Rick Lecoat wrote:
So, is it considered 'okay', in a web standards sense, to have a non-
valid "bug-fixes" stylesheet working alongside your perfect,
pristine, uiber-valid main stylesheet?
It is considered "bad, but necessary and therefore acceptable" by most
web designers/developers.
To give an example, if I were to have an IE-specific stylesheet with
a lot of stuff like filter: alpha(opacity=50) in it -- which, a quick
Google check informs me, does not validate -- would that be seen as a
breach of web standards?
It _is_ a breach of web standard, so some may see it as a "sin" :-)
However, since there's no other real-world option in many cases, you may
as well add the non-valid part to your pristine CSS and "confess" openly
to having done so. An ordinary CSS comment may make most reasonable web
designers/developers see the light, and make them defer from further
comments on the issue.
Perhaps this whole issue is me getting too focused on the nitty
gritty, but I'm in the process of moving from 'old-school' to web
standards and am trying very hard to get it 'right'. This is just one
of the goal posts that I'd like to clearly identify.
- If there are valid and logical options, then non-valid solutions
should be avoided.
- If no valid and logical options are available, then the _logical_
thing to do is to make it work if at all possible - choosing the most
reliable workaround for weak standard-support and browser bugs, even if
validity suffers a bit.
Whether we separate the valid from the valid parts by using separate
stylesheets, or simply leave the non-valid parts "in the stream",
depends mostly on the local workflow and personal preferences.
'Conditional comments' for IE versions provides us with a practical
separation-solution, but the hiding-effect (that the validator can't see
the separate and non-valid workaround) doesn't make the non-valid
workaround more valid. Thus, my personal preference is *not* to use
'conditional comments' unless there's no other way to achieve separation
and prevent other _browsers_ from being disturbed by the non-valid
workarounds. I see no point in "hiding my sins", although I daily hide
lots of IE garbage as a result of the separation-process itself.
regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
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