[webless-info] In response to "Webless FAQ".

[Mate Nagy]

Greetings,
On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 09:08:29AM -0500, :D wrote:
> I'm not even sure by what you mean by the separation of content and design.
 We mean the theoretical holy grail of separating the semantic structure
and the stylistic structure of a document or web site.
> The single CSS file that my website uses on every page on the site is 
> 6kb. It's linked externally so it's cached, so it doesn't have to 
> download every time.
>
> 	... hard to implement, and impossible to implement well.
>
> These are opinions. I find CSS extremely easy and simple to implement.
 We refer to the rendering/processing mechanism in the browser.
"Implementing CSS" means to create a system capable of understanding
CSS, not writing a CSS file (we maintain that the former is an
exceedingly hard (and indeed probably impossible) task).
> 	... Today's computers are orders of magnitude faster than they were a 
> few years ago - but the Web experience is actually worse;
>
> What is worse about it?
 Speed of navigation; the ease of getting to the information you're
looking for.
> 	... we think it's mostly CSS and its ilk's fault.
>
> You should state why.
 Among other things, it encourages purely stylistic elements, and overly
"artistic" design as opposed to the "functional" viewpoint.
>
> 	Note: the Friends List doesn't prohibit CSS as long as the page is  
> comfortably usable with a browser that doesn't support CSS.
>
> Pretty much W3C standards right there.
 Possibly, but it's not like much (or any!) sites respect those.
>
> * So, how do you propose to "separate content and design"?
> 	1. Whatever you put in HTML already specifies design, so you have to do  
> it on your server side with templates or something, if you want.
>
> Ever written a lengthy document? Imagine how much time in both labor and  
> render-speed (if not file-size) could be saved by using the following 
> CSS:
>  p + p {
>  indent: text-indent:1em;
>  }
> As a website grows in size, and as tags are used more and more, it 
> becomes more efficient in both file-size and rendering speed to use a 
> style-sheet. This is a fact.
 If you disregard rendering speed and consider only file size, this
might be true; but only when you want to force your stylistic choices on
the user.
> 	3. It might be high time to consider simplicity, usability, readability  
> more important than how elegant your styling system is, or how you can  
> move your three boxes from the right column to the
> bottom row without chaging your software. (You have too many boxes!!)
>
> Simplicity != smaller or faster. Usability? Heh, yeah okay have fun  
> without CSS when making large websites. Readability: do you know anything 
> about typography? Also "changing your software"? CSS modifications are  
> quick and simple to implement. CSS allows you to make global 
> modifications rather than spending hours editing each HTML file by hand.
 Simplicity for the most part IS "smaller and faster".
 What I know or don't know about typography doesn't matter here. The
website should have no business in telling the browser how exactly to render
text - that depends on the user's setup, the installed fonts, font
sizes, and so on. *Maybe* you can *recommend* whether to use a serif or
sans-serif font, but even that should be (and mostly is) overridable by the
user.
 Simple CSS is nowhere powerful enough to completely change the
structure of the presentation of a web page. You can plan everything in
advance and create very complex and sophisticated CSS to create a
flexible site; but even then, for bigger modifications in structure,
you'll have to change the HTML (and thus, the generating software).

>
> * My HTML will look much uglier!
> 	Well, tough. On the other hand, it will probably render ten times 
> faster, and on more platforms, too. We consider this more important. 
> (Obviously, if you use a font tag for your every letter, it
> might be slower. But then you're doing it wrong.)
>
> It entirely depends on the coder.
>
> On a final note: you made a typo with the word 'changing'.
 Thanks for noticing the typo, fixed.

 Thanks for your feedback, we appreciate it. I forward this reply mail
to the webless-info mailing list; if you want to continue the
discussion, please consider doing so using the mailing list (you can of
course just reply to me).

Best regards,
 Mate Nagy