Comments on: CSS Does Not Suck

By: Grant

Grant — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:02:32 +0000

I agree fully with what you’re saying Matt.

Never having the privlege of using table based layout I can’t say I understand where he’s coming from. I learned how to design (from one of the best I know) using CSS and I can’t see how one could say it’s not a better way to design.

Also being a new designer I’d have to dissagree with his comment on most of the CSS Zen garden layouts. I’d have to say I could probably achive a lot of the stuff up there with a few hours solid work (obviously there are acceptions to this comment).

I guess I’m jsut lucky though from having a teacher that enforced proper markup and accessibility with threats of a slow painfull death.

By: kat

kat — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:40:43 +0000

“CSS sucks” is also the name of a song by the band CSS (Cansei De Ser Sexy). So maybe that’s driving some traffic too!

“I think the problem is that HE can’t get his sites to look exactly the way he wants across all browsers, I can.”

HAHAH…amazing, Matt.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:13:36 +0000

Many people fail to fully explore what CSS is capable of and miss the point (I failed once and didn’t relearn until about a year later), since their previous WSIYG web site production methods where easier.

CSS is as powerful, or as ineffective as the person who is writing the code chooses to make it.

“CSS sucks because it forces designers to think about how to make it work technically rather than how to make it work from a design perspective.”

This is one of my favorite parts of CSS. I like creating a balance between making designs work in both worlds and not just one.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:02:40 +0000

Again Greg misses the point. If you know CSS well it can be done in 1/2 an hour. I know exactly all of the hacks I will have to use to make a layout work cross-browser and I know how to use them. It takes surprisingly little time when you know what you’re doing.

Those designers that use nested divs in the same way they used to use tr and td tags also miss the point. Divs are markup, not CSS. Learn to properly target elements using CSS and those nested divs will cease to exist.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:34:28 +0000

I’m glad the article made you laugh. The article gets a lot of traffic mostly from people typing ‘CSS sucks’ into google. While it’s easy to dismiss my article by saying that I don’t know my stuff it’s much harder to explain why CSS is efficient, easy to understand and compatible.

Reproducing a good CSS design from ZenGarden can’t be done in 1/2 hour. If you look at CSS source on many of the designs you will see all sorts of non-trivial hacks, tricks and techniques to make the designs possible and workable in all browsers.

I’m not advocating tables I’m only pointing out the delinquencies of CSS as it stands today. Many designers are now using nested div’s in the same way as tr and td tags were used in tables. Same stuff different tag.

Anyway thanks for reading.