Hi,

This is my first post so hello everyone! I have been working in the website design industry for nearly 10 years now adn I just thought I would share with you a few personal questinos / gripes.

1) Why is is that we have w3c which produces some very good standardisation esspecially with technologies such as CSS but that all the time the browser software companies esspecially Internet Exploder refuse to keep to the standards. Surelly the idea of a standard is that it is standard.
2) Due to the above fact those web designers amongst us who have to cater for an 3rd world market have to write their web site in tables so that they are backward compatibel with older browsers which make up a large proportion of the w3rd world market.
3) Surelly it makes 100% sense to use css for style isses. So why can't we just get it sorted out I mean miscrosoft spend millions on HCI / Marketing/ Product Development but never ever worry about standards.

Very irritating.

Allan

As a fellow developer I can empathize. I don't think it's all so bad though. IE at least from version 5 on can handle a lot of css. I think the majority at least will have that level of broswer though I'm not really familiar enough with the 3rd world market to know for certain.

I think the popularity of Firefox will make Microsoft work to get IE more compliant, but since 5.0 a lot of css can be used. There are a few things here and there I wish I could use more, but for the most part it's not that bad. Just took some time to understand what I could and couldn't do.

Unfortunately for too long IE was basically the only browser anyone used so regardless of the w3c standards the IE standards were the only ones that mattered for all practical purposes. I think it's changing for the better though with new competition.

For my part I code to a minimum of IE 5.0. Seems to be fine for my visitors and I think catering to older browsers only keeps them in use longer. Money isn't an issue since browsers are free. It doesn't take much to upgrade an older browser or download a new one.

Like i've said before in many other places... <table> married <font> and ran off together never to be seen again... and they were wed by the evil (but o'so intriguing) minister of CSS.

I find it rather ironic that the W3C has one of the most hideous websites ever. The usability of their navigation depends on your needs, but it usually takes me awhile to find what I need.


You have to remember that the W3C has no 'real' power over the browsers. They simply rally the community together and beg browser companies to standardize. unfortunatly IE is less concerned about standardization and more on money. I find developing for FireFox to be much easier now, considering it is open source created by Developers.

Originally Posted by Websitedesignuk

2) Due to the above fact those web designers amongst us who have to cater for an 3rd world market have to write their web site in tables so that they are backward compatibel with older browsers which make up a large proportion of the w3rd world market.

Considering how many browsers are free and easy to download I really don't agree with this. I feel I can safely assume even 3rd World computers come with the latest browser. For a browser to stay competitive they still have to be on the latest technology. If you know of 3rd world browsers that don't support CSS please let us know about them. Also if you have a resource showing browser used by them that would be of great help to others.

1) MS didn't care about standards because they won the browser war 10 years ago.

2) You can't blame Microsoft for the millions....scratch that...BILLIONS of people that don't do windows updates and are still running IE 5 or *gasp* IE 5 on Mac OS X. IE 7 fixes a lot of the standards compliance issues...which, in turn, breaks every hack done for previous versions of IE. But, then again, the billions mentioned will not update windows, and they'll still be using IE 5.

3) It'll be a long time before CSS becomes the de facto for layout. For reasons 1 and 2.

Originally Posted by techwench

2) You can't blame Microsoft for the millions....scratch that...BILLIONS of people that don't do windows updates and are still running IE 5 or *gasp* IE 5 on Mac OS X.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

I tend to believe these figures. Only 60% of the internet population use IE6 while 25% uses FireFox. IE5 is hardly a consideration for designing for if only 5.7% use it. And with these statistics IE5 on Mac would be less than 3.6%.

When it does come to designing your site find what YOUR target audience uses and build your site for their machines. If your Mac.com it makes sense that every aspect of the site works for Mac and PC. However if your billybob.com and your aiming at 18-25yr old gamers, chances are FireFox, IE6 on a PC with 1024x768+ is your target audience. Now if your aiming at older people who don't use computers much IE5 would definitely be a good compatability need.

SlayersOtaku (love that series, btw)...you're partially correct. I was making a general statement: People don't run their updates.

BUT, the statistics shown on w3 is from their log files.

(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures)

The normal poulation of average-joe users don't visit w3schools. Taking logs from a talent/model school site I did a while back, as of yesterday, the top browser is ie6 with 90%. Of that 90%, the #2 browser is *gasp* IE 5.5 mac. Firefox comes in at 4%.

My personal site (which is not exclusively technical, but moreso than the average joe's), firefox is at #2 with 40% of the viewers.

You're right in the respect that it depends on your target audience. I totally agree with that. But spouting numbers from a website that normal people wouldn't visit (the same normal people that will probably be visiting 90% of the website ever created) is not accurate at all.

Curses my plot has be foiled. After I posted I was wondering if they were reading from their logs or not. Guess they were, those jerks. That was definitely a my bad situation.

Originally Posted by techwench

My personal site (which is not exclusively technical, but moreso than the average joe's), firefox is at #2 with 40% of the viewers.

Good thing I'm not an average Joe.. sorry I always have to say that when I hear that expression.

This seems to be one of those grey areas for many webmaster when it comes to specific browsers and versions. But I'm glad we can all agree more so on designing for target audiences.

I'll add my own agreement for designing for your target audience.

As for browser versions I think it's pretty safe designing for IE5 as a minimum. If I'm not mistaken IE5 became available with Windows 98 which would mean if you're using something older then you haven't upgraded your browser or operating system in 8 years. Something tells me that people who are using browsers older than IE5 aren't online all that much.

My problem with internet explorer's handling of css is that they made up a bunch of their own css like all those image effects. The problem is that none of it works with any other browser. I completely agree that microsoft should follow the standards set by the w3c. LIke the original post said... why bother have them if no one follows them?
As far as using tables vs pure css positioning. I think that using tables is a very good way to do your layout. I like to use a combination of css and tables. Like doing positioning and layout with tables then doing my formating of that layout and the positioned objects with css. tables aren't dead in my opinion. I think they are probably the most useful aspect of html and i don't really see them going anywhere. Anyone who has done an advanced design with just pure css realizes that it is incredibly difficult and time consuming. The other problem is that it won't look the same in all browsers unless you make a couple of style sheets or keep the css very rudimentary.
That's just my opinion on the matter though.

I think it's best to move to the pure css layouts. Tables were never meant to be used to layout a website. It was just a very clever hack. It does take a little time to learn to use css to layout an entire design, but once you learn it's just as easy as using tables and actually has many more possibilites than tables will allow.

Modern browsers can handle css positioning and those that don't are really the older browsers that most of us don't develop for anyway.

It does take some time to go from tables to pure css. All of my sites are inbetween migration. I usually have css on static pages, I haven't had much time to experiement with css and dynamic content.

Honestly you can use all those browser specific css. The only issue is making sure the site works on all browsers before adding extras for 1 browser. It doesn't hurt that there are more fun features on IE as long as the FF version works just as well with less flair.

I think it is invaluable to learn CSS based design, once you get it down the options and abilities are head over heals better than trying to deal with a table.

Table based designs really have no advantage in my opinon, other than possibly speed of design. However, if you are more concerned about speed than quality, you are in the wrong business.

Take the time to learn CSS, it is worth it's weight in gold.

-Ross

I've always had the idea that it doesn't matter what you use to get your designs right. As long as it works in the required browsers, and the client is happy then who cares if you use tables or CSS? Personally I use a mix of both, but it doesn't matter to me. If I go to a site I'm not going to pull up their source code and judge them based on how they coded the site....as long as it works the way its intended, then that's all that matters.

I can sympathize with the W3C standards. From what I've heard, IE 7 will be the most accurate render of a website based on the standards though. Regardless of all this though, its all about the end result. I don't think anything will change my mind despite all the bickering that will never end - "CSS vs. Tables" or "IE vs. FireFox". If it works, that's all that matters. That's my two cents.

I think there are many advantages to using css over tables. And more I think in time those adavntages will give css coders a competitive advantage. The debate may seem old to some, but for most of the people who will become clients the word is just getting out.

This thread got me thinking and the other day I posted to my blog about The Benefits of Cascading Style Sheets for anyone who's interested.