> and i seriously doubt microsoft would be able to figure out how to make it so that no third party encryption works with their database, nor would they want to, as their primary agenda right now is clearly security.
The point I was making is that many companies will believe that the MS encryption is all they need, and that will likely leave many systems open for attack, when the next round of security holes are uncovered.
That, and the point that you can't apply the same logic for closed source and open source systems -- it's suicide.
I think it bothers me that MS SQL will have its own security, because I think that third party security, at least in the case of Microsoft products, dramatically increases the overall security. It never pays to have a false sense of security, and with all Microsoft products, we must beware of their security strategy. At least with getting more people involved with third party security, you get a new perspective on things. MySQL is open source so it has this added perspective by default.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can't compare closed source with Open Source. It would be dangerous to.
For me, the best aspect of the Shrek 2 experience was the movie itself, not the locations, props or actors necessarily, but that whole experience. The graphics were just right, right enough to allow the experience of the film to come to life. That's what has been missing for so many years in animation. And that's why the tech is important so that the audience can see past the technology and get the point of the picture. I can see oscars for Shrek 2 and more than a few, methinks. It was splendid.
> Most of the people who jump on the "XHTML is the future" bandwagon somehow get mixed up into thinking XHTML doesn't contain all the presentational crap that HTML does. That is the difference between Transitional and Strict, not the difference between HTML and XHTML.
You have to start somewhere. I think you have a good point here, but for me, the use of XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS has been nothing but a benefit to my websites, and I happen to also think that it's perfectly feasible to create well-formed XHTML, and beneficial.
Many of the html tags you're pointing at are depricated with CSS. Why use them? Do you know how much processing power and bandwidth is wasted by websites pushing font tags instead of properly using CSS? It's wasteful.
Nice Troll comment. If you're going to contradict someone, the least you could do is back it up with some kind of supporting statements, theories, logic or even some common sense (if you have to scrape the barrel). All you did was contradict everything I wrote! What a waste of time.
Kirk. Might. Be. A. Dream. Some. One. Had. And. Bab. A. Lon. Five. Could. Be. The. Real. World. Which. Would. Be. An. Ex. Cell. Ent. Way. To. Re. Vamp. That. Old. Am. A. Zing. Series.
The. Head. In. A. Jar. Sounds. Won. Der. Full. And. Ber. Man. Will. Use. It. On. Star. Trek. The. Next. Next. Gen. Er. A. Shun.
> If you put CSS in a style tag, it will fail to work. In any browser. In any document. Please learn the difference between a tag and an element before trying to teach newbies.
Forgive my lack of correct grammar, in all my comments, and I'll forgive your lack of Netiquette.
HTML tags are what go between <&>, and attributes are what follow the tag name;
ie:
<body class="this"> </body>
This statement would look for the CSS/style class:
.this{background-color:#000000}
...and apply it to all the content of the body.
I hope that clarifies my meaning somewhat.
> You seem confused about what XHTML is. XHTML 1.0, the only form of XHTML that is viable for the web, is merely a reformulation of HTML 4.01 in XML syntax. It has no special relationship to CSS. Perhaps you are confusing HTML vs XHTML with Transitional vs Strict?
I have no idea what you're saying. My point was that using any form of XHTML without CSS would be a waste of time and energy, unless you're coding extremly boring websites, or websites with a lot of Flash content.
What exactly would you suggest using without CSS if you were using XHTML? It seems rather bold of you to suggest another way, without actually identifying it.
I would not confuse transitional with strict because I only use strict.;-)
> Whoever speculated that Shatner would be playing Kirk either has an even lower opinion of Berman than I do (which is saying a great deal), or is even more of a moron than Berman and Braga (which is saying even more).
That would be me you're talking about. I speculated that Shatner would play Kirk because I can't see him playing anything else; seriously, can you? He's typcast, and even in other stuff he's done since I can't get the green chicks out of my mind, and the DUH-DUH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH Duh-duh, music when he fights Spock, who is suffering from Pon Farr in the episode Amok Time.
I'm sure most people are dreading this, many will watch the episode with Kirk, and I'm guessing that is why Berman decided to do this. Like him or not, Shatner is an "anomaly off the port bow", and that means ratings, whether we like it or not, whether it's good or not; viewers will be a'plenty.
> It's horrible that so many people are finally starting to live the effects of being longtime smokers... and yet many people who end up with throat cancer or emphysema are still unable to quit.
I was a smoker for about ten years, and I quit for over a couple years. What I found was that it was harder for me to breathe once I was quit than now that I've started smoking again. My sinuses are now back in order, and working great now that I have started smoking again.
I think the problem with smoking is that once you start there is pretty much no hope for you, today. When you quit you are more likely to suffer from allergies and ailments than when you smoke. Plus there is the whole mood factor. When I was smoke-free, I was cranky all the time, and almost depressed.
So essentially we're looking at quality of life vs. length of life. I'll take quality thank you very much!:-)
What we need to do is find a way to counteract the adverse effects of smoking, and stop pandering to health-nuts who think smoking is bad and must be stopped. I am a careful smoker who doesn't smoke around others, but that doesn't mean I should have fewer rights than someone who doesn't smoke. What it means is that the health industry should look at how to deal with the countless smokers out there without forcing them to quit. Once you do that, it will be much better to cure the whole problem. There is no help for someone who has quit smoking, at least in Ontario. No doctor wants to hear you complain about how stuffed up you are because you quit. They think it's your fault and pretty much do very little to make being smoke-free of any use at all.
I just feel better and healthier, smoking. Take away the adverse problems from quitting and living smoke-free, and I'll be first in line. The damage is already done to my system, and science can't fix it, yet.
> Actually, tech like PHP/ASP/JSP/CF/Perl/.NET/etc has killed a lot of the *need* for seperating content and presentaiton on the client-level.
I strongly disagree. You're starting to discuss programming standards and it's paramount to modularize code from data and data from formatting; it's just so much faster to make system-wide changes if you do!
> It's already being done on the server-side, where it matters. Content is in the database, presentation (html soup) is generated by the templating engine. It's ugly but it works.
Sure, but without conforming to standards, you're going to lose out on the cross-browser ease you'll find with XHTML/CSS. Just keep it simple and you'll be fine.
> For example, if CmdrTaco wants to search for a particular comment, he'll find it much easier to run a SQL statement than to do an XPath query on generated XHTML.
I think it's good to use SQL for all your data needs. But that's not really what we're talking about. I think we're talking about standards compliance and any system with strict standards will trump a loose system any day for ease of use, ease of design and ease of alteration.
> If slashdot had clean, structured HTML, it wouldn't make the comments any better. (although the page might load faster)
And that's the point; the point is to lighten the load on all your pages, keeping them clean and smart. Doing so will save you money, and impress your customers.
> all of the examples I have seen do not accomplish the separation of content and layout which CSS seems to promise
The very best use of XHTML and CSS is by adding PHP into the mix. With PHP you can quickly generate your content using a template, without having to grow your XHTML out of control.
This project lets you quickly design an XHTML template that goes with a CSS stylesheet, and then just leave it alone, running your site much more efficiently.
Features include, but are not limited to: photo/image uploading, safe image authorization by an admin, link submission, story submission, comments, user registration and validation, password changing if you forget your password, XHTML 1.0 Strict, PHP generated CSS (so you can write CSS using PHP), templates, admin contact form, FAQ generation, autologon, and a fairly good tracking system to know where links are coming from. That's just a start, really.
Images will display in articles if they are authorized images. The way the image code works is that images are uploaded and stuff into a database for approval. When they are approved they are written to the FTP and snuffed out of the database. When an admin is looking at the images that are not approved, the image validates the admin's session and only writes the image if the admin is valid. That keeps people from spamming your site with crappy images, and it prevents ftp uploading that could result in legal action.
> There is more to separation than just this however. In particular, I have to wonder what will happen to CSS Zen Garden if the content of the page is changed, say a paragraph is suddenly twice as long or goes away or an extra paragraph appears.
The trick is to create a template that supports dynamic text, using either classes or id tags based on the type of data. To do so is not easy; it's hard, but when you get it right, it's good to go. It's fairly simple to expand div tags so they can support dynamic content; the hard part is making a really nice looking site that conforms.
I did a page for a company before that resulted in some problems with the background image they wanted to use, as some pages dropped past the threshold of the image, and using another scroll-bar is never the answer (ie: don't use the CSS overflow attribute or use it very sparingly).
The solution? I posted the image in the main area, and simply designed the website around it. The background image became a seamless concrete texture.
So you have to work around problems with how we understand the web, and how the web works best. It's our problem, not the standards, IMHO.
> The style sheets include knowledge of the content and depend on it to fit inside certain boundaries. The prevalant use of ID tags (rather than descriptive style tags) really seems to underscore this.
Well we do have boundaries to work within; the browser window, but apart from that, we could really learn how to use the class attribute better so that the boundaries are more dynamic. Using the percent % width value, works wonders, but it's hard to sometimes get it right. I define my sheets as static size and let the end user worry about scrolling over if they have a small resolution; I just design it to work nicely with 800x600 and go from there. I too had many problems with CSS in the beginning but I'm far better at it than I once was. PHP created CSS works wonders.
> It seems like there should almost be three files: (at least) one for the content, one for general style rules, and one for local tweaks for the current page (laying out specific graphics).
PHP generated CSS will do this nicely. I can help you do some if you want to contact me, just click my site link. =)
> If you can come up with a single persuasive reason why anyone should use XHTML 1.0 over HTML 4.01 I'll be impressed.
It's because XHTML will parse every time, when the code is written correctly. There are so many exceptions to rules in HTML that it makes it much more difficult for browsers to get on the same page, even when users are writing correct code. By eliminating bad/wrong/redundant attributes, you get a better result over more browsers/systems. That is the best single persuavive arguement I can think of, and it's why I use XHTML. For example, I have a pocket pc that can read my website because it's XHTML 1.0 Strict, but if I used some strange things with HTML to get similar results, my pocket pc might not read the site correctly. Also, readers for the blind have a much better time with XHTML than they do with plain HTML. Forcing images to have alt tags, for example, makes it much easier for blind users to get a sense of what's in the picture. Furthermore, forcing the use of web entities over an "anything goes" philosophy enables many other operating systems to view your website when you code with XHTML.
> I've been making web pages for 7 years, but it's only in the 18 months or so that I've really become so convinced and enamored of the wisdom of css for real separation of content from presentation.
I have to really agree with you on this. The wisdom of separating content from format is critical to any single application, and it's a standard that should spread through the rest of the programming world, and not be limited to web design.
Games, for example, run faster when they have been coded with proper standards similar to CSS and XHTML. Keep the logic and the rendering separate, keep the audio separate, and the resources separate. Join them at runtime with hooks into each from the main engine. That's why games that are designed with a good set of standards all play faster, with better framerates, than those that mix things up too much, or are coded sloppily.
I think that the most important development on the web was separating logic from data, and data from format. PHP, XHTML and CSS make a killer combo!
Statements like this illuminate a kind of ineptitude that is too revealing for a place like Slashdot. If you dislike CSS or you have had a hard time using it... if you are frustrated with it: ask for help, or just simply state that you are frustrated. Don't bash the standard because you have had a hard time with it.
The templates on csszengarden.com are all created by graphic artists who believe in CSS and what it can do. They don't spend months on each template. In fact, I find it easier to create fast, graphically appealing websites with XHTML/CSS than I have ever created with HTML and Microsoft-friendly tag attributes. It all comes down to compliance and follwing the rules. Maybe CSS needs some refinement, and that I won't debate, but to bash the whole standards seems rather uninformed.
> A good example of the futility of working with the CSS standard is Jeffrey Zeldman's site www.zeldman.com. This site has been through so many redesigns yet inevitably each new redesign breaks in some major browser or other.
Maybe he's redesigned it so many times because it's fast and easy to do so? Part of the problem with many standards is when designers try to take it too far. They should all just keep it simple and the results will be better; there will be less trouble. The web is for information distribution, and therefore it's quite possible to create an appealing website that doesn't break browsers.
The trouble with standards, starts and stops with the browsers that try to change the standards to support some kind of corporate domination theory. When browsers support standards, the way they were meant to be supported, browsers wouldn't break when reading sites designed with standards.
Read all the notes on w3schools.com, and use google religiously when you have questions. Also, be sure to look at the CSS source code on csszengarden.com, because it can save you a lot of time to learn through example. Keep it simple, too.
> I've managed to get my head around XHTML, but when I try to use CSS, I have trouble doing even the most basic layouts that could easily be achieved with s.
I had the same problem, until I ditched tables for div tags and css classes. Using the id tag is the key to getting layout right, and nesting your divs correctly will help too.
Start with one container div that holds everything, and that's your page. Give it an id class like: id="container", and in CSS, use the # symbol to identify it.
They kinda have to at this point. The Slash system is too entrenched in HTML to change direction. Why? Because many comments would break XHTML, and there is no point using CSS without using XHTML, IMHO.
> With CSS, nothing seems to 'just work' on every browser. The W3C specs are confusing. And there's no decent HTML/CSS editor (as in the Dreamweaver kind, not the Vim kind) that I know of for Linux, so it has to be done by hand or elsewhere (Wine/Windows, et cetera).
I recommend doing everything by hand. You'll learn more and your code won't break as much, and you can quickly repair it if you know your system well. Or you could just download a package that lets you quickly post news to your site without having to change your templates every page. I've created one at sourceforge called Gemsites that will be releasing a 2.0 version soon, and while Gemsites used to be a Slash clone, it's now a standards compliant blog/photoblog package.
> What's the best way for a n00b like myself to learn and use CSS in the real world, where some people use Mozilla, some use Opera and Konqueror, and a lot of people use Internet Explorer?
Talk to people like me over email and I'll help you.:-)
> But really, standards tend to stifle innovation. Perhaps I could reword your statement to: But really, standards have stifled innovation, and they don't have to.
I don't think there is a need to get XHTML and CSS all gooped full of new features, so I hope it doesn't go in that direction. I know Microsoft will try and take it in that direction to compliment their overcomplicated Long Horn. In my opinion as a user of XHTML and CSS with PHP, I believe that what is required is simlification so that everyday users will want to use XHTML with CSS. Products could provide this but I still think the best way to code websites is by hand. XHTML and CSS are quite satisfactory at this point, but perhaps they may require some refinement. Please no more crazy features, because you can save that for DHTML and Flash (yuck, but good for some). Take a look at CSSzengarden.com if you are not yet convinced in XHTML with CSS is artistically pleasing enough for you. It's a better standard than many websites around.
> The idea is to make you pay for not having to revinvent the wheel everytime.
Why should you have to pay for a wheel? Imagine if everyone alive contributed to the decendants of the guy who first invented the wheel! Every car on the road would cost that much more, for example. That cost is prohibitive to our progress.
Information and design methods should be free from patent restrictions. Supply and demand always sort themselves out. For example, if you took all the patents away, customer service would improve greatly because companies would strive to be the best company, with the best service and reputation, in order to retain your business.
When patents come into play, you have companies who can dish out second-hand service because they hold the monopoly on X-invention, and that's bad!
Patents used to be there to protect the inventor's interests so that we could have more and more inventions, but nowadays the costs of patents are so prohibitive that they are pretty much pointless! Plus, most inventors are screwed out of their work far before they can obtain a patent, so the patents only serve to secure rights for those undeserving, 9/10 times.
> As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive. Copyrights can encourage creativity, patents just encourage people to make a product then rape and pillage their industry.
I agree with both of these sentiments. The universe has existed far longer than humanity, and therefore it is totally impossible for us to invent anything beyond method, and all methods are available to us since the dawn of time. While I may be Christian, I am a science-based one; ie: the Bible is a good reference for parable and theories for understanding, and I believe that is the purpose of the tome.
That said, the patents seem to go against the scientific flow of time, by blocking inventions that build on the history of human science and discovery.
Why we have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to build a useful product or service is why we are evolving slower than we could. Darwin said that impediments in evolution, or road blocks, must be removed for a species to adapt and overcome. Are we going to adapt? To me, patents infringe on life and our chances of survival as a species.
I'm sorry but this is fucking retarded. Why would anyone think it would be okay to sue a company named Google for using a possible variant of the un-trademarked word Googol to describe a business that creates a data searching system? If there is a connection, why doesn't dictionary.com show one in the google definition? I could see perhaps a case if Google was called Googol, but this appears to be nothing more than a cash grab by a family of broke twits. Besides, the guy didn't invent the word! His 9 year old nephew did! From that link: The american mathematician Edward Kasner once asked his nine-year-old nephew to invent a name for a very large number, ten to the power of one hundred; and the boy called it a googol.
Slashdot Mirror
When I first read this, I figured they musta used cartoon versions of the Vans from yesterday's Slashdot story.
> and i seriously doubt microsoft would be able to figure out how to make it so that no third party encryption works with their database, nor would they want to, as their primary agenda right now is clearly security.
The point I was making is that many companies will believe that the MS encryption is all they need, and that will likely leave many systems open for attack, when the next round of security holes are uncovered.
That, and the point that you can't apply the same logic for closed source and open source systems -- it's suicide.
I think it bothers me that MS SQL will have its own security, because I think that third party security, at least in the case of Microsoft products, dramatically increases the overall security. It never pays to have a false sense of security, and with all Microsoft products, we must beware of their security strategy. At least with getting more people involved with third party security, you get a new perspective on things. MySQL is open source so it has this added perspective by default.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can't compare closed source with Open Source. It would be dangerous to.
For me, the best aspect of the Shrek 2 experience was the movie itself, not the locations, props or actors necessarily, but that whole experience. The graphics were just right, right enough to allow the experience of the film to come to life. That's what has been missing for so many years in animation. And that's why the tech is important so that the audience can see past the technology and get the point of the picture. I can see oscars for Shrek 2 and more than a few, methinks. It was splendid.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
> Dude...
:-)
Where were you the day they taught punctuation?
Same place as Captain Kirk.
> Most of the people who jump on the "XHTML is the future" bandwagon somehow get mixed up into thinking XHTML doesn't contain all the presentational crap that HTML does. That is the difference between Transitional and Strict, not the difference between HTML and XHTML.
You have to start somewhere. I think you have a good point here, but for me, the use of XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS has been nothing but a benefit to my websites, and I happen to also think that it's perfectly feasible to create well-formed XHTML, and beneficial.
Many of the html tags you're pointing at are depricated with CSS. Why use them? Do you know how much processing power and bandwidth is wasted by websites pushing font tags instead of properly using CSS? It's wasteful.
Nice Troll comment. If you're going to contradict someone, the least you could do is back it up with some kind of supporting statements, theories, logic or even some common sense (if you have to scrape the barrel). All you did was contradict everything I wrote! What a waste of time.
> Hey! Maybe we find out that Kirk's an autistic in a ward on Babylon 5 who just dreamed the whole thing!
I. Think. It's. Statements. Like. This. That. Make. Me. Read. Slashdot. Every. Day.
Kirk. Might. Be. A. Dream. Some. One. Had. And. Bab. A. Lon. Five. Could. Be. The. Real. World. Which. Would. Be. An. Ex. Cell. Ent. Way. To. Re. Vamp. That. Old. Am. A. Zing. Series.
The. Head. In. A. Jar. Sounds. Won. Der. Full. And. Ber. Man. Will. Use. It. On. Star. Trek. The. Next. Next. Gen. Er. A. Shun.
Forgive my lack of correct grammar, in all my comments, and I'll forgive your lack of Netiquette.
HTML tags are what go between <&>, and attributes are what follow the tag name;
ie:This statement would look for the CSS/style class:...and apply it to all the content of the body.
I hope that clarifies my meaning somewhat.
> You seem confused about what XHTML is. XHTML 1.0, the only form of XHTML that is viable for the web, is merely a reformulation of HTML 4.01 in XML syntax. It has no special relationship to CSS. Perhaps you are confusing HTML vs XHTML with Transitional vs Strict?
I have no idea what you're saying. My point was that using any form of XHTML without CSS would be a waste of time and energy, unless you're coding extremly boring websites, or websites with a lot of Flash content.
What exactly would you suggest using without CSS if you were using XHTML? It seems rather bold of you to suggest another way, without actually identifying it.
I would not confuse transitional with strict because I only use strict.
> Whoever speculated that Shatner would be playing Kirk either has an even lower opinion of Berman than I do (which is saying a great deal), or is even more of a moron than Berman and Braga (which is saying even more).
That would be me you're talking about. I speculated that Shatner would play Kirk because I can't see him playing anything else; seriously, can you? He's typcast, and even in other stuff he's done since I can't get the green chicks out of my mind, and the DUH-DUH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH Duh-duh, music when he fights Spock, who is suffering from Pon Farr in the episode Amok Time.
I'm sure most people are dreading this, many will watch the episode with Kirk, and I'm guessing that is why Berman decided to do this. Like him or not, Shatner is an "anomaly off the port bow", and that means ratings, whether we like it or not, whether it's good or not; viewers will be a'plenty.
> It's horrible that so many people are finally starting to live the effects of being longtime smokers... and yet many people who end up with throat cancer or emphysema are still unable to quit.
:-)
I was a smoker for about ten years, and I quit for over a couple years. What I found was that it was harder for me to breathe once I was quit than now that I've started smoking again. My sinuses are now back in order, and working great now that I have started smoking again.
I think the problem with smoking is that once you start there is pretty much no hope for you, today. When you quit you are more likely to suffer from allergies and ailments than when you smoke. Plus there is the whole mood factor. When I was smoke-free, I was cranky all the time, and almost depressed.
So essentially we're looking at quality of life vs. length of life. I'll take quality thank you very much!
What we need to do is find a way to counteract the adverse effects of smoking, and stop pandering to health-nuts who think smoking is bad and must be stopped. I am a careful smoker who doesn't smoke around others, but that doesn't mean I should have fewer rights than someone who doesn't smoke. What it means is that the health industry should look at how to deal with the countless smokers out there without forcing them to quit. Once you do that, it will be much better to cure the whole problem. There is no help for someone who has quit smoking, at least in Ontario. No doctor wants to hear you complain about how stuffed up you are because you quit. They think it's your fault and pretty much do very little to make being smoke-free of any use at all.
I just feel better and healthier, smoking. Take away the adverse problems from quitting and living smoke-free, and I'll be first in line. The damage is already done to my system, and science can't fix it, yet.
> Actually, tech like PHP/ASP/JSP/CF/Perl/.NET/etc has killed a lot of the *need* for seperating content and presentaiton on the client-level.
I strongly disagree. You're starting to discuss programming standards and it's paramount to modularize code from data and data from formatting; it's just so much faster to make system-wide changes if you do!
> It's already being done on the server-side, where it matters. Content is in the database, presentation (html soup) is generated by the templating engine. It's ugly but it works.
Sure, but without conforming to standards, you're going to lose out on the cross-browser ease you'll find with XHTML/CSS. Just keep it simple and you'll be fine.
> For example, if CmdrTaco wants to search for a particular comment, he'll find it much easier to run a SQL statement than to do an XPath query on generated XHTML.
I think it's good to use SQL for all your data needs. But that's not really what we're talking about. I think we're talking about standards compliance and any system with strict standards will trump a loose system any day for ease of use, ease of design and ease of alteration.
> If slashdot had clean, structured HTML, it wouldn't make the comments any better. (although the page might load faster)
And that's the point; the point is to lighten the load on all your pages, keeping them clean and smart. Doing so will save you money, and impress your customers.
> all of the examples I have seen do not accomplish the separation of content and layout which CSS seems to promise
The very best use of XHTML and CSS is by adding PHP into the mix. With PHP you can quickly generate your content using a template, without having to grow your XHTML out of control.
I'm going to be releasing the source code for my blog/photo-blog site over at zenbuzz.org very soon, at sourceforge.net/projects/gemsites.
This project lets you quickly design an XHTML template that goes with a CSS stylesheet, and then just leave it alone, running your site much more efficiently.
Features include, but are not limited to: photo/image uploading, safe image authorization by an admin, link submission, story submission, comments, user registration and validation, password changing if you forget your password, XHTML 1.0 Strict, PHP generated CSS (so you can write CSS using PHP), templates, admin contact form, FAQ generation, autologon, and a fairly good tracking system to know where links are coming from. That's just a start, really.
Images will display in articles if they are authorized images. The way the image code works is that images are uploaded and stuff into a database for approval. When they are approved they are written to the FTP and snuffed out of the database. When an admin is looking at the images that are not approved, the image validates the admin's session and only writes the image if the admin is valid. That keeps people from spamming your site with crappy images, and it prevents ftp uploading that could result in legal action.
> There is more to separation than just this however. In particular, I have to wonder what will happen to CSS Zen Garden if the content of the page is changed, say a paragraph is suddenly twice as long or goes away or an extra paragraph appears.
The trick is to create a template that supports dynamic text, using either classes or id tags based on the type of data. To do so is not easy; it's hard, but when you get it right, it's good to go. It's fairly simple to expand div tags so they can support dynamic content; the hard part is making a really nice looking site that conforms.
I did a page for a company before that resulted in some problems with the background image they wanted to use, as some pages dropped past the threshold of the image, and using another scroll-bar is never the answer (ie: don't use the CSS overflow attribute or use it very sparingly).
The solution? I posted the image in the main area, and simply designed the website around it. The background image became a seamless concrete texture.
So you have to work around problems with how we understand the web, and how the web works best. It's our problem, not the standards, IMHO.
> The style sheets include knowledge of the content and depend on it to fit inside certain boundaries. The prevalant use of ID tags (rather than descriptive style tags) really seems to underscore this.
Well we do have boundaries to work within; the browser window, but apart from that, we could really learn how to use the class attribute better so that the boundaries are more dynamic. Using the percent % width value, works wonders, but it's hard to sometimes get it right. I define my sheets as static size and let the end user worry about scrolling over if they have a small resolution; I just design it to work nicely with 800x600 and go from there. I too had many problems with CSS in the beginning but I'm far better at it than I once was. PHP created CSS works wonders.
> It seems like there should almost be three files: (at least) one for the content, one for general style rules, and one for local tweaks for the current page (laying out specific graphics).
PHP generated CSS will do this nicely. I can help you do some if you want to contact me, just click my site link. =)
> If you can come up with a single persuasive reason why anyone should use XHTML 1.0 over HTML 4.01 I'll be impressed.
It's because XHTML will parse every time, when the code is written correctly. There are so many exceptions to rules in HTML that it makes it much more difficult for browsers to get on the same page, even when users are writing correct code. By eliminating bad/wrong/redundant attributes, you get a better result over more browsers/systems. That is the best single persuavive arguement I can think of, and it's why I use XHTML. For example, I have a pocket pc that can read my website because it's XHTML 1.0 Strict, but if I used some strange things with HTML to get similar results, my pocket pc might not read the site correctly. Also, readers for the blind have a much better time with XHTML than they do with plain HTML. Forcing images to have alt tags, for example, makes it much easier for blind users to get a sense of what's in the picture. Furthermore, forcing the use of web entities over an "anything goes" philosophy enables many other operating systems to view your website when you code with XHTML.
> I've been making web pages for 7 years, but it's only in the 18 months or so that I've really become so convinced and enamored of the wisdom of css for real separation of content from presentation.
I have to really agree with you on this. The wisdom of separating content from format is critical to any single application, and it's a standard that should spread through the rest of the programming world, and not be limited to web design.
Games, for example, run faster when they have been coded with proper standards similar to CSS and XHTML. Keep the logic and the rendering separate, keep the audio separate, and the resources separate. Join them at runtime with hooks into each from the main engine. That's why games that are designed with a good set of standards all play faster, with better framerates, than those that mix things up too much, or are coded sloppily.
I think that the most important development on the web was separating logic from data, and data from format. PHP, XHTML and CSS make a killer combo!
> The CSS standard is crap.
Statements like this illuminate a kind of ineptitude that is too revealing for a place like Slashdot. If you dislike CSS or you have had a hard time using it... if you are frustrated with it: ask for help, or just simply state that you are frustrated. Don't bash the standard because you have had a hard time with it.
The templates on csszengarden.com are all created by graphic artists who believe in CSS and what it can do. They don't spend months on each template. In fact, I find it easier to create fast, graphically appealing websites with XHTML/CSS than I have ever created with HTML and Microsoft-friendly tag attributes. It all comes down to compliance and follwing the rules. Maybe CSS needs some refinement, and that I won't debate, but to bash the whole standards seems rather uninformed.
> A good example of the futility of working with the CSS standard is Jeffrey Zeldman's site www.zeldman.com. This site has been through so many redesigns yet inevitably each new redesign breaks in some major browser or other.
Maybe he's redesigned it so many times because it's fast and easy to do so? Part of the problem with many standards is when designers try to take it too far. They should all just keep it simple and the results will be better; there will be less trouble. The web is for information distribution, and therefore it's quite possible to create an appealing website that doesn't break browsers.
The trouble with standards, starts and stops with the browsers that try to change the standards to support some kind of corporate domination theory. When browsers support standards, the way they were meant to be supported, browsers wouldn't break when reading sites designed with standards.
Read all the notes on w3schools.com, and use google religiously when you have questions. Also, be sure to look at the CSS source code on csszengarden.com, because it can save you a lot of time to learn through example. Keep it simple, too.
> I've managed to get my head around XHTML, but when I try to use CSS, I have trouble doing even the most basic layouts that could easily be achieved with s.
I had the same problem, until I ditched tables for div tags and css classes. Using the id tag is the key to getting layout right, and nesting your divs correctly will help too.
Start with one container div that holds everything, and that's your page. Give it an id class like: id="container", and in CSS, use the # symbol to identify it.
for example (in the CSS file or style tag):That would be for an id tag in your div: > I can understand why Slashdot still uses them.
They kinda have to at this point. The Slash system is too entrenched in HTML to change direction. Why? Because many comments would break XHTML, and there is no point using CSS without using XHTML, IMHO.
> With CSS, nothing seems to 'just work' on every browser. The W3C specs are confusing. And there's no decent HTML/CSS editor (as in the Dreamweaver kind, not the Vim kind) that I know of for Linux, so it has to be done by hand or elsewhere (Wine/Windows, et cetera).
I recommend doing everything by hand. You'll learn more and your code won't break as much, and you can quickly repair it if you know your system well. Or you could just download a package that lets you quickly post news to your site without having to change your templates every page. I've created one at sourceforge called Gemsites that will be releasing a 2.0 version soon, and while Gemsites used to be a Slash clone, it's now a standards compliant blog/photoblog package.
> What's the best way for a n00b like myself to learn and use CSS in the real world, where some people use Mozilla, some use Opera and Konqueror, and a lot of people use Internet Explorer?
Talk to people like me over email and I'll help you.
> But really, standards tend to stifle innovation.
Perhaps I could reword your statement to:
But really, standards have stifled innovation, and they don't have to.
I don't think there is a need to get XHTML and CSS all gooped full of new features, so I hope it doesn't go in that direction. I know Microsoft will try and take it in that direction to compliment their overcomplicated Long Horn. In my opinion as a user of XHTML and CSS with PHP, I believe that what is required is simlification so that everyday users will want to use XHTML with CSS. Products could provide this but I still think the best way to code websites is by hand. XHTML and CSS are quite satisfactory at this point, but perhaps they may require some refinement. Please no more crazy features, because you can save that for DHTML and Flash (yuck, but good for some). Take a look at CSSzengarden.com if you are not yet convinced in XHTML with CSS is artistically pleasing enough for you. It's a better standard than many websites around.
Okay I posted a new journal. :-)
Error! Your patent is invalid. Press the any key.
> The idea is to make you pay for not having to revinvent the wheel everytime.
Why should you have to pay for a wheel? Imagine if everyone alive contributed to the decendants of the guy who first invented the wheel! Every car on the road would cost that much more, for example. That cost is prohibitive to our progress.
Information and design methods should be free from patent restrictions. Supply and demand always sort themselves out. For example, if you took all the patents away, customer service would improve greatly because companies would strive to be the best company, with the best service and reputation, in order to retain your business.
When patents come into play, you have companies who can dish out second-hand service because they hold the monopoly on X-invention, and that's bad!
Patents used to be there to protect the inventor's interests so that we could have more and more inventions, but nowadays the costs of patents are so prohibitive that they are pretty much pointless! Plus, most inventors are screwed out of their work far before they can obtain a patent, so the patents only serve to secure rights for those undeserving, 9/10 times.
> As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive. Copyrights can encourage creativity, patents just encourage people to make a product then rape and pillage their industry.
I agree with both of these sentiments. The universe has existed far longer than humanity, and therefore it is totally impossible for us to invent anything beyond method, and all methods are available to us since the dawn of time. While I may be Christian, I am a science-based one; ie: the Bible is a good reference for parable and theories for understanding, and I believe that is the purpose of the tome.
That said, the patents seem to go against the scientific flow of time, by blocking inventions that build on the history of human science and discovery.
Why we have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to build a useful product or service is why we are evolving slower than we could. Darwin said that impediments in evolution, or road blocks, must be removed for a species to adapt and overcome. Are we going to adapt? To me, patents infringe on life and our chances of survival as a species.
I'm sorry but this is fucking retarded. Why would anyone think it would be okay to sue a company named Google for using a possible variant of the un-trademarked word Googol to describe a business that creates a data searching system? If there is a connection, why doesn't dictionary.com show one in the google definition? I could see perhaps a case if Google was called Googol, but this appears to be nothing more than a cash grab by a family of broke twits. Besides, the guy didn't invent the word! His 9 year old nephew did! From that link: The american mathematician Edward Kasner once asked his nine-year-old nephew to invent a name for a very large number, ten to the power of one hundred; and the boy called it a googol.