It works, in practice, but only after a LOT of tinkering and a LOT of wasted time.

Dvorak isn’t experienced enough with the use of CSS to understand the real problems (severe short-sightedness by the w3c, ridiculously stupid positioning systems, poor insight by the w3c to respect what existing web designers and developers were doing and why it worked for them).

When my design biz moved to CSS from tables some number of years ago, our development time for an average website literally doubled. We’ve streamlined the process some, but it’s still nowhere near as fast as grabbing dreamweaver and cranking out a few tables.

You say you develop in FF and test in IE. This very statement shows why CSS in practice is not what it should be. CSS is meant to be a standard – just like VHS or Compact Disc. What do you think would happen if the Compact Disc standard had as many holes in it as CSS does? We would get Frank Sinatra on our mini-systems and Buddy Holly on our discmen from a Nancy Simone CD!

The problem with CSS lies squarely with the W3C, squarely with the fact that it is an immature and badly executed standard with no reference implementation.

I agree that for many things it’s a damn site better than the code mess we used to have with tables – but I havn’t had a design update job yet, even from sites I (or my business) made with the specific intention of being modular and design-markup distinct in the first place, where I havn’t had to delve into the HTML and add classes, nasty elements, and clearing elements.

Don’t kid yourself. Dvorak might be ranting on about the wrong issues (I mean, cascading? Come on… the cascading part is fine!), but he’s got a point.

Don’t you ever wonder why after NINE (yes, NINE) years, NO browser has a complete CSS2 implementation? It’s not like these guys get paid to implement the standard or anything…

It works, in practice, but only after a LOT of tinkering and a LOT of wasted time.

Dvorak isn’t experienced enough with the use of CSS to understand the real problems (severe short-sightedness by the w3c, ridiculously stupid positioning systems, poor insight by the w3c to respect what existing web designers and developers were doing and why it worked for them).

When my design biz moved to CSS from tables some number of years ago, our development time for an average website literally doubled. We’ve streamlined the process some, but it’s still nowhere near as fast as grabbing dreamweaver and cranking out a few tables.

You say you develop in FF and test in IE. This very statement shows why CSS in practice is not what it should be. CSS is meant to be a standard – just like VHS or Compact Disc. What do you think would happen if the Compact Disc standard had as many holes in it as CSS does? We would get Frank Sinatra on our mini-systems and Buddy Holly on our discmen from a Nancy Simone CD!

The problem with CSS lies squarely with the W3C, squarely with the fact that it is an immature and badly executed standard with no reference implementation.

I agree that for many things it’s a damn site better than the code mess we used to have with tables – but I havn’t had a design update job yet, even from sites I (or my business) made with the specific intention of being modular and design-markup distinct in the first place, where I havn’t had to delve into the HTML and add classes, nasty elements, and clearing elements.

Don’t kid yourself. Dvorak might be ranting on about the wrong issues (I mean, cascading? Come on… the cascading part is fine!), but he’s got a point.

Don’t you ever wonder why after NINE (yes, NINE) years, NO browser has a complete CSS2 implementation? It’s not like these guys get paid to implement the standard or anything…