Re: CSS aims

On 1/24/14 10:28 AM, Brian Kardell wrote:
> The problem with cruft isn't the first encounter you describe here.
> Programmers routinely ignore markup cruft.  The problem with cruft is
> that it makes it more difficult to maintain the documents and templates
> that contain it.  Even when (perhaps especially when) it's generated
> cruft, it can create unwanted surprises.
>  >
> Again, can you provide some specific examples/rationale?  I don't like
> cruft, but it seems that in my example upshot is that a simple decision
> in my js to remove a listener means that i go back and change markup and
> CSS - that sounds like NOT decoupling to me - and that is the whole
> point of the example.

For you, that's the end of it.  Maybe.  If you remember, if you care. 
The decoupling is manual, not built in.  It crosses multiple layers and 
files.

Multiply that scenario by thousands or hundreds of thousands of people 
at a wide variety of skill and busy-ness levels if these become normal 
practices.  Most of them are not programmers.  Most of them are not 
especially interested in manual decoupling.

The specifications have to recognize their existence as well as your 
promise to be a good citizen.

> Don't extract that to the obscene and think i am
> saying all presentation belongs in HTML, its not.

I'm not saying that you're cheering for the font tag.  I'm saying that 
we learned a lot from that experience about managing sites.

> Its showing the many
> roles of the DOM and how difficult it would be to create a -totally-
> pure separation.

I remain puzzled by your obsession with the DOM and your hopes to use it 
as a base for (lightly) blurring layers.

 > But Simon, I'm very happy to be shown the error of my
> ways with real examples.

I'd love to, but over the course of this email, you've asked for at 
least a chapter-length exposition, if not book-length.  I'll aim for 
article-length, for Wednesday, for a broader audience, and share it here 
when it's up.

Thanks,
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/

Received on Friday, 24 January 2014 18:16:26 UTC