4 ms·

Can you elaborate on the accessibility issues and page bloat, because the link doesn't. It lists "Increase traffic" and "Happier staff" among the benefits. Do y

by ntoshev 18y ago

Can you elaborate on the accessibility issues and page bloat, because the link doesn't. It lists "Increase traffic" and "Happier staff" among the benefits. Do you think pg would be happier if he followed some guidelines for web design? ;)

tdavis 18y ago
I think pg would be less happy because he'd have to admit I was right about this whole silly standards thing ;) As for your questions: The page bloat issue is pretty apparent: it takes a lot more markup to wrap everything in tables than it does to use floated / positioned block elements such as <div/>. Individually marking up each <font/> tag with color, bgcolor, etc. also wastes a shitload of bytes. Accessibility is another issue entirely, but is generally hindered by inline Javascript because such JS is not based on progressive enhancement; rather, it directly hijacks events on specific elements rather than improving the experience for JS-enabled browsers. In the case of HN, it appears that "vote" links work with or without Javascript, though the latter loads a blank page after voting. This is certainly better than the alternative. Additionally, superfluous markup has a tendency to disrupt the functioning of assisted-reading devices such as screen readers. There's a whole world of people out there advocating the use of web standards, all for very practical reasons. I'm not going to re-post all their thoughts and arguments here, but if you're not educated in the matter I highly recommend becoming so, if for no other reason than understanding what we crazy people are screaming about. Many people far more dedicated than I have written countless articles on the matter; a good place to start would be Roger Johansson's blog: http://www.456bereastreet.com/ http://www.456bereastreet.com/ but there are many others.

4 ms·

Can you elaborate on the accessibility issues and page bloat, because the link doesn't. It lists "Increase traffic" and "Happier staff" among the benefits. Do y

by ntoshev 18y ago

tdavis 18y ago
I think pg would be less happy because he'd have to admit I was right about this whole silly standards thing ;) As for your questions: The page bloat issue is pretty apparent: it takes a lot more markup to wrap everything in tables than it does to use floated / positioned block elements such as <div/>. Individually marking up each <font/> tag with color, bgcolor, etc. also wastes a shitload of bytes. Accessibility is another issue entirely, but is generally hindered by inline Javascript because such JS is not based on progressive enhancement; rather, it directly hijacks events on specific elements rather than improving the experience for JS-enabled browsers. In the case of HN, it appears that "vote" links work with or without Javascript, though the latter loads a blank page after voting. This is certainly better than the alternative. Additionally, superfluous markup has a tendency to disrupt the functioning of assisted-reading devices such as screen readers. There's a whole world of people out there advocating the use of web standards, all for very practical reasons. I'm not going to re-post all their thoughts and arguments here, but if you're not educated in the matter I highly recommend becoming so, if for no other reason than understanding what we crazy people are screaming about. Many people far more dedicated than I have written countless articles on the matter; a good place to start would be Roger Johansson's blog: http://www.456bereastreet.com/ http://www.456bereastreet.com/ but there are many others.