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4 myths (and possibly more) to coding a website

Thread title: 4 myths (and possibly more) to coding a website
     
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02-08-2005, 01:12 AM
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derek lapp is offline derek lapp
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  Old  4 myths (and possibly more) to coding a website

it's come to my attention that web development is becoming a more popular and explored area, and people STILL don't know what they're talking about. we're all guilty of this: oh cousin brian knows computers, he'll have the right answer. WRONG!

there's two people who get asked: those who know the technical answer and those who we think they know it, but really only know hersey. unforunately, the people aho actually know it, are greedy and only tell people they like.

luckily, i'm here ot save the day and dispell 4 commonly misinterpreated myths when it comes to website development.

for every trend, there's always some misconception that ruins it for everybody. the latest trend (being "clean" [boring, typical, unoriginal, minimal graphic, code driven designs]) is in no way an acception. it's probably the worst of them all.

1. i am sooo smarter ten you, i can code XHTML!
man if only that held any validity. in reality, an infant can do the conversion from html to xhtml. if pushing '/' makes you feel like an inelligent state of the art developer, well... welcome back to kindergarden, they're your biggest intulectual match.

the differences between html and xhtml are so miniscule, a small child with no understanding of the language itself actually can understand the pieces that seperate them. outside simple concepts.. it boils down to whoever can mash the slash key the most.

the pieces that seperate xhtml from html -- common sense, meet your worst enemy(strap youtself in, this gets intense)
  • use alt attributes on your images
  • use lower casing for your html tags
  • use CSS (style sheets) to style your document. in other words, the font tags sucks, it's gone, good riddance
  • use quotations
  • close all tags - and inside out from the elements.
    <strong><em>i'm text</em></strong> | <br /> (for those with no closing tag)
congratulations, you've sucessfuly understood common sense. you're much better than those other people doing the EXACT SAME THING (minus the / in <br />) in html 4.

2. l33t websites are done with CSS!
another misconception in the coding world is that CSS is both a) complicated and b) seperate from html. NO!

CSS stands for a Cascading Style Sheet... so all it is is html attributes in another file. it's hardly a langauge.
HTML:
Code:
<body bgcolor="#000000" margintop="0" marginright="0" marginbottom="0" marginleft="0" background="circle.gif" bgproperties="fixed">
	<font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#cccccc">blah</font>
</body>
CSS for the EXACT SAME THING
Code:
body {
	font-family: Vardana, Sans-serif (it's good practice to use a general font family name in the list)
	font-size: 12px;
	color: #cccccc;
	background-color: #000000;
	background-image: url('circle.gif');
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	margin: 0 (or you can define all for working clockwise 0 0 0 0 [top, right, bottom, left] also 0=0 no need for a unit)
}
if you actually compare the two, there are minor differences, being CSS syntax must end with a ; and it's more like english than html or even Sql. all css will do is take the tremendously long list of attributes and neatly store them in a seperate file in an organized fashion, so you won't mix them up with your html, like forgetting a " -> <font face="verdana size=...

this fact isn't going to change anytime soon. HTML is what's need for a browser to render a web page! css just makes it neater and easier.

you can have a tableless layout done with absolutely no style sheet, and you can have a table driven layout that has a huge css file. it's just better organization and less work to update.

3. your website is uselss because it uses tables
once again, the cry of someone who thinks they know what they're talking about. tableless coding is like the rule of the school yard, it's in no way an official rule, but everyone treats it like one.

the whole point to xhtml is optimization. get rid of **** you don't need. you don't need tones of attributes (repetitive atrributes) cluttering up your html, so we've brought in CSS. you don't need cluttered html affecting your performance either.

then you're displaying a list of information, a client information list perhaps, contaning names, addresses, phone numbers etc. it make sense to use a table. when you're typing a 1 column report about that data, there's no need for a table. you're not going to insert a table into your word processor and start typing away, you're go to skip that and just start with the typing -- using the auto formatting being 1 paragraph.

a webpage isn't mush different from a word docuement in terms of purpose. it's to convey information from one person to another as effectevly as possible. somestimes that's done best through graphical presentation. othertimes it can look pretty but doesn't help a damn bit. somehow, that because the standard idea.

if you want a 2 column report in word, odds are, you'll format your text with columns - insert columns. you won't draw text boxes, or make a table/chart. welcome to the word version of using the <div> tag to organize your page.

use a table for presenting tablature data, such as a list or something drawn from a database to be presented. otherwise, use your optimal tools. there's no sense in drawing empty cells. and since so many people can't graps the concept of of row/colspan properly, more often than not, tables in html end up broken, and they don't present properly... so you have a completely useless webpage.

however. html is about optimzation. like i said, it's like a printed report, it's to convey an idea from oen source to another. they shouldn't be riddled with images and complicated structures to beging with. BUT in the even it is, using 8000 <div> tags istead of 3 nested tables is NO BETTER. it just proves you design like crap. using things where they make sense makes you a good coder, not doing what's "cool". if you know you'll end up nesting 12 times as many divs as you would table cells, use the table. if you do it, right, it won't lag down and mould probably be faster at loading. and sometimes, using a table is the only way to achieve something (since xhtml and css are still kinda buggy for advanced formatitng)

4. validaiton! i r so awesome!
the part that gets me the most about this new xhtml trend is that people don't understand it. validation DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING! it's also like the code of the playground. there's the school rules (w3) that say if you get beat up, tell on them and there's the playground rule that says 'if you tell on him, we're beating you 5 times as hard'. it's no official, but it's treated that way.

validation is the school rule. if you take an image into imageready use it's tools and get it to generate an html page for you, it will validate - 756 spacer gifs, <font>tags, empty td cells and all!

the fact that something validates doesn't mean anything. however, if you follow the playground rules (the non official ones) the chances of your work being ineffecent decline. examples are:
  • using lists for navs insteadof table cells or seperate divs
  • using the default html tags instead of making news ones
    • H1 instead of new span tags
    • formatting body instead of making a new div to do the same thing

following these unofficial guidelines most coders use, you'll minimize the chance of your work screwing up on different platforms.

validation doesn't make it right, it's just one of the baby steps to doing something properly - because if it's ineffecient, it couldn't have been done right.

those are the most obvious problems i see people facing when trying to learn html. they think they have more than 1 thing to do. if you have more scenarios, i'll gladly shed some light on the suject as i've spent many many nights getting the right facts on development.

     


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