Posted by Richard Cornford on 07/01/05 18:47

Onideus Mad Hatter wrote:
>Richard Cornford wrote:
>>Travis Newbury wrote:
<snip>
>>> Not sure this falls under the catagory of "web design
>>> history". But still 2 thumbs up for thinking out of the box.
>>
>>I cannot tell if you are being serious here. I had assumed that you
>>knew enough not to be impressed with a poor implementation of an
>>extremely dubious idea.
>
> What the fuck have you got, bitch? Oh, oh, what up:

Articulate as ever.

> http://www.backwater-productions.net/alt.2600/index.html
>
> All I have left to do is add in the content

All? You should try taking a look at what you have done form a variety
of remote locations:-

http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/bw.gif
(144Kb: screenshot of the above URL screwing up royally)

> (and I'll probably modify the images
> a bit to give it a more 3D spatial feel).

A much better short-term plan would be to take some time out to learn
the technologies you purport to be such an expert in. Because, lets face
it, you would never have written the code that you posted at the head of
this thread if you understood any of the technologies involved.

> As far as Google is concerned that's the first EVER perfect
> liquid website layout.

And how did you work that out? You didn't by any chance enter the phrase
"perfect liquid website layout" into google and conclude than none
existed because you got no hits in return?

"Perfect" is a complex criteria with inevitably subjective aspects. The
idea itself is questionable, which will be evident when you observer
that there is more hot air coming out of the back of the server than is
issuing from the web designer. But the whole cannot be perfect without
the implementation being prefect, and it isn't even good. The bizarre
implementation "decisions" betray evidence of programming by
coincidence:-

<URL:
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ppbook/extracts/coincidence.html >

- and thus an amateurish approach. And the obvious disregard for the
issues that will result in avoidable complete failure scenarios
(including the one illustrated above) for significant proportions of
potential visitors betrays an ignorance of those issues.

There are a number of possible optimum implementations of this idea that
will not go belly up at the slightest provocation (the choice depending
on which aspects of the notion was identified as most potentially
problematic in the context of use). The implementation as demonstrated
(at the above URL and in the OP) is so far from being one of them that
"perfect" should be reserved until the results of a total re-write are
available.

Incidentally, it is not a new idea. I have seen it proposed a couple of
times on Usenet (and even well implemented). I have never observed it in
the wild, but that is probably because on most web sites there is at
least one person who can recognise a bad idea when they see one.

> You ain't got nothin on me, Bitch.

You are quite right, when it comes to putting bloated ego in the way of
reason nobody I have ever encountered has anything on you.

Richard.

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