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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.

02-08-2005, 01:17 AM
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Anthony is offline Anthony
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  Old

Love the article, very true

02-08-2005, 01:14 PM
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kiswa is offline kiswa
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So, are you saying that you don't like the whole XHTML CSS thing? Or just that it's not as complicated as everyone is trying to make it? I'm a bit confused by your article as the tone of it seems to be that you don't care for the whole valid XHTML CSS concept.

Is it that you don't like how people go "My site is valid XHTML and CSS so it's better than yours!" even if their coding is crap (valid or not) and the layout is bland?

If that's the case, then I have no problem with that. I don't see why you can't have valid markup AND have a nice looking, functional, site. It's really not all that complicated.

And yeah, it's kinda funny that the biggest part of XHTML is the "/".

02-08-2005, 06:21 PM
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derek lapp is offline derek lapp
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there's misconceptions that throws people off:
a) the skill and difficulty in usine css driven website lies in how to use the language, not how to write it. css is the simplest language to "learn" it's learning to use it properly that's trickier because like everything else, there's more than one way to do something. that can only be solved through experimentation.

b) crappy code is crappy code. lots of people think if it validates, it's perfect code, which is far from true. all the validator does is check to make sure you've got your slashes in there. you could use a seperate div/span tag for every word in a sentence. as long as you close the ones you open, w3 will say you've got valid code... is it any good? hell no. the validator is over praised and it isn't used properly.

people make the language look like it's hard to understand, which is completely false and like the validator is a check up to make sure you're coding is as effecient as it can be which is also false.

02-09-2005, 12:37 PM
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Ahhh, now I get what you meant. Good to know. Because I think it is good to write standards compliant code. It just also has to be decent code.

02-09-2005, 01:30 PM
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I have a long response written up at home, unfortunately I've not been able to post it here yet but may do so soon. There are a number of issues with this article which misguide readers. Do you even use the word "semantic" anywhere?..

02-09-2005, 01:40 PM
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Originally Posted by Salathe
I have a long response written up at home, unfortunately I've not been able to post it here yet but may do so soon. There are a number of issues with this article which misguide readers. Do you even use the word "semantic" anywhere?..

That's kinda what I was getting at. It seems to mislead a bit. Hopefully he'll revise it so the points he's intending to make become more clear, and good practices are outlined (as opposed to just mentioning bad practices).

It's a good article (good points), it just comes across slightly skewed.

02-09-2005, 04:24 PM
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hmmm I'm not convinced by your sweeping statements such as

the whole point to xhtml is optimization
but you made a few good points.

Man I wish you'd used a spell checker. If this was a page in a book I'd want my money back. I'd be totally convinced that the person writing it had just whacked it out without giving it time and making sure the presentation was high quality.

02-09-2005, 06:03 PM
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Always love reading your articles.

02-09-2005, 08:54 PM
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derek lapp is offline derek lapp
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Originally Posted by DITS
hmmm I'm not convinced by your sweeping statements such as but you made a few good points.

Man I wish you'd used a spell checker. If this was a page in a book I'd want my money back. I'd be totally convinced that the person writing it had just whacked it out without giving it time and making sure the presentation was high quality.
that's ecaxtly how it was played out, so i don't blame you.

taking the time to spell/grammar/punctuation check an opinionated 'rant' and something i expect to present to the public eye in a professional manner, such as a book, or an actual article for a real e-zine are totoally different. i'll be more careful in the future for you.

Originally Posted by salathe
I have a long response written up at home, unfortunately I've not been able to post it here yet but may do so soon. There are a number of issues with this article which misguide readers. Do you even use the word "semantic" anywhere?..
i agree. there are a couple things i wanted to expand upon, but would have sent the article in the wrong direction.

i may write up those seperately, and rework this one to refer to them, so it relates, but gives a clearer view to the reader.

as for semantic, i could go on for a while about semantic markup, but that wasn't the issue i wanted to discuss. that's a whole new one i'd like to jump into.

as for anything being misguiding. i wrote it over a long period of time, and i usually end up ranting in short intervals, so i'm sure i twisted the direction of this back and forth. i'll clean it up as i write out some new ones.

in the next couple days (since i have nothing to do for the week), i plan to write about:
  • the dis/advantages to xhtml + css against the previous html only methods.
  • tables vs tableless (the concepts are limited to xhtml only)
  • semantic markup vs the w3 - using the h# tags as heading isn't required, but it's better
  • misconceptions to the prevous theories (this article re-written)

if anyone can think of some other subjects, feel free to suggest them, or write one yourself.

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