Re: Selector for parent/predecessor?

> > Ah...I misunderstood you. When you said "ample evidence" I thought you
> > were referring to studies, reports, statistics...and I was saying that I
> > was happy to have my view changed on reading such material. But what you
> > meant was that in *your view*, authors are clueless, and you base this
> > on that fact that there are web pages out there that execute
> > inefficiently.
>
> Here's a study:
>
>    http://code.google.com/webstats/index.html
>
> Take one example: writing a page with <table> markup is inefficient from
> the point of view of browser page load times. <table> is the 9th most
> often used element. Conclusion: authors make bad decisions.
>
>
> > So my point still stands; you can't be sure that authors cannot be
> > trusted with features that are denied them...since they don't actually
> > have those features available to them to use inefficiently!
>
> There are plenty of features that authors can use inefficiently. The fact
> that authors mis-use them is why Web browser vendors are reluctant to add
> *more* features that can be used inefficiently.
>
> If there were no such features already available, your point would stand,
> but this is not the case.

To me this is where your argument comes off the tracks. To me this
says that <table> offers the best combination of pros and cons to page
authors and tool authors. I imagine tool authors like it because it's
easier to create a WYSIWYG editor that uses tables than CSS. Page
authors probably like the fact WYSIWYG editors more than raw HTML and
CSS editing. I would also imagine that page authors probably also like
the simple table model over the box model since it's easier to get the
layouts they want with tables than it is with CSS since one is easier
to comprehend than the other.

I don't think authors are making bad decisions. I think authors are
valuing aspects of design that many people here aren't. I think if the
CSS working group has failed in any way, it's in that they haven't
created anything as simple and elegant as the table in terms of
getting what you want simply.

Sitting here listening to some of you rant against "the mob", I get
kind of queasy. Should we just stop having elections because people
can't be trusted to make good decisions? I will accept arguments of
too difficult to implement and harmful to overall performance by mere
existence, but I won't accept the people are just too stupid to have
it.

-- 

Orion Adrian

Received on Tuesday, 22 August 2006 00:57:13 UTC