How's my code? Improved or not?

If IE didn't exist, it'll be easy. :S

I just hope I can follow along. I'm trying to digest a little about 15% of the meat. Noob me, there's a lot to learn. Thanks!

 

The laugh though being WHY IE is so 'hard' to deal with -- while the obvious reason is that in the middle of IE 6 being "the only browser that mattered" at it's 93 to 98% of the market (depending on who's numbers you used) microsoft pulled the plug on it's development team and let it rot on the vine for years... the deeper rooted cause was them implementing much of CSS from IE4 through IE 5.5 while it was still in DRAFT, particularly the fact that with 5.5 onward developers started deploying pages built around that draft; when the final bore no resemblance particularly on things like the box-model Microsoft was left with a choice -- break all the sites built around the draft IE 5.x was built to show, or not adopt the new standard. They TRIED to compromise by having the doctype be the switch, but the REAL problem was that developers started deploying a draft spec before it was finalized.

Does that sound at ALL familiar compared to today? Again, there's a reason I call a certain specification the "worst of 1997 coding practices" -- since it quite literally feels like history repeating itself, and why I'm sitting here for all the "advertising can pay for everything" and "Sophisticated Internet investor, will give money for vague promises" folks to all get screwed by the second dotcom bust that's been looming on the horizon. Same exact mistakes being made all over again, mostly thanks to apathy, laziness, and just plain wishful thinking.

 

I see you're always talking about the importance of accessibility as well... and ofcourse why not use HTML5. But HTML5 is already happening NOW (we have already counted years) and it seems very unlikely that they would drop the current spec, these *sectioning tags* and all that stuff. I mean, you would also say that there are *few* good things that you like about it (HTML5). Can you check this read if you would be so kind.

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/truth-about-structuring-html5-page

Thanks!

 

People said the same thing about CENTER and FONT. SOME people even still use them. Doesn't make them any good. Newer isn't always better.

Right now, there's only one thing I have nice words for -- finally saying in the specification what a HR has meant since HTML 2. The more I stew on it, the more I play with it, the less and less I like anything about it.

See, to me if you're not going to use the structural tags, you have to start looking at everything else. There are NO user agents that use ARIA roles for a damned thing... nor from what I'm hearing is there likely to be, so just what the hell are they for? Code bloat and to make people THINK they're doing something about accessibility, when to be frank they're just deluding themselves.

The microformats BS is the same BS the microformats junkies jonesed for a decade ago before we had HTML 5 and they just sat around abusing ABBR with TITLE for their data scraping BS. (anybody got a clothespin for my nose?) We go down that road and a decade from now we'll have NOUN, ADVERB and ADJECTIVE tags. Sooner or later you have to let the content speak for itself, that's why we have language with words in it. If a search engine is too stupid to handle that, how the hell have they even worked the past 18 to 20 years? Much less on much wimpier hardware than we have today?

The only ones who benefit from that type of crap are data scrapers, the type of plagiarists site owners often come to forums like this asking how to keep them from doing that!

One line in that article I do like is ""Me and other WHATWG contributors [added them], [in] 2004ish, because they were obvious elements to add after seeing how authors used HTML4." -- since even today only a handful of people used 'real' HTML 4 much less does so properly, and instead the mass of developers sleaze out HTML 3.2 and slaps 4 tranny or 5 lip service around it, creating an AUTHORITATIVE document based on sleazy half assed practices is just stupid. There's a reason that for almost a decade I've called them the WhatThe****WG. These dumbasses wouldn't know semantic markup if it stripped naked, painted itself purple and hopped up on a table to sing "Oh look at what a big paragraph I am!"

Maybe it's my engineering background, but to me a specification is an authoritative document that tells you HOW to do things, NOT simply documentation of how people happen to be doing it... and they now actually try to describe the train wreck known as HTML 5 as such -- a 'living document' simply saying what browser makers happen to implement or what people just happen to be writing any-old-way. How in the blue blazes does that make a 'specification'?!?

Of course with the W3C being as toothless and consistent as the UN, WhatWG going into noodle doodle 'living document' land, all in support of a uselessly forgiving specification who's user agents plod on past even the worst of errors to let any inept dumbass make a page, who cares if it's useful or not much less easy for anyone else to work with... Let's just once again say my disgust to the point of nausea with the industry as a whole continues to fester like an open wound.

There are times I wonder if a monopoly with a benevolent dictator might not be a bad idea.

It's like this crazy BS idea I keep hearing on how loosening rules and adding more code is somehow EASIER. What the HELL people?!? Clear strict rules tell you how to do it without screwing up... what the hell is so hard about that?!?

 

How they can be so wrong about HTML5, aren't they experts? :S Now I wonder if it will be finished at all.

So what about using it the right way? I mean, if you know which part of HTML5 to use?

 

To me, the right way means not using any of it, at which point why slap the 5 lip service doctype on it at all? I don't see anything in terms of new tags or attributes I "need" much less want in building a website. If you're not going to use the HTML 5 parts of the HTML 5 specification, why lie, use it's doctype, and piss all over having validation that means a damned thing thanks to the idiotically loosened structural rules? It offers NOTHING of value that I can see or can't live without.

If I'm just going to write 4 Strict/X1 strict, why lie about it? That's just doing the same thing as the re-re's who still write HTML 3.2 and until a couple years ago slapped 4 tranny around it.... which of course is EXACTLY who HTML 5 is meant for. It sure as shine-ola offers NOTHING of value to anyone who actually embraced and used STRICT properly.

When you say "which part of 5 to use?" -- that's my question, "What part WOULD I use?"

My answer is none of it! There's nothing in there I see a legitimate reason to use... except MAYBE pacifying the dumbasses who let Apple walk all over them by actively blocking the presence of Flash... and you know what, if they are DUMB ENOUGH to let Apple get away with that ****, **** 'em.

 

Oh, and to be 100% clear, I'm referring to HTML 5 from a markup standpoint -- all the actually cool and useful stuff like the new JS functions and CSS3, have absolutely nothing to do with writing HTML, and as such have ZERO business in a markup specification.

But as I've said several dozen times the past few years, they had to slap those under HTML 5's banner or the emperor would be standing there bare for all the world to see.

 

In writing *HTML*, as you said, yes. But are there CSS3 features exclusive to *HTML5*? They made it look like so.

 

There isn't a thing you can do using CSS3 that can't be done in older doctypes -- that's part of the lie. 99.999% of the 'cool stuff' people run their mouths about being HTML 5 can still be done in the older doctypes; see the new scripting stuff and everything CSS3. There is NO reason you can't use ALL of CSS3 with XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4 - It's another of the bullshit misconceptions that seem to be actively encouraged to try and lure people into thinking HTML 5 actually offers anything.

Hell, I can use CANVAS without making the markup invalid -- since it only works in Javascript, it should be added BY the script like any other good scripting, part of why I say there's no legitimate reason for it to even have a tag. (since that's noscript's job). Same goes for garbage like PROGRESS and METER. Neither one of which would actually convey non-scripting content and as such has no business in the markup.

Though admittedly, that attitude comes from the thing I had drilled into my head about accessible javascript by Dan Schulz, you should make the page work completely without javascript FIRST, THEN enhance it with scripting as desired. An attitude lost on all the re-re's who start out with 100k or more javascript before they even have working markup of content thanks to diving for the dumbass scripting libraries and gee ain't it neat crap that has no damned business on a website in the first place!

It's like the people who run their mouths about how cool CSS3 is, and then only show examples using the vendor specific prefixes and no prefix-less code. If it has the vendor specific prefix like -webkit or -moz, it's NOT CSS3.

-webkit-border-radius:0.5em; /* not CSS3 */
-moz-border-radius:0.5em; /* not CSS3 */
border-radius:0.5em; /* THIS IS CSS 3! */

Even worse, properties that do not even exist in the CSS3 specification and only exist in rendering engines like webkit are often called CSS3... even ones I use:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/text-size-adjust

Is NOT CSS3, even though three of the four major engines support it. (the fourth one, Opera, doesn't need it because Mini and Mobile don't pull the stupid stunts the others do in the first place)

That's why it used to be CSS was a SEPARATE specification from HTML, and why Javascript was a SEPARATE specification from HTML, and why it should have STAYED THAT WAY!!! That way you can update one without calling all of it a 'new specification', or even add/remove/choose which ones to use or which not to use. See javascript, where originally the idea of SCRIPT was to allow OTHER languages to be used should something better come along (hence the now deprecated LANGUAGE attribute). That got shitcanned right quick... anybody remember "Orange"? Nope, didn't think so.

I suspect slapping it all together is part is why they started the whole 'living document' crap... because god forbid you have an authoritative document with actual versioning. That might actually qualify as a specification.

But no they're slapping it all under the same banner because they don't want the truth about HTML 5 to come out; that as a markup "specification" (and yes, I'm making those quotes in the air with my fingers) it's pointless bloat, the worst of 1997 practices, pisses on accessibility, and reeks of the same idiotic philosophy that gave us HTML 3.2 in the first blasted place! Sadder still is it being sold to people as cleaner/leaner markup, being more accessible, and forward thinking; the exact opposite of most everything it provides!

But then if the past 15 years have proven anything, it's that most web developers don't want cleaner markup, accessibility, or forward thinking design an development... and are under the delusion that making more work for themselves is actually easier.

 

No, CSS has nothing to do with HTML, as such. Nor does JS. It's kind of annoying that people call all these things "HTML5." HTML5 introduces a few new markup elements, that's all. Other than that, browsers are gaining new capabilities, like offline storage and all that, which are accessed by JS, and have nothing to do with HTML5. It's just that the people who are developing HTML5 are also proposing these new browser features, and so they all get bundled together under one banner, for some strange reason.

 

Can you explain *even more* about making a fluid/elastic/semi-fluid layout/design. Admittedly, I'm one of those "I can do it in Photoshop" guy. (sigh)

Thanks thanks!

 

Nice writeup, deathshadow. One suggestion going around now is that it's better to use

-webkit-text-size-adjust:100%;

rather than

-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;

as it doesn't have the same issue for desktop Safari. Personally, I'm happy just to do what you do and put it in a media query, but anyhow, there's another way, it seems. (I've still not gotten around to testing it, I admit.)

[edit]Wow, just got totally confused by the layout of this page. There were hidden posts? What's the point of that? So my answer is a long way from the relevant post I was commenting on. I should have quoted it.

 

Except that value doesn't work properly on any android devices I've tested -- so they are NOT the same thing.

 

Interesting. I don't have one of those.

 

Actually, I stand corrected... none works on my Ice Cream Sandwich tablet. It does NOT work on Honeycomb/earlier.

But that's Webkit on most any platform for you -- a moving target... Be even more interesting to see what happens with "blink" which is supposed to have an even faster rate of change once separated from Apple's silliness.