Ingo Chao wrote:
The first one to be convinced is not the client. I believe we have to
convince our co-workers, since the old paradigm was promoted by us.
Which of the old paradigms are you (mainly) referring to? After all:
various models have been and still are promoted all over the place.
These (mind-)models are intertwined and there are almost as many
variants as there are web developers out here - and plenty confusion
around the issue.
I think we have to somehow define what we're trying to leave behind us,
a little better, as otherwise we may not be able to smooth the
transitions in ways that our co-workers and others find
acceptable/workable. We haven't gotten rid of layout tables yet, and in
themselves they rarely ever were much of a problem anyway.
The worst thing that can happen is that we take excellent ideas too far
too fast and create gaps. There are so many gaps in web development
already, and not only "old school" web developers and those entirely new
to web design find it difficult and/or completely unnecessary to jump
those gaps.
-----
Existing sites based on one or more of the existing models, will
continue to work more or less as they always have, and most will be
satisfied with slight upgrades on issues where the old models fail in
new browsers.
New sites can only go so far in breaking with the old models and
introducing new ones, as there is too much competition and too little
knowledge to convince "the masses" in all camps that progress is both
inevitable and important.
-----
That it "doesn't have to look the same in every browser", depends on who
one asks.
To most of our co-workers the visual aspect is as important as the
usability one - to web designers for instance. Most will continue to say
that it should "look the same to the degree possible", but will only go
so far in checking if it actually does "look the same". We can probably
slip "slight failures" under the radar most of the time.
The visual is not much of a problem for the average visitors with an
inferior browser - as long as the site works, since they rarely ever
have any idea what it's supposed to look like anyway and probably
couldn't care less after having surfed around a bit.
-----
Users that use shells on top of Trident, Gecko or WebKit engines may
have no idea which browser they actually use and whether or not it is
inferior. For instance: I have read relatively new comments on blogs
promoting Maxton as replacement for IE6 on older win2K OS - as
alternative to the latest Firefox and Opera, seemingly completely
unaware of the fact that Maxton uses the existing IE6 engine with all
its flaws and weaknesses.
Such shells may also not be given engine-upgrades very often - even if
they can (integrate them), which means old engine-versions may linger
for years.
-----
I'm not sure if there are any parts of CSS3 that are so revolutionary
that we can not introduce them as part of a slow and steady evolution -
without introducing new methods.
IE6 has never been much of a problem for me, probably because I have
treated it as an old an obsolete "quirks mode" browser for years - since
long before it was superseded by IE7.
I do use things like IE-expressions for basic layout effects when I see
no better options, and provide fallback for those too in case support
fails. I know IE-expressions slows IE down - I have tested it
extensively, but minimal use seems to have more positive than negative
effects for the average visitor on the average web site.
Promote them - no, present them as an option - yes, use them - at times.
regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
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