KillerSites Blog

General

Welcome to Killersites.com – the blog!

February 10, 2005

What will you find on Killersite’s blog?

  • Web design tips, articles and tutorials.
  • Video tips and tutorials.
  • Podcast: mp3’s of me yapping about things related to web design.
  • Newsletter archives
  • Probably a bunch of other stuff too.

What you won’t find on the blog:

  • Talk about how my cat is doing.
  • Other misc. rants that should only be shared with my girlfriend.

CIAO!

Stefan Mischook

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Using CSS hacks is just plain stupid

February 9, 2005

The Web Standards movement has created a ‘culture of hacks’ to compensate for browser incompatibilities (OK, mostly IE) and this is a bad idea.

Before anyone attempts to tell me that the Web Standards community does not promote the use of hacks, please refer to just about every book written on Web Standards based web design.

Why were hacks promoted?

In a nutshell: those who promoted them are inexperienced … in other words: green. It is simply bad practice to rely on broken aspects of a technology in an attempt to make things work – any programmer worth his salt knows this. And that is exactly what many/most hacks rely on – broken aspects of Internet Explorer.

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Anecdote: I’ve often had to ‘slap-down’ young-pup programmers (just a few years out of school,) when they’ve tried to introduce into the code base, what would be the equivalent of CSS hacks.
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CSS hacks are a recipe for disaster that I’ve been predicting for a while, a disaster that seems to be happening: it looks as though IE7 will be breaking CSS hacks and thus, the Web Standards myth of forward compatibility.

I’ve used a hack: I’m a god-curse hypocrite:

Yes, I’m guilty of ‘following the pack’ and I’ve used a single CSS hack (child of div hack) but I used it in a minimal way – should the hack fail (and it will in IE7,) my layouts will still work though the pixels will shift a little.

The real problem occurs when you start using many hacks or if your hacks should fail, your website’s usability will be severely compromised.

If you have to use hacks, use them very delicately.

The hack-free cross browser compatible solution:

When you’re critical of something, you should try to present alternatives … and my alternative to using brittle CSS hacks:

Use a IE conditional comments, Microsoft intelligent solution to cross browser coding.

I know, I know … Microsoft coming up with an intelligent solution!?

🙂

Stefan Mischook (a.k.a: The Web Design Heretic )

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The raison d'être for the Web Standards.

February 8, 2005

Amidst all the nerd talk, it’s rare that you actually get a concise explanation of the ultimate purpose of the Web Standards … so I’ve decided to state it here for those who may be interested:

The raison d’être for the Web Standards: to simplify the web design work-flow.

Keep that in mind when you are doing your web design work; if you find you’re getting caught up in details that will not have any practical impact on the project’s success … you must learn to think (and work,) outside of the Web Standards box.

I’m not saying to forget the Standards (heaven forbid,) all I’m suggesting is that you remember that your ultimate goal is to build quality websites as quickly as possible.

Case in point: The use of IE conditional comments.

Instead of using questionable CSS hacks to make your web pages work in both IE and Standards compliant browsers (FireFox etc,) it is better to use a the non-standard IE conditional comments.

Why?

IE conditional comments are forward and backward compatible (in Internet Explorer,) and will not break functionality in the other browsers – thus you can safely use them to isolate CSS code for IE.

Conclusion:

IE conditional comments are NOT part of the Web Standards (that’s for sure!) but they offer a better solution than the hodgepodge of widely touted and soon to be breaking CSS hacks.

Yes, we are thinking and working outside of the Web Standards box … but by golly, it works better!

The web heretic. (a.k.a.: Stefan Mischook)

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Tag Soup: why using XHTML does not make sense.

February 5, 2005

Using XHTML instead of HTML to build web pages is one of today’s web design fads. Like other silly practices promoted by the web standards zealots (using CSS hacks for example,) this is something that will create extra work for no real PRACTICAL advantage and may even create problems for you!

People have been sold on XHTML with the typical web standards arguments that have a tendency to ignore the ‘reality in the field’. In this article I explain why you should stick to using good old HTML for the time being.

First, what is the reality today?

  1. Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (among other browsers,) will NOT render XHTML.
  2. If you use XHTML, DOM scripting and AJAX will be much more trouble.
  3. The supposed advantage (if ever realized,) are really minor at best.

Let’s consider these points:

BROWSERS AND XHTML

  • When you serve XHTML to most browsers, your crazy-cool XHTML will be treated like ordinary HTML, thus loosing all the supposed advantages of XHTML.
  • If you want browsers to treat XHTML as XHTML, you need to set the MIME type to: application/xhtm+xml. The problem is that IE6, IE7 and other browsers, will give you the ‘download this document’ pop-up box instead of displaying the page in the browser window.
  • If you’re really intent on using XHTML, you could use scripting to sniff out browsers and change the MIME type accordingly, but this would lead to script-branching – if you wanted to use any DOM / AJAX scripts … more headaches.

HOW DOM SCRIPTING IS MADE HARDER WITH XHTML

The issue that stands out the most for me (and is enough for me to not use XHTML,) is that you can’t use ‘document.createElement’ to create new elements with the DOM if you are using XHTML.

In case you don’t know, ‘document.createElement’ is one of the key methods of DOM programming and by extension AJAX.

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This topic was recenty discused on the message board:

XHTML OR HTML

Stefan Mischook

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Book Review: Podcast Solutions

February 4, 2005

This is a good book for ‘non-nerds’ on everything about podcasting – the delivery of mp3’s via RSS feeds.

What I mean by ‘non-nerds’: the authors assume you are just someone who wants to learn how to podcast; there is no assumption that you are a web designer.

Though it is not nerd-centric, it is a great book for anyone (including web designers,) who wants to jump into this new way of delivering (audio) content to the web. It is a technical guide covering both the hardware (mics, cables et cetera,) and software components needed to start podcasting.

It is also a good guide on the business (for lack of better words,) end of podcasting covering things like:

  • How to speak properly when creating podcasts.
  • How to market/promote your podcast – (there are podcast specific methods to learn.)
  • How to make money with podcasting.

The pros:

The book covers everything you need to effectively start podcasting. I was pleasently suprised how the book covered practical aspects outside of the normal realms of geekness – people who write web design books could learn a thing or two from this title.

Included is a CD with all the software you need to get started … convenient.

The cons:

I felt some of the writing was a touch long winded – get to the point already! But this is really a minor issue given all the other positive aspects of the book.

Conclusion:

If you want to podcast, get the book.

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Problems posting today?

December 31, 2001

We’ve been having server problems today, so some of you may have experienced the site down and forum posting problems.

.. We are working on it.

Stefan

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