The W3C’s job is setting standards, and as such, they make rules–rules that compliant browsers need to follow. As we know, any person or group that has to make rules often ruffle others’ feathers for a whole myriad of reasons. Rules are rigid–especially with computer standards. People like flexibility and the “old” comfortable way of doing things.
Here is one issue, however, that exemplifies the W3C and their long term goals and how they actually have some meaning in real world application.
Anyone remember tables? Tables for layout, I mean. It was easy, simple–the comfortable way–especially for us non-experts. But as technology and information delivery devices have become more popular and more diverse, tables just didn’t cut it any more. They are clunky, and inflexible. The W3C understood this and discouraged tables as layouts. We baulked and moaned and didn’t really have the vision to see how we could possibly design without tables as layout.
Resistantly (because no one likes extra work, right), we realized we better get on board and figure out how to do page layouts without tables.
Then came a whole host of problems. Exactly how can we achieve the columnar effects of a table? Without getting into details, do a google search for “CSS column layout” and see how many hits you get.
It was an adjustment that some resisted, but the W3C was right. We needed to get away from tables for layout. However, they didn’t offer much by way of alternatives–well, not any that non-experts or non-web-masters could easily follow.
Finally comes the W3C standard that works. And you don’t have to be a web guru to figure it out. How difficult is it to understand “column-width: 13ex;” “column-count: 2;” and “column-gap: 1ex;”? Even if you only play around with web pages and know only basic CSS, this is not very difficult to understand at all. Think of the power now that is given to the non-expert in making pages that look as professional as any magazine or newspaper, and without all the hassles of whatever your favorite way of doing columns is right now. And such a standard will ensure that your columns work across information devices. Bravo!
SEE the article I read that prompted this post (there were others, I just chose this one for the examples–which, btw, only work in Mozilla or Safari, I think).