Website Development

I was having an interesting conversation today regarding POSH with a colleague during the development of a back-end system. Over the years, we have both detached ourselves from the mind-set/methodology of using tables for layout in our markup (generally speaking - properly separating content from presentation). Although, towards the end of the conversation, we delved into the use of Microformats to further semantically markup items such as contact information and mailing addresses, and my colleague brought up an interesting assumption that he made regarding use of the class=”" on HTML markup to Microformat it. Essentially with this assumption, he concluded that applying CSS was the sole purpose of the class attribute and therefore applying classes to the markup only to get the data microformatted was the same as using the “table” tag to layout a page.

Now, I voluntarily teach a class covering semantic markup of HTML and applied CSS. A good number of the students traditionally in attendance are those that are still familiar with the “old school” markup techniques (and fresh out of college, no less). I have yet to have a student or another colleague have the same assumption, but I can clearly see now how that could be concluded without a proper education, so I am putting this out there educationally to help others with a similar assumption.

Here is what I quickly found on the topic to help him understand the “old school” way is not being duplicated again by “presentationally” applying classes to markup to solely “format” it. The first two seem a little light in their description though, so this has spurred my colleague to seek out what those “other” straight-forward uses of the class attribute are. What do you know of? Drop me a line and let me know.

• W3C - says For general purpose processing by user agents
• Web Design Group says An author could use <code CLASS=Java> when giving Java code - so use for self-identification in programming or further development
• Tantek’s Blog - some other things to note

The Web Marketing Association’s WebAwards have added something new for 2008 – the critical eye of our own James Golden. Since 1997, these annual awards have recognized websites in 96 different industries for achievement and excellence in original design, technical development, functionality, SEO efforts and marketing campaigns. We figured we should get involved due to the organization’s goals of encouraging standards and rewarding innovation in the web industry (causes whose banners we have been known to raise from time to time). We gave them James as he is our own personal project critic. Once James is okay with it, it is certain that the client - being a mere mortal - will most assuredly approve.

We first became involved with the awards last year with the most positive of possible introductions - we won one (Outstanding Achievement in Website Development for Schumacher Homes). So this year James will join judges from 37 different countries and countless organizations (seriously, I tried) in determining who this year’s winners will be. This of course means that our projects are no longer eligible to win, but that’s a price we’re willing to pay to have James scrutinize someone else’s work for a few weeks.

If you have a site that you would like to nominate, click here , and hurry as the nomination process wraps up this Friday, June 13th.