

Why Programmers Suck at CSS Design - urlwolf
http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/page/4/

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sh1mmer
You still shouldn't use @import, which is a designer sucking programming.
@import can cause FOUC as well as slowing down page render a lot.

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addicttostress
As a reference:

<http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/04/09/dont-use-import/>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=559804>

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DenisM
dup <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=345782>

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windsurfer
What is this, digg? So what if it's a duplicate? I am here to discuss with
fellow HNers as much as for reading interesting articles.

Also, I joined only 133 days ago, long after this article was on the front
page.

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wayne
It's good to know about dupes. If nothing else, if you're interested in the
article you can read the HN comments on the other page.

~~~
windsurfer
True, good point. You still lack the ability to discuss, though.

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access_denied
Yes one should be able to subscribe to one topic even if one didn't enter into
to discussion.

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whalesalad
Permalink just in case...
<http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/169/>

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thristian
"Some browsers ship with default stylesheets that are simply horrible. One
notorious problem, for example, is the <table> tag that forgets to inherit
font settings from its parents."

That's not 'bumbling browser makers can't create sensible default
stylesheets', that's 'pages in quirks mode duplicate the oddities of Netscape
4 as closely as possible'. Use a DOCTYPE that triggers standards mode,
validate your HTML and you'll find a lot of CSS things get much easier.

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rue
The post actually contained some very good tips for any beginning designer,
although the title does the article a disservice ("Why Do Web Designers Suck
at Programming?")

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enneff
I am REALLY tired of these "why x suck at y" articles. Are these bloggers so
devoid of inspiration or creativity? Honestly I find this particular title
offensive as I'm a programmer who is frequently forced to fix the broken CSS
of so-called "designers".

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jerryji
Because some do not care enough about other users' experience -- like didn't
bother submitting the proper permalink at the bottom of the page.

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briansmith
Blame the website designer as much as the submitter. Submitters shouldn't have
to think about "permalinks".

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tjogin
Programmers suck at design because it isn't programming, it's design.

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Hexstream
For color picking, HSV is very much better than RGB. With HSV though, I still
don't have a good intuition for Saturation VS Value tuning so it seems there
could be an even better color system.

Munsell appears to be that system, however there doesn't seem to be any public
description of it that would allow one to implement it so you have to use some
proprietary crap. I think that's a real loss for humanity.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSV_color_space>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell>

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systems
My experience is that the same programmers who suck at CSS design, are the
same who suck at GUI design, and the same who suck at creating modular code ,
and the same who hardly ever indent their code, and the same who write
spaghetti code,

... and the same programmers who thinks that if it runs, its good ... and the
same who are just not good programmers.

Think about it, if you are a generally good programmer, you would never create
a bad UI, CSS or otherwise! ... Linus Torvalds as far as I know don't create
UIs, he is a very good programmer too

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satyajit
Let's face it. CSS design is a visual art, and not every programmer is good at
it. You either have it or don't. I have seen many programmers who do a fine
job with CSS.

~~~
TJensen
I think the article nailed it in that most programmers think they aren't any
good because they have no clue where to start. With no training and a non-
obvious technique (and perhaps some intimidation at trying and failing),
programmers just say "I can't do it."

I would bet most programmers could do an OK job at designing things (at least,
not painful :). But great design is still talent that has to be worked at, and
I think it is hard for anybody to get to that point without devoting
him/herself to it (and probably having innate talent as well).

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jhancock
I fit the stereotype. compass has saved me
<http://github.com/chriseppstein/compass/tree/master>

With compass I get a programmer's mindset and lots of predefined typography
goodness. It still takes lots of work, but I have been able to produce a clean
site now.

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intranation
In the article he mentions using @import over LINK due to some convoluted
logic about "easier to re-use". LINK and @import behave exactly the same,
except the well-known performance issues. Why should we trust someone who
doesn't actually understand browsers?

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joechung
LINK and @import don't behave the same. LINK styles are evaluated in document
order. Evaluation of @import styles is deferred until the end of the document.

~~~
intranation
See my caveat: "well-known performance issues".

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joechung
They're not semantically the same either though so it's not just a performance
issue.

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edw519
_Give your page some air_

Always my biggest problem. Being a natural maximizer (as many programmers
are), I can't stand non-performing real estate. It's taking me a long time to
understand that white space _is_ performing, just not the same way that code
performs.

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whatusername
Maybe you should use Python more often - then white space does perform!

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arjungmenon
Programmers don't suck at CSS Design, it's Stefano's stereotype of programmers
that do.

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braindead_in
great tips!

