Smart People Debating about the Future of Web Development
January 23, 2008
There has been some interesting debate going on recently about the direction that standards and web development might be going. I think it really says something about the people involved that they are taking such a scrutinizing look at the issues. These are the people that really care about what is going to happen in the future about the interweb that we all know and love.
The particular debate I am referring to involves things like version targeting, browser sniffing, CSS hacks and DOCTYPES. If anything of these words make you glaze over, start thinking about whether your socks are matching, or just don’t concern you, than it probably is safe to move on. But if you are still with me, I would suggest checking out some of the original material on A List Apart here, then move onto a well-formulated (yet opinionated) response here, then bring it home with latest from here (the next few entries correspond as well).
I personally, find this stuff interesting and think that it is this type of debate that gets things moving into new directions. Eric Meyer makes some interesting points about designing for the future and putting the responsibilities back to the browser developers to build in a way that is coherent with the way the web is being designed, rather than requiring the web developers/designers to create band aid fixes just to achieve a consistent experience. And like Meyer says, to not consider backwards compatibility is not an option, and the future is unpredictable. We need a solution that will mean more time for people to improve the way the web is used and less time trying to tip toe around problems that are not getting fixed in the first place. IE, I am looking at you. IE3 until IE6 and you still can’t render the box model like basically every other browser out there? What are you trying to prove.
Well that was fun. Now I encourage everyone to formulate their own take on this topic and get back to me.
Evan! How’s it going man? Its been a while since we talked. I like the new website design! I’ve been fooling around with wordpress too, but my limited knowledge of php is really a hinderance, wish I still had easy access to your brain!
I’ve been keeping up with A List Apart too, and trying to wrap my brain around this whole version targeting thing, and DOCTYPE switching. I don’t know how a mega corporation like Microsoft could let a browser (IE) that pretty much dominates the market get so bad at handling standards compliant code/scripts in the first place. I know it’ll never happen, but they should just scrap the whole program (IE), start over, be more like firefox, and all the people/developers/designers who have been hiding under a rock for the past few years need to get a book/read blogs about standards compliance.
Thats pretty much all I have to say right now as I’m still trying to understand what’s going on. I hope you’re doing well man! I’ll keep checking back here to see whats happening! Peace.
Z
Comment by Zach Frank — February 22, 2008 @ 8:38 am