CSS Reality

Cascading Style Sheets, Promise vs. Reality, and a Look to the Future
By Mark Newhouse

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a technology with a lot of promise, but their often-hyped potential leaves some designers feeling blindsided by the 2×4 known as reality. This article sorts out the differences, and makes a case for educating yourself now in preparation for the future.

You’ve heard it in web design forums and on email lists. You’ve read about tossing tables in favor of standards-based CSS layout on sites such as A List Apart and Web Reference. Maybe you’ve visited some sites that offer ready-made, table-free templates. So you dig a little deeper and start discovering little discrepancies in browser implementation. And then you realize that some of the discrepancies aren’t so little.