Slashdot Mirror
Chrome 57 Arrives With CSS Grid Layout and API Improvements (venturebeat.com)
Google has launched Chrome 57 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. From a report on VentureBeat: Among the additions is CSS Grid Layout, API improvements, and other new features for developers. You can update to the latest version now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. Chrome is arguably more than a browser: With over 1 billion users, it's a major platform that web developers have to consider. In fact, with Chrome's regular additions and changes, developers have to keep up to ensure they are taking advantage of everything available. Chrome 57 implements CSS Grid Layout, a two-dimensional grid-based layout system for responsive user interface design. Elements within the grid can be specified to span multiple columns or rows, plus they can also be named so that layout code is easier to understand. The goal is to give developers more granular control, especially as websites are increasingly accessed on various screen sizes, so they can slowly move away from complex code that is difficult to maintain.
Remember 15-20 years ago when we had based layouts? And then they invented CSS because that was such a terrible idea. Then we spend 10 years trying inventing css grid systems (ie bootstrap's grid, 960, etc) to replicate what we used to do with tables until they just finally gave up and made CSS Grid and Flexbox? That was sure fun.
"In fact, with Chrome's regular additions and changes, developers have to keep up to ensure they are taking advantage of everything available. "
Uh, no. You don't. The page you developed yesterday (or in 2000) should display just the same if you did it right in the first place. If not it's the browsers fault, not yours for "not keeping up". It's a fucking web browser.
Web developers: You should be avoiding non-standard browser capabilities like the plague. Period.
And in Google's case, where they have a solid record of abandoning projects many people depend upon at the drop of a virtual hat, you're taking a significant risk if you hitch your cart to their projects
Chrome's non-standard bits can be reasonably described as the ActiveX of this particular time period.
As Dr. Frank N. Furter has said: "Do you want them to see you... LIKE THIS???"
If you really think these things are valuable and should be supported, the smart thing to do is to work to see them become standards, wait for the resulting standards to be supported by all the major players, and then use them.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
One thing I liked more about Chrome than IE is that it was closer to being standard. It didn't change every version and was almost always backwards compatible with previous versions.
This non-standard CSS Grid Layout, which, may be a great idea, is completely useless unless it is a standard used by all browsers.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I think you missed the point of the GP. It doesn't matter that Chrome is the defacto standard, browser specific extensions are a terrible idea. Period. I'm going to guess you're fairly young and don't remember the fiasco that IE6 was. It was the defacto standard of the time with a market share that makes Chromes current market share seem insignificant. They added their specific extensions and it threw the entire web into chaos. It took some 15 years to recover from. The shockwaves are still being felt to this day some 20 years later.
Learn from history, don't repeat it. Browser specific extensions seem like a good idea at the time, but help no one in the long run. It just causes compatibility nightmares for years.