following in faineant footsteps
<< Mar 3, 2005 @ 02:44 >>
I'm supposedly producing my very own web documentary at MPR. Now, I say supposedly, but the topic has already been picked, and several proposed designs have been made. It was to launch Feb 7th, then Feb 28th, now– who knows. I haven't heard anything since they suggested a new date of the 28th. What is hold the up? I'm producing the web documentary, not the radio documentary, and the executive radio producers can't get their shit together apparently.
I didn't work at MPR last week cause it was slow and I'd rather have my time back, to be honest. This week my boss got me to come in by waving my documentary like a carrot. "Come in and show me your designs," he said. So I go in Tuesday: "Maybe tomorrow." And he gives me busy work. So I go in Wednesday: "Eh, maybe later today." And he gives me even worse busy work, and tells me I can look forward to transcribing audio on Thursday. I swear he knows they axed my documentary, and he isn't telling me cause he knows I'd quit.
The busy work today was to update the footer on the bottom of every single page of every single documentary they've ever done. Now, I have to take size and colour of the custom documentary site designs into account; each one is different, so I can't batch job them all. But here's the real kicker: the previous web master didn't use includes. Each footer appears statically at the bottom of each and every single page. So I have to create a new footer, figure out what the old footer code looks like, and search and replace across all the files to take out the old footer and put in an include directive for my footer. Normally I'd just edit one file and be done. That is total incompetence. But what is more amazing is the fact that the new web master, my boss, didn't use includes for any of the new sites that he created. That is even more incompetent. Not only are the footers there statically, but the whole header and template. Everything. Ridiculous. He doesn't write valid markup either.
Reader Comments...
March 3, 2005 @ 09:28:50
sith33 (#999)
It must be tough being an HTML snob in that environment. Now start yelling about CSS that doesn't conform with the WC3 spec! CSS bitching is the most exciting kind of bitching you know?
March 3, 2005 @ 12:24:21
xopl (#001)
Whatever dude. There's a reason there is ANSI C, there is a reason there is IEEE float representation.
Abide by the goddamn standards.
March 3, 2005 @ 17:34:18
sith33 (#999)
I hear Hilter was in to standards...
March 3, 2005 @ 17:36:33
xopl (#001)
So I guess doctors are fascists for following standard practice, and architects are Nazis for following building code.
March 3, 2005 @ 20:15:23
74 (#074)
As far as web standards, I couldn't be convinced to care, if it renders properly on IE, Mozilla, Opera and Lynx the rest can suck my nads. Beyond that, basically the only thing I learned in web last semester is that different browsers render even the most facist dtd-strict much differently.
As far as god damn static fucking footers, I know that pain, assholes at fox made me deal with that shit. Luckily after a few minutes of regexp hacking I got something to recognize about 90% of them. Then I just browsed the pages till I found the ones that slipped through the cracks. It's just fucking stupid, why the hell would you write the same fucking piece of code over and over like a thousand times? Are these people just not lazy, are they really that worried about their continuing job security that they have to make every god damned step so painfully difficult?
March 4, 2005 @ 01:26:27
sith33 (#999)
And by "IE, Mozilla, Opera and Lynx" you mean "Safari" ... right?
March 4, 2005 @ 03:31:48
xopl (#001)
If everybody followed the standards exactly you wouldn't have to worry about whether it rendered correctly in your long list of browsers. You could write once and be done with it.
It is completely unacceptable for a browser to not conform to the standard. I'm not unreasonable, I don't expect every browser to conform to ALL of the standard immediately, so long as they publish which parts they've not implemented (which good browsers do) and they've followed the standard for the parts they have. If you disagree with that, you either haven't bothered to really think it through, or you are taking the opposite side just for the sake of the argument, or you are an idiot. Because I'm right, and any decent computer scientist with a quick glance at history could see why.
If you did anything sufficiently interesting with CSS you'd quickly come to realise that IE is a fiery piece of shit that ruins your life because 60% of the people still use it. All of the amazing stuff you want to do that is really cool and really maintainable and really fast and really etc. works on everything BUT IE.
The issue of whether or not people should write markup that conforms to the standards, well, I'm not going to be such a dick about that. However, not doing so puts a huge roadblock in the idea of write once, render anywhere, because browsers have to render your shit code. I'm not going to be a dick, because it is the web, and the browsers probably SHOULD be able to render your shit code.
But if you are a professional web guy, and you aren't creating something just for yourself, you look illiterate writing invalid markup. How stupid would you look if you submitted a C program that didn't compile because of syntax errors?
March 4, 2005 @ 03:46:49
xopl (#001)
Oh, and it was especially awesome today when I was working on one of the documentaries (they each have their own unique design) that had 120 files, each with statically reproduced header and footer. What's better is that there was an index.html *AND* and index.htm in the directory, and they were both different and both accessible parts of the site. The guy who did all this has been promoted in the company at least twice now.
March 4, 2005 @ 14:36:39
sith33 (#999)
I on the other hand, obfuscate all my HTML generation inside undocumented PHP functions that are brought in from outside includes. Job preservation.
March 4, 2005 @ 15:09:00
xopl (#001)
I hope you keep some examples around that don't look like that, cause you aren't going to get hired someplace worth working at with examples like that.
Nor would you last long at those places if you started producing stuff like that.
March 4, 2005 @ 21:57:54
sith33 (#999)
Luckily I don't ever want a gig doing web development...
March 5, 2005 @ 02:34:34
xopl (#001)
Web design and web mastering both suck big bananas. I'd do web applications, though. You get paid more, and it is a cakewalk.
March 6, 2005 @ 08:06:00
74 (#074)
Yes, I did, but safari seems to be highly compatable with anything that functions on opera and mozilla, at least that's been my experience.
I've basically given up on anything complicated. I use php functions to keep everything modular. Just little functions that output pieces of standard featureless html code. It might not be beautiful, but it keeps my web page easy to update and rendering properly.
Work is another matter however, css and asp all over, divs, positioning, nastiness. The portal we use is a little shoddy from a code perspective, can't argue with the results though.