Gabriele Romanato wrote:

>>> http://www.css-zibaldone.com/the-css-switch-project/november-2006/shapes/

> Experiments are not useful strictu sensu. that's the basic difference. I
> can't ignore this difference.
> your criticism is very similar to literary criticism: would be this poem
> "useful"? utilitarism, I suppose.
> or marxian criticism: everything should be "useful" to the underlyining
> structure of society. otherwise, is useless. on the web, every single layout
> should be "useful". that's the underlyning pragmatism of the WWW. sorry,
> this is not my point of view.


Not mine either :-)

All tests and experiments that one can derive something useful from -
now or later - are, by definition, _useful_.
This is true even if the useful part ends up being knowledge about
something's lack of usefulness or other shortcomings, so replicating old
and "useless" experiments is a useful timesaver on our way to mastering
web design - being it HTML/CSS based or a mix of whatever.

It is a fact that many progressive and/or corrective ideas in real world
web design are the result of "useless" experiments - often combined with
even more "useless" experiments.

Example: I'd call the following experiment completely useless...
<http://www.gunlaug.no/contents/wd_demo_float_03.html>
...yet I use the methods on display there to get browsers in line - all
the time. That experiment also gave me plenty of ideas about when *not*
to use those methods, which is a most welcome side-effect.

Another "useless" example:
<http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html>
...which parts certainly can be put to good use.

So, I rather see more "useless" tests than fewer on display. They are
useful to someone.

regards
        Georg
-- 
http://www.gunlaug.no
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