David Stone's Blog

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The MSDN Re-Design Sucks

MSDN just re-designed. Quirks-mode DOCTYPE tag. TABLEs for layout. Embedded FONT tags. Pointless rendering problems and missing features in non-IE browsers. Undoubtedly terrible in non-traditional browsers (phones, PDAs, browsers for the blind, etc.).

This is what the best and brightest are doing with their time? Living in 1996?

[The .NET Guy]

Ouch. This may be a bit harsh, especially on the MSDN guys. This is really not their fault. Look at the file extensions. They're using ASP.NET. Unfortunately, the WebControls in their current state don't output XHTML or even good HTML.

If there's one thing I'd like to see in the Whidbey release of .NET, it's the ASP.NET controls outputting valid XHTML 2.0 and using CSS rather than Font tags, etc.

Posted: Apr 24 2003, 10:23 AM by David Stone | with 4 comment(s)

Comments

sirshannon said:

garbage in, garbage out.

Font tags aren't required just because you're using .NET, as far as I know. Neither are tables (I still use them myself and I take full responsibility for that).
# April 24, 2003 5:51 PM

David Stone said:

Yeah, but they're using the WebControls. This means that they are bound to use the HTML that the WebControls output. If the WebControls don't output proper HTML, then neither will any page that uses them. The reason that page has really horrible HTML is the responsibility of the WebControls.

If the WebControls were revamped to output proper (X)HTML, then the pages that use them would have proper (X)HTML.

I'm not talking about the HTML that you put in there...that's your deal.
# April 24, 2003 6:53 PM

Cory Smith said:

1) They are not reselling the MSDN site as a packaged product... so how the source is written is not important.
2) I'd rather they work on adding more content then worrying about whether or not the html is formatted properly.
3) Does it work in IE... yes... so what's the problem. Does it work from within Visual Studio... yes... again, what's the problem.
4) I go there for the content... not to see whether or not it's conforming to someones preference... using CSS vs font tags.

If you want to really complain about something... complain about the need for them to revamp the search engine. Although I have excellent luck finding what I'm looking for when using their search; I hear many other complaining about it and stating that they get better results using a targetted google search.

Again, the content is more important.
# April 26, 2003 3:30 PM

Cory Smith said:

Also, forgot to point out... I agree with David, that it would be very nice if Visual Studio would output XHTML formatted files...

But to complain about MSDN; whether it's their fault or not, it's about the content. I don't go their to view their html; I go their to get my job done.
# April 26, 2003 3:33 PM
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