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Articles like this are always a little shallow and not really informational. There are plenty of CSS workgroups that can explain why CSS does or doesn't do som

Articles like this are always a little shallow and not really informational. There are plenty of CSS workgroups that can explain why CSS does or doesn't do something. As frustrating as the slow pace of CSS advancement goes they do have smart people trying to do their best to set world wide standards. Yeah. CSS can be hard for a programmer. It kinda should. You should be programing. I do CSS all day every day and what ever issues CSS have I've long since learned how to work around them to the point where I forget what most of the big bugs are. I find programing a little daunting sometimes. I don't say it needs to be made easier. If any one can learn programing in a couple hours it probably would not be as powerful.

dcminter 18y ago
Part of the problem for me, however, is that I can't assume that designers know CSS, and I can't assume that the designers will know how to use their tools to spit out CSS that's compatible with the application that it will be applied to. I have no choice but to tangle with CSS whenever I want things to work correctly - and that's my prerogative as a programmer. Looking at the CSS3 standard, the designers seem to be making mistakes of the "more of the same" variety. For example they are proposing additions to allow for multi-column content, but nothing I can see there suggests that they will allow for an arbitrary number of columns. Today's frustration is trying to get a textarea to fill the remainder of the page rather than specifying its size exactly. As far as I can tell that's impossible without using Javascript. Why? There's nothing unusual about my requirement - to me it seems that CSS is simply deficient. Is there a "workaround" for this? So, to address your criticism of "shallowness" - yes, that's probably fair; I am an occasional CSS user. But still, that's a legitimate usage pattern. Why don't I feel the same sense of crushing frustration when I work with SQL, HTML, or Javascript? I believe it is because they're better designed. Now, I may be wrong. CSS may be brilliantly designed. If so, I have to assume that I am therefore using it incorrectly or am missing some fundamental philosophy of design that explains everything. If so, most of my "shallow" criticisms should be easy to counter. Are they? If you just mean that my article is shallow because it doesn't really impart any new knowledge - then why aren't developers up in arms about the awfulness of CSS?
- STHayden 18y ago
  "I can't assume that designers know CSS" sad but true. I often forget that such a large % of web designer are kinda crap when it comes to the technology that they design for. It's like painting with out brushes. You need to know the medium you work in.
  - dcminter 18y ago
    "You need to know the medium you work in." I'm not sure. Maybe you are right - but for me the problem is that the designers that I can afford who know CSS don't produce such pretty designs as the ones who don't. Perhaps that's my error, but if CSS were easier for me to work with it wouldn't be such a problem in the first place. So am I being stupid? Is CSS actually easy/rational and I'm just missing the big picture, or is it really kind of flakey and I'm just going to have to lump it? I'd prefer the "Dave is ignorant" answer to be correct, to be honest, because it at least I stand a chance of rectifying it.
    - STHayden 18y ago
      at the very least this is an old argument. Dvorak said they same thing back in 2006. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1987181,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1987181,00.asp A lot of the stuff you want to do is in the "standard" but you need 3 or 4 browsers to all implement it and do it in the same way before it counts as being truly an option.
      - netcan 18y ago
        You know 3 or 4 doesn't seem that bad. Should be manageable. It's not, that's unfortunate. In lots of cases 3 - 4 players can virtually act as one. Look at the RIAA. A model of cooperation.
gigawatt 18y ago
Great points. I always cringe when I read a "CSS is awful!" article that even mentions table-based layout. The mere thought of going back to building (and more importantly, MAINTAINING) sites with nested tables makes me want to become a farmer. The article has valid points - CSS is far from perfect - but can we please collectively admit that tables are not the answer?
- dcminter 18y ago
  I tried, and evidently failed, to make it clear that I am not in any way advocating a return to table based layout. I'm just frustrated that CSS is so much harder than table based layout to actually implement. When I see similar frustrations expressed elsewhere, they seem to be roundly condemned with comments of the form "no, CSS is EASY" yet any suggested workarounds for specific problems supporting that theory are of diabolic complexity.
  - gigawatt 18y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. I just think that a valid case for the shortcomings of CSS can be made without even mentioning tables. And to be honest, now that I really know CSS, it is easier than tables. Tables might be easier when you're dealing with a single page, but any site that has even a slight variation in layouts will be much easier with CSS. It sounds like much of your frustration has to do with browser inconsistency, which isn't necessarily CSS's fault. Getting things to work on Firefox 3 is fairly easy. Getting it to work on you client's Windows 2000 desktop is not.
    - dcminter 18y ago
      "Tables might be easier when you're dealing with a single page, but any site that has even a slight variety in layouts will be much easier with CSS." That's a valid point. Nonetheless I think that it is also valid to consider the ease with which tables can be used to express layout as a metric for what CSS ought to aspire to.
- gruseom 18y ago
  can we please collectively admit that tables are not the answer? Given that your question is sitting in html like this: p < span < td < tr < tbody < table < td < tr < tbody < table < td < tr < tbody < table < center < body < html ... I'd say the answer has to be no.
dandelany 18y ago
I'm not sure why you expected an article called "Venting on CSS" to be terribly "informational." It's a rant, duh! That said, as a web designer, I too know the ins and outs of CSS, and how I can get it to do what I need it to. However, the fact that it can be hacked to do anything is not an argument against making it better and more intuitive. You seem to be saying that, since you know how to hack around the bugs, the fact that they're there doesn't really matter! This is not a matter of the fundamental complexity of a language like this, it's a matter of improving a kludgy way of doing things, and therefore lowering the barrier of entry so that my mom, little brother, and girlfriend can learn to code a website without having to know what "star-HTML" or "double-margin-bug" means, and I'm not really sure why you'd be against that. And yes, I know that it is being improved constantly, it's just painfully slow sometimes. And since I'm in rant mode now, one of the things I hate about CSS is the box model... the "correct" one, not the ie6 one. The idea that the "width" of an element is not actually it's total width on the page (including border and padding), but the width of the internal content constantly pisses me off. It may be a good idea in theory, but in reality, when you're laying things out, the width of the content area is almost always far less important than the total width, and I hate having to do arithmetic every time I change padding!

dcminter 18y ago

Part of the problem for me, however, is that I can't assume that designers know CSS, and I can't assume that the designers will know how to use their tools to spit out CSS that's compatible with the application that it will be applied to. I have no choice but to tangle with CSS whenever I want things to work correctly - and that's my prerogative as a programmer. Looking at the CSS3 standard, the designers seem to be making mistakes of the "more of the same" variety. For example they are proposing additions to allow for multi-column content, but nothing I can see there suggests that they will allow for an arbitrary number of columns. Today's frustration is trying to get a textarea to fill the remainder of the page rather than specifying its size exactly. As far as I can tell that's impossible without using Javascript. Why? There's nothing unusual about my requirement - to me it seems that CSS is simply deficient. Is there a "workaround" for this? So, to address your criticism of "shallowness" - yes, that's probably fair; I am an occasional CSS user. But still, that's a legitimate usage pattern. Why don't I feel the same sense of crushing frustration when I work with SQL, HTML, or Javascript? I believe it is because they're better designed. Now, I may be wrong. CSS may be brilliantly designed. If so, I have to assume that I am therefore using it incorrectly or am missing some fundamental philosophy of design that explains everything. If so, most of my "shallow" criticisms should be easy to counter. Are they? If you just mean that my article is shallow because it doesn't really impart any new knowledge - then why aren't developers up in arms about the awfulness of CSS?

STHayden 18y ago
"I can't assume that designers know CSS" sad but true. I often forget that such a large % of web designer are kinda crap when it comes to the technology that they design for. It's like painting with out brushes. You need to know the medium you work in.
- dcminter 18y ago
  "You need to know the medium you work in." I'm not sure. Maybe you are right - but for me the problem is that the designers that I can afford who know CSS don't produce such pretty designs as the ones who don't. Perhaps that's my error, but if CSS were easier for me to work with it wouldn't be such a problem in the first place. So am I being stupid? Is CSS actually easy/rational and I'm just missing the big picture, or is it really kind of flakey and I'm just going to have to lump it? I'd prefer the "Dave is ignorant" answer to be correct, to be honest, because it at least I stand a chance of rectifying it.
  - STHayden 18y ago
    at the very least this is an old argument. Dvorak said they same thing back in 2006. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1987181,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1987181,00.asp A lot of the stuff you want to do is in the "standard" but you need 3 or 4 browsers to all implement it and do it in the same way before it counts as being truly an option.
    - netcan 18y ago
      You know 3 or 4 doesn't seem that bad. Should be manageable. It's not, that's unfortunate. In lots of cases 3 - 4 players can virtually act as one. Look at the RIAA. A model of cooperation.

gigawatt 18y ago

Great points. I always cringe when I read a "CSS is awful!" article that even mentions table-based layout. The mere thought of going back to building (and more importantly, MAINTAINING) sites with nested tables makes me want to become a farmer. The article has valid points - CSS is far from perfect - but can we please collectively admit that tables are not the answer?

dcminter 18y ago
I tried, and evidently failed, to make it clear that I am not in any way advocating a return to table based layout. I'm just frustrated that CSS is so much harder than table based layout to actually implement. When I see similar frustrations expressed elsewhere, they seem to be roundly condemned with comments of the form "no, CSS is EASY" yet any suggested workarounds for specific problems supporting that theory are of diabolic complexity.
- gigawatt 18y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. I just think that a valid case for the shortcomings of CSS can be made without even mentioning tables. And to be honest, now that I really know CSS, it is easier than tables. Tables might be easier when you're dealing with a single page, but any site that has even a slight variation in layouts will be much easier with CSS. It sounds like much of your frustration has to do with browser inconsistency, which isn't necessarily CSS's fault. Getting things to work on Firefox 3 is fairly easy. Getting it to work on you client's Windows 2000 desktop is not.
  - dcminter 18y ago
    "Tables might be easier when you're dealing with a single page, but any site that has even a slight variety in layouts will be much easier with CSS." That's a valid point. Nonetheless I think that it is also valid to consider the ease with which tables can be used to express layout as a metric for what CSS ought to aspire to.
gruseom 18y ago
can we please collectively admit that tables are not the answer? Given that your question is sitting in html like this: p < span < td < tr < tbody < table < td < tr < tbody < table < td < tr < tbody < table < center < body < html ... I'd say the answer has to be no.

dandelany 18y ago

I'm not sure why you expected an article called "Venting on CSS" to be terribly "informational." It's a rant, duh! That said, as a web designer, I too know the ins and outs of CSS, and how I can get it to do what I need it to. However, the fact that it can be hacked to do anything is not an argument against making it better and more intuitive. You seem to be saying that, since you know how to hack around the bugs, the fact that they're there doesn't really matter! This is not a matter of the fundamental complexity of a language like this, it's a matter of improving a kludgy way of doing things, and therefore lowering the barrier of entry so that my mom, little brother, and girlfriend can learn to code a website without having to know what "star-HTML" or "double-margin-bug" means, and I'm not really sure why you'd be against that. And yes, I know that it is being improved constantly, it's just painfully slow sometimes. And since I'm in rant mode now, one of the things I hate about CSS is the box model... the "correct" one, not the ie6 one. The idea that the "width" of an element is not actually it's total width on the page (including border and padding), but the width of the internal content constantly pisses me off. It may be a good idea in theory, but in reality, when you're laying things out, the width of the content area is almost always far less important than the total width, and I hate having to do arithmetic every time I change padding!