I’ve just released an article at the RIA Zone titled CSS3: A solution for applications, or are we the boiling frogs?. The article is about CSS and HTML for applications and begins like this:
I’ve made countless web
pages using HTML + CSS and have no complaints about the technological
combination for Internet documents and pages. The rub comes when
trying to make an application. Note the distinguishing factors. HTML
+ CSS is a horrid combination for making applications.
To be true, the HTML + CSS
isn’t truly the problem, the problem lies in inconsistent rendering
by the clients (browsers). However, a large part of my job is making
sure an application works, not debating with users which browser
renders ‘correctly’.
When building an HTML +
CSS based application, there will be some unanticipated time required to track down
and hack around a strange edge case or rendering bug . The time spent
to track down the source of the error, which by the way only happens
in IE version 6.0.23234234 and in Firefox 2.098435 and not Firefox
2.102309, is lost time. I’ve even spent 8 or 9 hours tracking down
the source of a CSS related problem, googling around, reading blogs
to find a solution and then testing all the various browsers using
various user interaction permutations to verify the fix didn’t break
another client implementation. While spending this time was necessary
for the success of the application, I would have preferred to spend
that time towards building another useful feature for the users.
The article is a lot longer. Give it a read and let me know if I am off base.