7 ms·
An HTML file virtually unchanged in fifteen years still renders cleanly in a modern browser. Backwards compatibility across open standards is a wonderful thing.
by Arubis 13y ago
An HTML file virtually unchanged in fifteen years still renders cleanly in a modern browser. Backwards compatibility across open standards is a wonderful thing.
- frozenport 13y agoI think we miss part of the user experience of having only 640x480 pixels.
- fragsworth 13y agoHeh, good point. Actually, if you zoom in several times, the page looks much more reasonable.
- MarkSweep 13y agoThe "responsive design mode" feature in Firefox's web developer tools let's you relive the magic of 640x480.
- mixmastamyk 13y agoI worked in IT around '96 and was lucky enough to commandeer a 21" 1600x1200 CRT at that time. 2d was ok, but the Pentium 90/133? I had could power Quake at 1280x1024 at about 5-10fps, so I had to crank it down several notches.
- lstamour 13y agoLooked great on an iPad retina in landscape. All I thought was that it has all 16 colours in it! :)
- smrtinsert 13y agoWell, more specifically table-based design. It Just Works (tm).
- unsignedint 13y agoIn some places, table-based designs are apparently still hip, and I come across few for localization. Gives me huge facepalm dealing with them...
- throwaway2048 13y agoyou are posting on a table based design right now
- tedunangst 13y agoWebsites and companies we like are exempt from "you're doing it wrong" comments.
- unsignedint 13y agoAt least it is for the contents that somewhat makes it understandable, being it's mostly listing of data. What I'm talking about is table layout being used for the sole purpose of aesthetic reasons. And those I've seen so many of those sites using bad design decisions every corner (texts embedded entirely as a graphic, etc.) and they are usually one speaks out their concern about SEO...
- jimmaswell 13y agoTables are honestly just more convenient than CSS hacks sometimes. In this case, by hacks I mean when the feeling becomes clear that you're spending more time bending CSS to do what you wanted to do with a table than the time it would've taken to maintain a table.
- derleth 13y agoUnless you're blind, or trying to render the page on a different-sized browser and the tables are fixed size (because 640x480 is a Law Of Physics).
- lmm 13y agoI've never understood the argument that "semantic" tags are easier to render for screenreaders. Like a screenreader knows that <em> is for emphasis, but couldn't possibly render <i> the same way it renders <em>. Or knows that a <div> must be for layout but couldn't possibly treat <table> the same way (modern UI toolkits build tables out of divs, so it's not like div-users semantically distinguish between layout and actual tabular data).
- hnal943 13y agoIt's not the tags themselves that are "semantic" but how they are used. The semantic web is a content-first approach, as opposed to using tags to design the structure of your page. If you're adding div's to create a specific layout, you're doing it wrong. That said, I think that CSS is inadequate for the task of controlling the layout of elements so there are very few truly "semantic" layouts. It's the same problem as deciding whether an API is RESTful enough or not. Eventually, pragmatism wins over dogma. Still, I think (like REST) the semantic web is a good ideal to shoot for.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago>knows that a <div> must be for layout but couldn't possibly treat <table> the same way // How then would you treat actual tables, like <table noreally="true"><tr><th> ... ? Screenreaders treat tables differently because they carry semantic weight - table headings, rows and such relate to one another in a way that mere areas of a web-page do not. It's not the table tag that's bad, people don't [shouldn't!] use divs for marking up tabular data.
- thetrb 13y agoI'm pretty sure a .doc file created fifteen years ago also still renders in Word. Same for a PDF file created 15 years ago or most other formats. So I don't really see your point about open standards in this case.
- broodbucket 13y agoYeah, you point out the winners, think back 15 years ago. How many competitors were there just in the realm of word processing? Every format but the eventual winner (which couldn't be determined at the time) is now completely useless, whereas an abundance of old dud open image formats can still be opened (which is nice because some are really easy to programmatically generate)
- lmm 13y agoI don't think that's true. I can still open WordPerfect docs from 15 years ago, with less faff than it takes for, say, VRML (which was an open standard).
- ZoF 13y agoWhat's the point of your nitpick? He's simply saying that backwards compatibility and open standards are good things in that they don't break old sites/docs/etc... You could have just as easily said the same thing and ended with "So I don't really see your point about backwards compatibility in this case". Backwards compatibility is often the forced result of open standards because when multiple vendors adopt those standards it is in their best interest to not make breaking changes. This in turn is(obviously) a good thing in that things designed for those standards will remain functional indefinitely.
- ars_technician 13y agohow easy it to render wordperfect files now?
- Lagged2Death 13y agoI'm pretty sure a .doc file created fifteen years ago also still renders in Word. Check this out: http://timtyson.us/archives/2008/01/theft-by-taking/ http://timtyson.us/archives/2008/01/theft-by-taking/ Old MS Office file formats were never engineered to be future proof in any way, and they're a huge headache for Microsoft, and they do indeed behave oddly in new software, and Microsoft cannot wait to get rid of them, and nobody in their right mind can blame them, honestly. Open standards rock.
- codex 13y agoI was half expecting some if the words to blink at me, but, of course, support for the blink tag has been removed from modern browsers. Hooray for opinionated code.
- YokoZar 13y agoA look at the source shows no blink or marquee tags, unfortunately.
- interstitial 13y agoand no fancy parallax, lightbox, autoscoll, or swipe to load.
- sirkneeland 13y agoThis comment is spectacular, but insufficiently appreciated.
- ripthejacker_ 13y agoWell, blink tag was not part of the standards anyway.
- wtracy 13y agoThis site was probably targeted at IE first, and IE never supported the blink tag.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoI'm not seeing any spinninng @'s, laughing babies or "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" gifs either. http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=2&music=10&url=http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/default.htm http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=2&mu... Ahh, that's better.
- ck2 13y agoYou sure it is not just good quirks mode support?