Jeffrey Veen on shortcomings in content management systems:
Why do you insist Web sites have ?columns??
I?ve used quite a few systems now that have the notion of a three-column layout. They give me the ability to turn columns off and on, and put ?portlets? into ?content-slots.? Where does this assumption come from? In the last two years, I haven?t built a single Web site with columns ? and these are high-traffic commercial sites. All of the markup is spit out linearly, and then styled in whatever column format we want using CSS. Yet so many content management systems bake the three-column layout so deeply into the code that it takes considerable hacking to get rid of it (I?m looking at you, Plone).
It may be a couple of years before everyone can start using table-free layout, but why not set the precedent with your tools? Think how much easier your CMS would be if I could simply say, ?I want these features presented in this order,? and then apply a stylesheet that does all of the presentation.
Molly on conformance to standards.
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