Re: Proposal: :column pseudo-class

On 7/2/05, David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > lot when it comes to layout ranging from giving control to the wrong
> > person (web designers and not web site consumers) to not matching the
> 
> Unfortunately market forces ensure that the wrong people get that control.
> CSS tries to separate out that part from the HTML etc. which provides the
> information actually needed by the consumer.
> 
> Whilst W3C has done a lot to encourage features that are not market driven,
> but for the benefit of conumers, it cannot ignore the wants of those
> paying for web site design, and it can't stop people abuse the structural
> markup in HTML for purely presentational purposes.

Let the user's be damned? Is that the attitude? I'm not saying, don't
give them the ability to brand, but don't give them the ability to
abuse.

Operating systems have had a pretty good run and have managed to not
give application developers that much control. The operating system
still controls the location of icons, titles, menus, toolbars, status
bars along with a host of other layouts. Why is the web so different?
Is it that we gave up where they didn't? Is it that they did a better
job of education? Is it that they made it easier?

I think it may be a combination of those things, but I think you only
have to look at the title element in head to realize that all was not
and is not lost. The title element gave web designers an easy way to
specify content in a standard location. Why couldn't that idea have
been expanded? The OS doesn't allow me to put my taskbar button
anywhere but the taskbar and yet people don't complain. They were
never given the option to abuse to get attached. We gave in early and
it's not too late. We have to pull in the reigns while making life
easier.

Orion Adrian

Received on Saturday, 2 July 2005 23:00:54 UTC