsMowz 5y ago
    I don't think that's really true; in the original WWW proposal[1], Tim Berners-Lee specifically talks about using the web to build applications and he considered hypermedia applications to be only a matter of time and resources (about which he was correct). [1]: https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > Tim Berners-Lee specifically talks about using the web to build applications And those applicatons are, and I quote: === start quote === Specific Applications The following are three examples of specific places in which the proposed system would be immediately useful. There are many others. Development Project Documentation. The Remote procedure Call project has a skeleton description using Enquire. Although limited, it is very useful for recording who did what, where they are, what documents exist, etc. Also, one can keep track of users, and can easily append any extra little bits of information which come to hand and have nowhere else to be put. Cross-links to other projects, and to databases which contain information on people and documents would be very useful, and save duplication of information. Document retrieval. The CERNDOC system provides the mechanics of storing and printing documents. A linked system would allow one to browse through concepts, documents, systems and authors, also allowing references between documents to be stored. (Once a document had been found, the existing machinery could be invoked to print it or display it). The "Personal Skills Inventory". Personal skills and experience are just the sort of thing which need hypertext flexibility. People can be linked to projects they have worked on, which in turn can be linked to particular machines, programming languages, etc. === end quote === The web, even in Tim Berners-Lee's vision, is strictly about documents. In comparison, by 1989 France's Minitel had over three million installed terminals with over 6000 different services [1]. Many of them (mail-order, games, ticket purchases etc.) cannot be expressed in a document-centric system. But even then (and I'm pretty sure Tim-Berners Lee had been aware of Minitel), the web was presented as a system for viewing and sharing documents, and the job of applications was left to applications. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
cryptonector 5y ago
HTML was about markup so that styling could be left to the user-agent. So, adding CSS and JS breaks that model. It's the web we've got now.
anticristi 5y ago
I wonder how much "HTML non-compliance" is lack of education and how much dark patterns. Remember the time clean URLs were a thing? Don't tell me Facebook engineers haven't heard about it. https://m.facebook.com/events/2805322196445083/?event_time_id=2811694019141234&acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A%22[%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22permalink%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22child_time_series%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A[]%7D]%22%7D&ref=page_internal https://m.facebook.com/events/2805322196445083/?event_time_i... Like seriously. It's almost like someone learned HTML/HTTP best practices, then did the exact opposite.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  Somewhat off topic: I thought perhaps you meant cool URIs but it turns out that's a different term. Cool URIs are about permanence. Reworking your internal file-structure should not break existing URIs. [0] Clean URLs are about avoiding leaking implementation details into the URL, e.g. .php, and also avoiding excessive use of query strings. [1] [0] https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL#Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL#Structure
worik 5y ago
There are the bullets, and the gun. Make up your own mind where you point it when it is loaded. If you choose your own foot, that is your choice!
dillondoyle 5y ago
For html buttons and other newer input elements specifically the css styling is really hard to get consistent/looking/working across devices and browsers or just flat out doesn't work. Maybe developers should lean into just leaving the native styles, but it can look bad and present its own problems in tightly styled mobile sites or apps. I might propose a better solution is expanding accessibly, aria, etc so we can make modern sites & elements more accessible. The concept of what a website is has changed a LOT. I don't think we can (and personally don't want to) stop the train towards expanding custom elements, components, intense dom stuff. So instead we should prioritize making it more accessible.
karaterobot 5y ago
It broke the conceptual model for programming, but allowed the web to take off in a way that it wouldn't have otherwise. We're dealing with the legacy of that decision. As someone who doesn't have to work on browser rendering engines, but did get into web development because of the super low barrier to entry in the 90s, I think it was the right call!
naikrovek 5y ago
> Am I the only one who thinks CSS + JS on top of HTML broke the conceptual model beyond hope? no. developers everywhere (but nowhere near "all developers") are forgetting the fundamental advantages of hypertext and are often commanding high salaries despite their staggering ignorance about how to build user interfaces. we should be trending toward mostly perfect UI paradigms in certain use cases, yet every few months, for no reason at all, user interface designers make huge changes and wreck everything. only rarely do user interfaces get better with such changes. where is the UI which made large, sensible changes early in its life, favoring smaller and smaller changes as the perfect interface for a particular set of data and actions makes itself obvious? I can't remember the last time I saw one. some games, probably. I maintain that games probably produce the most usable UIs today, in many ways. they are usually very well thought out, each page usually has a single purpose, and each screen provides all information needed to make a decision or change on a single page, whenever possible. and game UIs are FAST. I'd love to see a motivated game designer have a go at Service Now or any other contemporary enterprise software, really. it's very much like web designers are learning less as the study of electronic user interfaces matures. if you judge this by web or mobile user interfaces, you have likely lost all hope that a single semi-sensible design will ever emerge. designers are very good at making things look good, don't misinterpret me. usability does not seem to be getting better, though. I welcome counter-examples.
- rajlego 5y ago
  am learning UI design at the moment would be curious to hear recs on what you think I should be learning to not make bad UIs
  - naikrovek 5y ago
    virtually every piece of enterprise software is an absolute mess. it is often the columns of a database row exposed as html with a tiny bit of client-side validation in JavaScript. a good UI has pages, panels, windows --whatever-- which have a single purpose and show only what is necessary for a user to do the thing that page/panel/whatever is meant for. show everything that is needed, and nothing more. it's a very high bar to reach, and very difficult to get right. just avoid making awful mistakes and you'll do fine, I'm sure.

Sembiance 5y ago

I’m making a website right now that only uses HTML, no CSS/styles and no JavaScript and it is a breath of fresh air :)

NoGravitas 5y ago
The only problem with this is that, for historical reasons (and lack of caring?), the default stylesheets for unstyled HTML in the leading browsers are terrible. Best to apply a simple classless style sheet once then forget about it.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  There's not that much that is objectively bad about the default styles. About the only thing that I can really put my finger on is equal top/bottom margins on headings. Possibly default line height, too. I wonder if one of the browsers will (or already has?) ever change that.

mosdl 5y ago

You can fake things in most UI systems, nothing new here.

hcarvalhoalves 5y ago
Well, that's true, but HTML wasn't invented to create general UIs in the first place, so it's even worse.
- MsMowz 5y ago
  I don't think that's really true; in the original WWW proposal[1], Tim Berners-Lee specifically talks about using the web to build applications and he considered hypermedia applications to be only a matter of time and resources (about which he was correct). [1]: https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > Tim Berners-Lee specifically talks about using the web to build applications And those applicatons are, and I quote: === start quote === Specific Applications The following are three examples of specific places in which the proposed system would be immediately useful. There are many others. Development Project Documentation. The Remote procedure Call project has a skeleton description using Enquire. Although limited, it is very useful for recording who did what, where they are, what documents exist, etc. Also, one can keep track of users, and can easily append any extra little bits of information which come to hand and have nowhere else to be put. Cross-links to other projects, and to databases which contain information on people and documents would be very useful, and save duplication of information. Document retrieval. The CERNDOC system provides the mechanics of storing and printing documents. A linked system would allow one to browse through concepts, documents, systems and authors, also allowing references between documents to be stored. (Once a document had been found, the existing machinery could be invoked to print it or display it). The "Personal Skills Inventory". Personal skills and experience are just the sort of thing which need hypertext flexibility. People can be linked to projects they have worked on, which in turn can be linked to particular machines, programming languages, etc. === end quote === The web, even in Tim Berners-Lee's vision, is strictly about documents. In comparison, by 1989 France's Minitel had over three million installed terminals with over 6000 different services [1]. Many of them (mail-order, games, ticket purchases etc.) cannot be expressed in a document-centric system. But even then (and I'm pretty sure Tim-Berners Lee had been aware of Minitel), the web was presented as a system for viewing and sharing documents, and the job of applications was left to applications. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

cryptonector 5y ago

HTML was about markup so that styling could be left to the user-agent. So, adding CSS and JS breaks that model. It's the web we've got now.

anticristi 5y ago

I wonder how much "HTML non-compliance" is lack of education and how much dark patterns. Remember the time clean URLs were a thing? Don't tell me Facebook engineers haven't heard about it. https://m.facebook.com/events/2805322196445083/?event_time_id=2811694019141234&acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A%22[%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22permalink%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22child_time_series%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A[]%7D]%22%7D&ref=page_internal https://m.facebook.com/events/2805322196445083/?event_time_i... Like seriously. It's almost like someone learned HTML/HTTP best practices, then did the exact opposite.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago
Somewhat off topic: I thought perhaps you meant cool URIs but it turns out that's a different term. Cool URIs are about permanence. Reworking your internal file-structure should not break existing URIs. [0] Clean URLs are about avoiding leaking implementation details into the URL, e.g. .php, and also avoiding excessive use of query strings. [1] [0] https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL#Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL#Structure

worik 5y ago

There are the bullets, and the gun. Make up your own mind where you point it when it is loaded. If you choose your own foot, that is your choice!

dillondoyle 5y ago

For html buttons and other newer input elements specifically the css styling is really hard to get consistent/looking/working across devices and browsers or just flat out doesn't work. Maybe developers should lean into just leaving the native styles, but it can look bad and present its own problems in tightly styled mobile sites or apps. I might propose a better solution is expanding accessibly, aria, etc so we can make modern sites & elements more accessible. The concept of what a website is has changed a LOT. I don't think we can (and personally don't want to) stop the train towards expanding custom elements, components, intense dom stuff. So instead we should prioritize making it more accessible.

karaterobot 5y ago

It broke the conceptual model for programming, but allowed the web to take off in a way that it wouldn't have otherwise. We're dealing with the legacy of that decision. As someone who doesn't have to work on browser rendering engines, but did get into web development because of the super low barrier to entry in the 90s, I think it was the right call!

naikrovek 5y ago

> Am I the only one who thinks CSS + JS on top of HTML broke the conceptual model beyond hope? no. developers everywhere (but nowhere near "all developers") are forgetting the fundamental advantages of hypertext and are often commanding high salaries despite their staggering ignorance about how to build user interfaces. we should be trending toward mostly perfect UI paradigms in certain use cases, yet every few months, for no reason at all, user interface designers make huge changes and wreck everything. only rarely do user interfaces get better with such changes. where is the UI which made large, sensible changes early in its life, favoring smaller and smaller changes as the perfect interface for a particular set of data and actions makes itself obvious? I can't remember the last time I saw one. some games, probably. I maintain that games probably produce the most usable UIs today, in many ways. they are usually very well thought out, each page usually has a single purpose, and each screen provides all information needed to make a decision or change on a single page, whenever possible. and game UIs are FAST. I'd love to see a motivated game designer have a go at Service Now or any other contemporary enterprise software, really. it's very much like web designers are learning less as the study of electronic user interfaces matures. if you judge this by web or mobile user interfaces, you have likely lost all hope that a single semi-sensible design will ever emerge. designers are very good at making things look good, don't misinterpret me. usability does not seem to be getting better, though. I welcome counter-examples.

rajlego 5y ago
am learning UI design at the moment would be curious to hear recs on what you think I should be learning to not make bad UIs
- naikrovek 5y ago
  virtually every piece of enterprise software is an absolute mess. it is often the columns of a database row exposed as html with a tiny bit of client-side validation in JavaScript. a good UI has pages, panels, windows --whatever-- which have a single purpose and show only what is necessary for a user to do the thing that page/panel/whatever is meant for. show everything that is needed, and nothing more. it's a very high bar to reach, and very difficult to get right. just avoid making awful mistakes and you'll do fine, I'm sure.