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CSS Off

September 15, 2007

First of all, let me start this by saying thanks to Dan Ott. It was his persistance that prompted me to give this round of the CSS Off competition a go. Now here I sit, nearly 45 minutes after the final bell. Damn I'm tired.

I submitted my entry two minutes before the end of the contest. After spending nearly the entire day on this, I must say it was a lot of fun. I've always enjoyed working under pressure (to some extent) so this was right up my alley.

I can say that after having gone through it, I've learned a few things. I would now like to take the time to impart my new found wisdom:

  1. Make sure that you close any comment tags in your CSS properly.

    I had fifteen minutes to go and so I thought I would upload the folder to my server in order to validate the CSS file. Much to my chagrin I found that I didn't close a comment tag. Upon doing so it broke the layout of my entry. I had fifteen minutes to fix it, but I made it. Barely.

  2. Find better ways to clear floats than me.

    I cannot stress this one enough. Please, PLEASE stop what you're doing and read this article on clearing floats. Actually read anything you can on the subject. It is one of my weak spots and cost me a ton of time bug fixing when I could have been testing in more than one browser.

  3. Test in more than one browser.

    Actually, I always do this. Except in those cases when I have 24 hours to complete a design and have spent far too much time focusing on little details.

  4. Don't spend too much time focussing on little details.

    I was so worried about trying to use the include pattern that I ended up wasting two hours of time that could have been better spent with tasks like cross-browser testing. In the end I went ahead and marked up my hReviews without it.

  5. Internet Explorer has been and will continue to be the bane of my existence.

    At least for the foreseeable future anyhow. Although I can't really take all of my anger out on IE. Opera did a poor job of rendering my review table. I was a bit surprised.

Well, that's all I have for now. If the judges at CSS Off decide that they are only going to test my entry in Firefox and Safari, then I should be okay. If they break out Opera and IE (which I'm sure they will do, it is only fair) then I probably won't make the cut. Oh, well. I had a great time participating and encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

I will most likely participate in the next one (barring any unforeseen family events). Thanks for telling me about the contest, Dan. As you are one of the judges now, please show mercy on a fellow Clevelander.

Comments on this Post

  1. Dan Ott

    September 15, 2007

    Brad -

    Nice going!  I hear you on all counts; that’s part of what I love about this.  It forces you to come to terms with what you don’t know.

    Except IE.  I hate IE.

    Anyway, keep up the good work(:

  2. ZombieLoffe

    September 15, 2007

    Hah. Frustration really turns into panic when you have 24 hours. I pretty much agree with your list here, too. Good luck.

  3. Brad Dielman

    September 16, 2007

    @ZombieLoffe and Israel - It definitely was a challenge. While I had a great time doing it, I was glad to finish. My wife and daughter were as well.

    @Dan - I couldn’t agree more. The experience was well worth all of the pressure and lack of sleep.

    @Terry - I wish I would have read the article beforehand. Dan had linked to it in one of his posts and I gave it a quick glance, but didn’t really study it as I should have.

  4. Eric Wiley

    September 16, 2007

    Good for you, Brad.  Keep up the ass-kickin’.

  5. Brad Dielman

    September 16, 2007

    @Eric - Thanks, buddy. Will do!

  6. Terry Ross

    September 16, 2007

    Brad,

    I laughed out loud when I read this. Thanks for the link to the article about floats…a subject I am struggling with.

  7. Israel

    September 16, 2007

    I feel the pain. It seemed like this time around it took alot longer to create the final product.

    I’ve been using a similar method for clearing elements, but nothing as complex as the link you provided. A good resource, I will definitely take what they suggested. 

    It’s good to see a response after the contest is over. I think there should be more of it.

  8. Brad Dielman

    September 17, 2007

    @Nate - Thanks for kind words! My fingers are crossed.

    I agree, life would be much easier without IE. Its astounding to me that with all of the resources that MS has, they can’t put together a decent web browser.

    It took Firefox gaining a little of their market share to get them to finally update the thing.

  9. Nate Klaiber

    September 17, 2007

    Brad, I have no doubt you created an awesome finished product. Having seen some of your recent work, you pay attention to good architecture, structure, and semantics - all very important pieces to creating a useful and usable website.

    You have such a firm grasp on so many different aspects, and I think that always makes a short timeframe even tougher - as you are always ready to optimize different aspects.

    I think ALL of us hate IE with a passion, it is unfortunate that this browser exists.

  10. Prasanth

    September 20, 2007

    Hey,
    nice and interesting article. I wanted to participate this time, but couldn’t make it. I ll make it a point to participate next time. Thanks a bunch for sharing the newly found wisdom :)

  11. Wahoo

    October 05, 2007

    Thank you for sharing!

  12. Josh Walsh

    April 04, 2008

    I’m looking forward to watching tomorrows contest, only wishing I could participate.
    ——-

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