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Saving Bandwidth With Standards-Compliant Code
RadioheadKid writes "DevEdge has an interview with ESPN associate art director Mike Davidson. In the interview Davison talks about the decision to switch to a standards-based, non-table layout. The interview touches on the process he went through to make that decision and the rewards in both bandwidth savings and browser compatibility. An interesting read for those who have not switched to a standards-based, non-table layout. (hint, hint)"
This is a good move by ESPN. Though i don't really like the way they implemented (embedded JavaScript bad) it is still a step in the right direction.
A simple JavaScript to check if you are using a standards compliant browser and load the style sheet is a good way of ensuring your content is visible even on non-standard compliant browsers without affecting people who use the standard compliant browsers.
It is unfortunate that Netscape had released version 4.0 of their browser which is laden with badly implemented standard specifications (IE 3.0 to 4.0 was pretty bad early on too, but at least it was somewhat better than what we got with Netscape).
However, with more standard supporting browsers out there and more to come in the future since the XHTML standards are actually getting simpler (XML based parsing) instead of more complicated (like the addition of the BLINK tag thanks Netscape) we should start moving our content to be more standard compliant.
If you need a business case, throw this one to your financial rep. Say 1,000,000 web pages hits per month, each page adds 10K for table layouting (usually its more than that), that's 10 GB of wasted bandwidth that can be saved. Its also 10GB less to process through the HTTP data compression if you are keen with HTTP standards.
Also don't forget the amount of time it would take to maintain or make changes to these pages. Or worse, integrate them with JSPs.
If you are an employer, be wary of those that say they know HTML but also have Dreamweaver or FrontPage on their resumes. You may end up with a pig headed graphics artist who should've been a graphics artist not an HTML developer.
Archie - CIO-for-hire
Netscape Navigator 4.x is broken. There's no point in sucking up to users who use software from half a decade ago. If we keep cushioning the effects of their choice, they'll never switch. If their browser more or less works without changing the page specifically for them, fine. If it doesn't, let them see that their own choice breaks the page.
I think you're missing the point, you don't redesign solely for the purpose of becoming standards compliant. You redesign for lots of purposes, and you do it when your needs warrant it. The key is that WHEN you redesign, move to standards compliant pages.
As far as bandwidth savings being minimal, were you comparing old site w/mod_gzip to new site without? If so, then your results are obviously to be expected. If you did both with mod_gzip, then you likely need to build your CSS skillset some more (no offense intended, it really does take a while to master it).
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
After reading the article, I decided to follow the link to their web site and peek at the source. I was quite surprised by what I saw. Here are some quotes from the article and the related HTML I saw:
function changeiframe(iframemode) {... if (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('webtv
I don't see that they've followed a single one of the guidelines. Maybe I'm looking at the completely wrong site or something?!?! I see browser-specific javascript, ActiveX controls, checks for browser and javascript versions, and flash.
No, this post is not CSS/XHTML compliant. :-)
I love hearing about standardized web code on Slashdot, which is so embarrassed about its HTML that it blocks the validator.
rooooar