MAJOR update to the boards

If I am not allowed to make such decisions then you now have my resignation.

1) I have never criticized this site. Quite the opposite. I have often thanked you for the work you have done.
2) I dispute your approach- you have not taken one single thing I have said on board. Even though it is born from 10 years experience at a professional level. That does not mean I dont respect your opinion.
3) I'm sorry, but the resignation card is a low card to play. Frankly, I expected more from you. If you feel the argument has been personally defaming just say so, there is no call for your resignation.

Fundamentally I believe everyone has the best wishes of IFAS at heart, but guys, you make it very hard for the rest of us to contribute with this autocratic, technical approach. The process you are using is restrictive by nature and I believe it is too narrow focused and individual oriented to make use of the wide array of disciplines that make a website a great website.

I see your point of view but despite numerous calls for volunteers to help with the backend there is no one else in our group who has the skills and the time to volunteer for that. That is the hard part and that is the part I have to do by myself. The nature of this work means that certain decsisions have to be made to make the backend workable. I have made those decisions but you dissagree with them. It makes no sense for me to throw out those decisions to give more of a choice on the interface if it means I can't get the heart of the beast working!

The resignation card is not a low one it is an honest one. In order to make the backend workable I need to make some decisions and you are trying to say I should not not be let do that. If that is the case then it is not actaully possible for me to do my job so there is no point in me holding the position and getting in other people's way.

The two decisions I have made do not affect end users at all. If you have an idea for what this site could look like then please do up a mockup and I can then translate that to the XHTML/CSS approach. The users won't care whether the site looks good with tables or with CSS, they just care about their interaction with the site! However, the details of the code make a HUGE difference to me because I have to spend my time in it's inner bowls!

The second decision is one of openess. I need to be able to maintain the site and ANYONE needs to be able to take over from me or get involved. People can use any software they like to contribute but that software must be able to export that information in a format that can be used by people using only free software. it is my firm conviction that this is the right way to run an open site like this. We simply cannot afford to become dependent on an expensive or single paltform piece of software because it has massivly negative implications for the maintainability of the site. I am thinking of the longer term here.

Some people have decided to engage in criticism of Barts decisions. The two decisions that stated this are so fundamental that I'm surprised that they need to be stated at all. If the opposite decisions were made, ie that we should not follow web standards, and require anyone who wanted to help to pay for commercial software then I would understand criticism.

If you want to contribute to the site contact Bart. Thanks to those two decisions, anyone can help without needing to worry about forking out money, or writing something incompatable with some other part of the site. It is fundamental that the design for the site follow these decisions.

Cheers,
~Al

Someone should turn this into a book or something.

Okay, I just can’t resist… I have to join the fray.

It's amazing to think so much debate has been generated over the use of the <div> tag versus the <table> tag... Speaking from experience, I find CSS positioning a pain. Especially getting everything positioned in the same place across browser versions. And I concur with a lot of what Dave is saying on this thread.

The CSS versus tables debate could go on forever! It's worse than OS wars. Here's a link for more of the same.

Personally I find it much quicker and easier to use CSS for style and tables for layout. It just works.

And it is quite possible to separate content from presentation but still use the <table> tag.

If it being suggested that the design of the site (the presentation layer) is left to a designer, then this is an excellent idea. But, where I see the problem is when Dave comes back to Bart with a Photoshop/Imageready design split into tables. If I understand CSS positioning correctly, (and if the coder insists on using css <div> tags), they will have to revert to Dave and try and work out how to split the page into block elements and position them using CSS-P in order to replicate the look of Dave's page layout.

In other words, scrap the HTML that Dave supplies and regenerate everything from scratch using CSS-P, just for the sake of the <div> tag. Seems like a worthless exercise.

Wouldn't it make more sense for Dave to leave empty cells in his Imageready HTML, and these empty cells are where the code for the dynamically-created content goes? (Before anyone slams Imageready, it doesn't produce 'bloated' code; it can be quite efficient when used correctly)

It just seems like a more efficient way of doing things. Plus we get the best of both worlds; presentation layer designed by a designer, and content delivery coded by a coder.

Yes, I have decided to criticize Barts decisions, the criticism leads to debate and I don't even think bart minds that. Discussion is a good thing.

My main criticism is not the CSS/XHTML. It is how this decision was reached. For instance- we don't know how many people here use Dreamweaver, but if there was a critical mass maybe that would allow others to participate more fully in the development of the site (Just an example). It seems that the structure of the site is being determined before all the requirements have been determined. If bart designs the site in this manner, and bart goes away- who else if familiar with his methodology and construction methods? Industry standard tools are industry standard for a good reason. Perhaps there are work arounds- perhaps the site could be a hybrid of both methodologies, lessening Barts workload and allowing others to contribute. There are other technologies out there. but the rules have been determined and from this point onwards there will be no turning back.

As for proprietary software, that would exclude Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop. Excluding Flash would be a big mistake in my opinion- just take a look at the NASA site. Flash, used wisely can even reduce bandwidth costs across a site. Vector graphics are much smaller than jpegs. I am aware of the counter arguments. And it does exclude photoshop. If you look a little harder you will also find that Dreamweaver can help produce dynamic sites and help teams to collaborate. Even within the confines of CSS/XHTML.

The other points I made were about adding value to the site- correct procedures for determining the best results for the end user, usability methodologies, marketing influences etc. It's about removing assumptions and replacing them with cold hard facts. This has not been done to date. Bart doesn't even have to do it, I'm sure others could help here.

A lovely theory John but it is just not that simple.

If you have a look at the php code for this site you will see that the code for the skin is not all located in one place, it is, by the very nature of the site, distributed and that is where the complications come in. Breakign u pa div based site is trivial and it is simple to know how it should all nest. Pulling a table based design appart on the backend is a HUGE PITA! That's why I work with CSS. I spend all my time in the thick of the code and I KNOW from experience that having to do that with table generated code would make my life hell. I would MUCH rather implement a design mockup given to me by a designer myself than have to deal with the torture of maintianing a table based layout on the backend.

The idea here is that the designer is offering to HELP the coder (i.e. me), by forcing a tables based layout on me the opposite will be the result. I will not have been helped but anti-helped and that acienves nothing!

PLEASE send me design ideas and mockups, I am not very imaginative when it comes to concepts and ideas, just PLEASE let me implement those designs in a way that is usefull to me!

Bart.

Yes, I have decided to criticize Barts decisions, the criticism leads to debate and I don't even think bart minds that. Discussion is a good thing.

My main criticism is not the CSS/XHTML. It is how this decision was reached. For instance- we don't know how many people here use Dreamweaver, but if there was a critical mass maybe that would allow others to participate more fully in the development of the site (Just an example). It seems that the structure of the site is being determined before all the requirements have been determined. If bart designs the site in this manner, and bart goes away- who else if familiar with his methodology and construction methods? Industry standard tools are industry standard for a good reason. Perhaps there are work arounds- perhaps the site could be a hybrid of both methodologies, lessening Barts workload and allowing others to contribute. There are other technologies out there. but the rules have been determined and from this point onwards there will be no turning back.

As for proprietary software, that would exclude Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop. Excluding Flash would be a big mistake in my opinion- just take a look at the NASA site. Flash, used wisely can even reduce bandwidth costs across a site. Vector graphics are much smaller than jpegs. I am aware of the counter arguments. And it does exclude photoshop. If you look a little harder you will also find that Dreamweaver can help produce dynamic sites and help teams to collaborate. Even within the confines of CSS/XHTML.

The other points I made were about adding value to the site- correct procedures for determining the best results for the end user, usability methodologies, marketing influences etc. It's about removing assumptions and replacing them with cold hard facts. This has not been done to date. Bart doesn't even have to do it, I'm sure others could help here.

Dave, you are still missing the critical point, a dremaweaver fromend being thrown at me will mess up my backend and will make my life a living hell now and in the future. I am always happy to accept HELP but having hastle forcedupon me in the name of help is not the way to go about it!

No one is more familiar with the inner workings of this site than me. I have spend 2 years in the bowls of this code. I am telling you that a tables based layout is not goign to work here because it will mess up the back end. WHY oh WHY won't people jsut belive me when I say that! This is version 3 of this site, it is not a blue skies project but an optimisation, I KNOW that in order to make tihs site more expendable and maintainable that I need XHTML+CSS as the front-end technology. WHY of WHY does no one belive me!!!!!