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Originally Posted by Greg Marra
I would normally agree with you, but I have seen too much cool stuff done with Javascript lately. Have you seen Google Maps, or Google News, or GMail, or Google anything? They have some Javascript Wizards over there, and it's kind of a testament to the power of the language.
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I should clarify my position on Javascript. I agree with you about Google's use of Javascript, but "wizard" is an understatement. Not only can I not do anything close to that, but Javascript, like you pointed out, has evolved (or more accurately, devolved) into a presentational language because there is no standards body for it -- it is after all a programming language, not a markup language. I have made exceptions to my "plague rule," but only for purely functional purposes; javascript as a script to process something is perfectly legitimate, but as a replacement for CSS is the plague. I really hate cursors that have stars following them and popup windows and snow in my browser window and links that sparkle and
Brenteck. If a website is nothing more than a document, then why is it violating my browser? Anyway, you get the picture.
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Originally Posted by DarkJedi613
Just out of curiosity...why do you guys choose XHTML over HTML? I know it's supposed to be neater and a lot of codes don't work, etc. But what are the actual benefits? Or do you just like saying you use XHTML  ? |
To be honest, most people just think it's cool. XHTML 1.0 Transitional is almost comepletely useless. I have yet to see a FIRST site that makes use of XHTML in a way HTML 4.01 can't acheive.
However, in theory, XHTML is an XML-based reformation of HTML, which means you can stick XML into it in an interoperable way. Writing in XHTML now is also future-friendly, because it's well-formed XML and thus it is eXtensible; for example, elements can be added just by changing the DTD and namespace. In a broad sense, this, and the more strict nature of XHTML forces standardization across websites and by browser engineers. Non-transitional XHTML encourages cleaner, more semantically-friendly code because it not only explicitly defines elements (you must close all your tags or the browser will not display anything, IE excepted of course, because it's stupid), but it makes your markup structural in nature, leaving presentation to CSS and other things such as (god, no) Javascript. I should note that the XML DOM is different, so much of your HTML Javascript, especially the presentational stuff, won't work with XHTML.
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Originally Posted by DarkJedi613
Something else I forgot to ask about...what resolution do you design for? I design for 1024 x 768 (and it'll always look good in 1280 x 1024 too since thats my default). But i tend to not give much thought to 800 x 600. A fault I know, I'm trying to solve this by using CSS layouts now instead of tables, etc. But, anyway, what do you do?
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I usually design for all resolutions; a website is a document, why make it hard to read for anyone? But I have, and still do, make fixed-width sites. My advice:
never disregard people with low resolutions, because horizontal scrollbars are the Devil. Do you want to be in league with the Devil? Since we're trying to maximize the amount of people that can comfortably read what we have to say, a fixed-width website should not by wider than about 770 pixels (because monitors with 640 x 480 or some other unwise resolution are an endangered species). This will ensure the vast majority or your readers aren't in sidescrolling hell.