Introduction to CSS Epistemology
November 15th, 2006
At the recent An Event Apart conference I had the good fortune to attend, Molly Holzschlag gave a really wonderful presentation on her philosophy of semantic markup—marking up content based solely on what it means, and not worrying about how the design is going to look. It was a new enough concept for me that I was held in fascination; I understood the importance of semantic markup going in, but I had never really separated semantics from design in my own work. In fact, the more I listened to Molly talk, I realized that even though I don’t use tables for layout (and haven’t in years) I still think like a designer using tables. I don’t think like a CSS developer.
As a result, I have been a victim of what Molly calls “divitis”, or “div soup”. Once my eyes were opened to my folly, I was mesmerized by the true power, beauty, and elegance of CSS. Her presentation in combination with Eric Meyers’s presentation, which highlighted the idea that (most) CSS elements can be anything—the only limiting factors being imagination, prejudice, and habit—reignited my interest in and love for the flexibility of CSS. I couldn’t wait to get back to work and see how few divs I could use in my next project.
(So far, the magic number seems to be two, whereas I’ve never worked with fewer than six previously. That’s so cool.)
A few days ago, a colleague who hasn’t yet ventured into the world of CSS asked me to have lunch with her and talk shop. I volunteered to help teach her CSS, an idea which genuinely excites me. But I find myself in a bit of a dilemma: do I teach her a transitional method, easing her out of tables with too many divs, or do I change her way of thinking about layout, and introducing the idea of every page element as fluid in its own right? It’s a question of epistemology: in terms of design and function, what is the best way to know this subject?
The scholar in me desperately wants to go ahead and launch into the more elegant side of CSS. She’s a smart woman, and surely she can appreciate the idea of elements as boxes and therefore not needing boxes. But on the other hand, I’ve been using CSS for five or more years now, and I’m just now figuring this out. On the other hand, no one ever sat down to teach me CSS. I learned by imitating and hacking.
In the end, my own pragmatism will probably win, and I will teach her the right way to do things. People have a brilliant habit for making up their own dirty habits and nasty short-cuts; it will probably be to her benefit to have a more “classical training” to build on. Besides, as a fellow theologian, she’ll appreciate the philosophy. And I’m sure she’s love the elegance.
I want to talk more on the subject of design epistemology. I suspect I have a lot more to say, and it helps to think “on paper”.
[tags]Molly E Holzschlag, Eric Meyer, CSS, design epistemology[/tags]
Not that you asked for my advice, but I’ll inflict it on you anyway: go with your scholar’s gut instinct and teach her the elegant side. If she’s used to table-driven layout, there will be an adjustment period, and it might be rough. But she’ll be so much better off because she’ll have you to help her.
If she’s never done table design, then she may not feel CSS is as elegant as you or I might. Really, in some ways, CSS isn’t very elegant at all—it’s just better than the historical alternatives. Of course I have hopes that, over time, it will become more elegant. The possibility is there.
I’ll be very interested to read your thoughts on design epistemology! It’s a subject that is sore in need of exploration.
Hi Eric,
Fancy finding you here! I just wanted to clarify a point: I’m a philosopher at heart. I’m rarely as interested in the “how” as I am the “why” or the underlying theory. In the case of CSS, I couldn’t agree more that in its current stage it is a bit clunky; it lacks a certain finesse that I can only hope it will develop over time. (I recall at the ALA conference your explaining how to position something and needing to make a negative adjustment and how you said it would be so much easier if CSS were more like a programming language, which it will never be. And I remember feeling a wistful stab, because that would be totally stellar!)
But what I’m really seeing and what I’m really talking about is the elegance of the theory of CSS; the idea that we can separate content from presentation in meaningful ways. The idea that we don’t have to rely (completely) on someone’s else’s vision of how a document should look or behave based solely on the elements that appear within it. Like you said, a table header is still a table header no matter how you style is or where you position it. And I think that’s all quite poignant, and I think it’s something that designers and developers will come to appreciate even more in time. We’re still in such an infantile state with the web. In many ways, we haven’t yet figured out what we’re doing here. I know I haven’t.
Anyway, yes, I will be teaching my friend the “right” way of CSS; I don’t think I could bear to do otherwise. She’s definitely a table-designer, and it’s going to take some brain re-wiring, but once she comes over to the light side…
Thanks for the comment, Eric. Made my day :)
Do you know if some company use the same marketing concept as Webkinz?
I’m writing a few articles right now and want to get some info and opinions.
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