Backtracking

HTML Design: If you are aware of the movement towards CSS and away from tables and frames for site structure, read on. If you don’t, I would skip this.

A List Apart and WaSP. Two sites campaigning for the same thing, a move towards acceptance of the standard (as defined by the W3) CSS and XHTML definitions.

The suggestion was that browser makers would try and implement proper support, and we (the designers for want of a better term) would follow and code our sites in nicely degrading XHTML and CSS. So if you used an older browser, you can still access site content without any major issues.

The main man, or one of them, behind this push is Zeldman. A legend in his own living room. Today he posted a suggestion on his own personal site. The suggestion being that “transitional XHTML layouts that include some table-driven formatting feel more and more like a reasonable choice”. He eloquently states his reasons, none of this is his desire, or by his design, and I have to say I agree with him. But is he backtracking? Are we all slaves to the browser makers?

This isn’t an attack on Jeffery Zeldman, on the contrary, I sympathise greatly. As he states, he is being driven to a ‘reasonable choice’ rather than a desirable one.

The last estimate I saw stated that there were around 500,000 blogs. That’s a helluva large petition if you ask me. If I had the energy I would start a campaign. Gimme a few hours though…

Full Report by Zeldman – explains why he came to this decision.