| Andy Dingley 2007-01-30, 9:56 am |
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On 26 Jan, 16:36, "-=MM=-" <sim...@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote:
> consider yourself a competent styler, how did you get that way?
Slowly and painfully, not because it's inherently hard, but because
it's so easy to gain a misunderstanding of how you think it ought to
work, then get sidetracked into that instead fo the real
interpretation. Experienced OO programmers seem to suffer particularly
badly (they talk about CSS selectors and "inheritance", when that's
one thing it really doesn't do).
Read "Head First HTML & CSS" (readable tutorial, encourages the right
mindset, not a good reference)
Read Lie & Bos (readable, accurate, good reference afterwards)
Read <brainjar.com> (best and most readable text I know of on CSS
positioning and especially float)
Code valid HTML. Getting CSS to work is hard enough with valid code,
trying to do it without is crazy.
Validate your HTML, so that it actually _is_ valid
Write well-structured HTML. Less is more. A minimal HTML page is
usually better than one with excess taggage all over the place.
Write detailed HTML. HTML should be minimalised as much as possible,
but no further! If you _need_ that extra <div> or <br>, then use it.
Don't play gymnastics with CSS selectors when a slight addition to the
HTML gives a simpler solution overall.
Don't pander to browser errors. If you can't fix it neatly in 5
minutes, either don't use that feature or just let the IE users suffer
until they learn bettter. _Don't_ write crap code just because it
works in this Tuesday's IE patch. You have to live with this stuff
long-term afterwards.
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