Posted July 21, 2009 at 8:46 AM EST in Industry Events, Presentations, Web Standards | Comments (2)
This past Saturday I gave my CSS Summit presentation on CSS & Troubleshooting IE6. Feel free to download the presentation slides to check out what I covered!
In the chat room, a number of questions and comments came up regarding the use of CSS hacks to address IE. I don’t know how many people were in the camp of “all hacks are bad, all CSS must validate!” versus “who cares, use all the hacks you want”, but I was put on the spot and asked for my two cents. I said something to the effect of, “Aiming to write CSS which validates is a great goal and perfectly achievable on your personal site, but when putting together a site for work or for a client, especially a large site, you may find that using hacks is easier to write and read, and will scale better over time — so long as you plan a way out.”
I think that resonated with some of the folks in attendance, who have always felt that to honor the Web Standards cause, a developer always had to follow the best practices and have valid code at all times.
So, just to reiterate, no, you don’t have to have valid markup and style sheets all of the time. In fact, there are times where you’ll intentionally code something not valid — whether it’s the use of the target attribute for an anchor to make sure a link opens in a new tab/window, or whether it’s the application of a hack in your CSS, so a future developer doesn’t have to look through multiple CSS files to figure out what you did. I think this is perfectly acceptable, provided you execute the hack consciously. At almost all of the large companies where I’ve worked*, we’ve had to use hacks or deliver non-valid code. It’s just a fact of life. It’s what you know about your non-validating code, what you plan for**, that matters.
*At PayPal, we attempted to maintain separate IE6 and IE7 style sheets, called with conditional comments; this caused developers to have to write additional CSS in many cases, as the CSS architecture included a global CSS file, one or more product/flow/page-specific CSS files, and then these IE-specific CSS files. Due to the cascade, overwriting one style in the IE-specific CSS file sometimes meant writing additional lines of CSS to restore a style — unless you could ensure that tweaking selectors in the other CSS files to make them more specific would be a better fix, without breaking any other pages… perhaps you see where I’m going with this? With over 100 developers potentially working on a bit of code, decoupling IE-specific styles created a nightmare situation, which inline hacks would have solved in a way that would have been easier to read and easier to maintain.
**On the other hand, at CIM, we have no coding standards (yet), so each developer appears to be addressing browser-specific issues in whatever way they want. I’ve seen multiple hacks used in our code and backing them out later is going to be a major challenge. When you do use hacks, make sure everyone on the project/working on the site uses the same ones!
So, with that, you have my permission to use hacks and write non-validating code — just make sure you have a good reason for doing so, in case someone comes asking why you did it. ‘Cause I won’t back you up if you don’t have solid justification!
Posted June 3, 2009 at 9:31 AM EST in CSS, Industry Events, Web Standards | Comments (5)
In case you hadn’t already heard, The CSS Summit is coming to a desktop near you on Saturday, July 18! This online conference is offering a slate of presenters who will talk about typography, CSS3, flexible layouts, HTML5, jQuery, troubleshooting IE6, and more.
Since it’s an online conference, there are no travel expenses, and registration is only $139 for individuals! (If you want to round up a group of folks in your living room or office, you can register as a meeting room for just $439!) However, if you register via this link, you’ll get $25 off the price!
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I’m presenting on the topic of troubleshooting IE6. Unlike most Web developers, I don’t hate IE6. In fact, it has a special place in my heart, as it enabled my team at AOL to build some of the most awesomely advanced CSS-based grids and templates ever. (No joke, I see folks still trying to do what we did back in the day!) Yes, I still get frustrated by having to deal with some of the odd bugs it presents with, from time to time, but generally I’ve learned how to plan for and work around those bugs. So that’s what I’ll be speaking to.
Of course, if you have particular pain points or concerns that you think I should address, please let me know by adding your two cents here. Thanks!
Posted June 2, 2009 at 9:24 PM EST in Duran Duran, Music | Comments Off
Oh yes, it’s another list! I’ve been listening to a lot of great music lately, and there’s been lots of music news to report, so here goes!
- My friend, Chris Connelly, has a new album out — this one dedicated to his beloved Scotland. Pentland Firth Howl is available on CD and limited edition vinyl; it’s something you don’t want to miss.
- Once a month, I visit Julian Cope’s Head Heritage, and lo and behold, this month I met a site redesign! As always, there is plenty of new music in Unsung and W.S.Y.M., as well as a new album for Spring 2009. (Side bonus: Julian’s wife, Dorian, has an awesome new blog, On this Deity — highly recommended!)
- Shoegazing is making a comeback and one of its original darlings, Mark Gardener of RIDE, is back with a lovely (and standards-compliant) website. He was recently interviewed about this genre’s resurgence by Drowned in Sound and the Times Online. Be sure to get the shoegazing retrospective Sci-Fi Lo-Fi Vol. 3: Shoegazing 1985-2009.
- Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, the documentary, is finally being released on DVD in the US on June 16, and it’s going to have extra content (so I’m going to have to buy another copy!). Pre-order it now. Also check out music inspired by the film — I can’t decide which track I love the most!
- Duran Duran has been recording with Mark Ronson and, apparently, the new album sounds like Rio and Planet Earth! While waiting for that to arrive (next year?) Duranies can enjoy (finally) a double-CD or vinyl set of Rio, featuring both the UK and US album mixes (the CDs also have studio demos, b-sides, and other mixes). Also generating excitement amongst fans is the DVD/CD/download release of the band’s 1982 performance at Hammersmith Odeon! Full details
Plus NME has been reporting about forthcoming new releases from Yoko Ono and Sigur Ros, as well as North American tours in the fall by The Charlatans (UK) and Blur! Woo hoo!
Posted March 30, 2009 at 7:07 AM EST in Computing, Current Events, Links | Comments Off
Some of these stories are a few weeks old — sorry, that’s what happens when you go to SXSW!
- ACM Names Barbara Liskov Recipient of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award You had to know I’d be excited about this one! Barbara Liskov is the second female recipient of the award (Fran Allen was the first, in 2006). Dr. Liskov was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science in the United States, and she is given the award “for contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, especially related to data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing.” Congratulations, Barbara!
- Computer Science Majors Increase at Most Significant Rate Since Dot Com Boom Good news for the field of computing, however, if you look at the data, the percentage of women has remained the same.
- Psychology of nerding and the joy of reckless tech The topic of taking stuff apart without regard for whether or not it will work when put back together has come up in my life a lot, recently. For example, Mat Schaffer and I gave career day talks to young women last week, and we spoke about doing just this, to see if they have a knack for technology. My recommendation: spend $5 on an old VCR at Goodwill and pull the thing to pieces.
- Code cracker remade Bletchley Park scientists and makers have rebuilt The Bombe — the code cracking machines used to break the Enigma cipher in WWII! Plus, Bletchley Park is in need of saving, so please contribute, if you can.
- Students tie £56 camera to balloon and send it to edge of space to capture stunning images of Earth Now these are the types of projects that high schoolers ought to be doing! (The full set of photos are here.)
- Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned No answers, but some interesting facts are mentioned.
Posted March 24, 2009 at 8:15 AM EST in Bryn Mawr, Computing, People I Admire, Technology, Women! | Comments (2)
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and, essentially, the first computer programmer (in an age where mechanical calculating machines were still ideas drawn on paper). Born in 1815, she envisioned machines which could not only compute calculations, but also compose music.
When computer science students are learning the history of the subject (assuming they get any historical teachings at all — our history is “taught” via small anecdotes as footnotes in textbooks), Ada Lovelace is sometimes the only women ever mentioned. However the history of the field is strewn with the impactful and inspiring stories of women: Grace Hopper, Jean Bartik and the other ENIAC programmers, Milly Koss (why doesn’t she have a Wikipedia page?), Fran Allen, Anita Borg, Telle Whitney, Wendy Hall, Ellen Spertus — and those are just the high-profile women whose names are likely to be recognized. There are so many other women out there who have done, are doing, and will do great things for computing, technology, and the world — and today’s blogging event will expose all of us to a few more.
Although I’ve found many female role models in computing and technology, none were as important to me as the women I was surrounded by in college, when I was pursuing computer science as a major. Bryn Mawr’s computer science department didn’t exist yet — in fact, we had only one full-time CS professor back then! But there were plenty of women on campus interested in technology and they were my primary motivators and supporters in those days.
Amy (Biermann) Hughes, PhD graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1995 and received her PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California in 2002. She is currently a member of the technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. I think I first met Amy when we were working together for Computing Services as student operators (“ops” for short) and she was an immediate inspiration. Amy seemed to know everything there was to know about networks, and she taught me a great deal. The fact that she’d decided to major in CS without there being an official major made the idea of me doing it seem feasible. Amy had done research as an undergrad — another fact which amazed me — in parallel computing! (That just flat out floored me.) On top of all of that, she loved Duran Duran. I’m not kidding when I say that there were times at which I’d say to myself, “Amy got through this somehow, I can too!” In fact, I’m still telling myself this, as every time I think about going back to school for my PhD, I wonder how I’ll get over my fear of qualifying exams and I remember that Amy did it, so can I!
My compsci partner-in-crime from my own class was Sarah Hacker (yes, that’s her real name). She graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1997 and went on to do graduate studies at SUNY Buffalo. She currently works in health care information systems at the University of Iowa. Sarah and I were in many classes together before we ever struck up a conversation. I was intimidated by her natural programming abilities — to me, it seemed that she could pick up any language syntax and any programming concept so easily! — but I came to greatly appreciate and sometimes rely on them. We also worked for Computing Services and frequently worked the night shifts together, drinking soda, eating candy, and making bizarre photo montages (such as Sarah’s brilliant Child of the Moon series). In fact, it was Sarah who first showed me how to create a web page, so I really owe her quite a bit! Sarah introduced me to Pulp (the band), reintroduced me to Real Genius, and taught me LISP for an AI assignment. We started the Computer Science Culture Series together and were featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer for our robots, Jimmy and Timmy. Generally, she just kept me company and in good spirits, and I can only hope that I did the same for her.
Fortunately Amy and Sarah are still friends, so I continue to draw inspiration from their current lives and achievements as well. Of course, they weren’t the only women who helped me make it through my undergraduate experience and early career — Elysa Weiss, Helen Horton Peterson ’79, and Jennifer Harper ’96 (all Bryn Mawr Computing Services staff) were instrumental as well. And I have to give props to the men who were able to put up with supported a community of such strong women: Deepak Kumar, John King, Rodney Battle, and David Bertagni.
Those of us interested in computer science and technology are constantly looking forward, but today gives all of us a great opportunity to look back and highlight our common history and all of the people — both men and women — who’ve made today possible. Thank you, to all of them!
Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
