Brian wrote:Unipus wrote:My point is that there are generally tricks available to solve all of these little display glitches, if you look/try hard enough...
No "tricks" should be necessary. One of the purposes of standards is to eliminate the need for such things.
As a general statement, in over 95% of cases, current versions of Opera, Mozilla-family, Konq, and Safari will all consistently render the vast majority of CSS according to the spec.
However - Internet Explorer DOES NOT follow the spec correctly in a number of hideous ways. THAT is why the vast majority of tricks are needed.
Note also that "tricks" do not violate the standards, nor even violate the spirit of the standard - the idea is to create code that will
generally work across all browsers in a consistent fashion. If a browser fails to support the standard, then you do your best to make it work across all browsers - the USER is the important thing (as you implicity state in your next point).
Brian wrote:
Whether a design can "handle a few pixels variation" is entirely subjective;
Agreed.
Brian wrote:
a design may still look decent with some component or components positioned a few pixels from the preferred location, but if the design is not rendered precisely according to intentionally precise standards-compliant source code, it is not rendered correctly per the designer's intent.
Slight discussion point - If the designer designs it, and when implementing it cannot acheieve what he designed without flaws, and the choice is between the look, and standards-driven code,
and the designer chooses the look over standards, then he has failed in what might or might not be a primary objective.
All depends on the client.
Brian wrote:
For example, if two consecutive elements are coded to each be five pixels from any other element and the relevant standard specifies that their five-pixel margins should be collapsed, it is wrong for the client to render ten pixels between them. The design may look fine, but the rendering is still incorrect--flawed by the Web client, not the design--and the aesthetics of the rendering are irrelevant to this point.
I disagree. I would argue that the designer has to consider the reality of the browsers, due to the fact that all browsers DONT follow the standard. If they did, the designer wouldnt have to care, and could code purely to the standard.
Since thats not the state of affairs, often, a designer has to make a choice between standards-compliance (in spirit and in letter), and design. You may argue that its a tragedy for him to change his design to comply with the letter and the spirit of the standards. I could counter-argue that design should (and usually does) take into account the limitations of the medium.
In either case, its an opinion - not something that can be argued to a fact or conclusion.
Brian wrote:
Within a medium that allows per-pixel dimensions, there should be no variation unless the designer specifies it.
I'd change the wording slightly to "If the designer chooses to use per-pixel dimensions, there should be no variation unless the designer specifies it". By default, the web ALLOWS per-pixel dimensions, but it doesnt default to that.
Brian wrote:
Furthermore, the existence of flaws in Web browsers does not bestow fault upon designs insofar as those designs specify exact appearances according to common standards that some clients fail to implement properly or entirely.
So, if as an artist, you design a clay sculpture, and ignore the fact that it will be sitting in water, its not your fault?
No. As I said above, a designer needs to be cognisant of the limitations in the medium, and make a value choice between a different design, and standards-compliance.
You and Unipus seem to want to argue that its either or, and that blame is applied based on the choice. Its an opinion, a choice made by the designer.
Unipus clearly beleives that design should reflect the medium (standards have a higher value than design), and you clearly feel the design should ignore the medium, and do what it takes to keep the vision of the designer (design has a higher value than standards).
Both are true, depending on circumstance.
