Ok, I plan to add to this list as I continue to discover reasons why CSS should have died long ago, if only it hadn't taken as long as it has to get somewhat widespread tool and processor support for SVG.
Reason #10:
After nearly 10 years (or has it been more than 10 years -- it seems like 50 to me) the coolest graphic rendering "trick" that can be performed is to round the corners of my rectangles via -moz-border-radius which, technically speaking, is not even correctly implemented according to the CSS 3 spec (based on the info contained in my copy of the 2002 published "Dynamic HTML - The Definitive Reference" from O'Reilly.) NOTE: See the main page of this site to see a sample (if using Mozilla-based browser) -- the site is obviously still undergoing dev work :)
Whats even more amazing is that three years after this title was published it is still accurate which means that in three years, unless the CSS 3 spec has adapted to Mozilla, nothing has changed! 3 YEARS LATER and a hack is still the only available implementation in Mozilla!!! And this just to round the corners of a rectangle!!! And it was the excitment that stemmed from my brain when I realized "Hey, I can round these corners, can't I!" that forced the realization that if after 10 years rounding the corners of a rectangle, using a HACK none-the-less, was enough to get me excited -- then I'm staring down at a very old and sick and ready to die technology.
Nice effort CSS! You're only about, oh, 8 years or so too late on this one... So close, you were oh so close....
I have no doubt that I will find reason #9 soon... stay tuned.
DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting that I no longer plan to use CSS nor do I think its a horrible technology. Its just not well suited to take on the competition in SVG, XAML, and XUL. And I don't need to be a Seer or a Prophet to know that SVG is about to take the Web by storm and that XAML and XUL will be handling the .NET and Mozilla-based applications. Not sure what will become the defacto-declarative XML-based GUI language for Java but its a safe bet that it WON'T be CSS (you would first have to be a declarative XML-based syntax just to make it into the qualifying round!) and more than likely will be SVG given that there are already several Java-based engines available and what seems a huge amount of recent tool support. Sorry CSS, to little too late.
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.xsltblog.com/xslt-blog-mt/mt-tb.cgi/638
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Top 10 Reason's CSS's Death is *LONG* overdue:
» phentermine from phentermine
[Read More]
Tracked on March 7, 2006 02:24 AM
» Hey! I liked your site very much! from
[Read More]
Tracked on March 10, 2006 10:06 PM
Um. CSS sits on top of XUL. CSS is not equivalent to SVG, XAML or XUL.
I’m not sure I understand how you got the impression I believe CSS and SVG, XAML, and XML are equivalent… I am definitely very aware of the differences between CSS and any XML-based UI markup you might want to compare it to. My point was to suggest that after 10 years as a standard (and only taking HTML into the equation — as far as the web and UI markup languages are concerned it still owns the marketshare in a huge way… thats changing but its happening slowly and its only in the past 6-12 months that anything has could really be considered a viable alternative) we are still living in a “square cornered” world that has only been made rounded by a mozilla extension to CSS
Even still, I have changed my viewpoint on CSS quite a bit as of late (I reference this as such in this post > http://www.xsltblog.com/archives/2005/08/whilelateina1.html )
Hope this helps clarify things a bit more…