Comments on: CSS Patches

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:05:38 +0000

Well, I think of it as an injury. An injury to your layout. Now if you were bleeding you wouldn’t “hack” you injury would you? You’d patch it up! Of course, this wouldn’t get rid of the problem, only time can do this, no, it simply mends it up so that, to the eye, all is well.

By: Steve Webster

Steve Webster — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:46:18 +0000

To use the term ‘patch’ would be to indicate that you’ve fixed the root cause of the problem. In fact, you’ve just treated the symptoms – the underlying browser flaw remains – so this is at best a workaround. If you have to use an alternative term, that’s the one you should use.

By: chris

chris — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:17:22 +0000

personally i only use the term Hack if it creates invalid w3c code otherwise its a patch.

By: Jeff Lynch

Jeff Lynch — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 19:05:26 +0000

Why not use the terms Microsoft likes best. If they knew about it but didn’t fix it yet, it’s a “bug”. If they didn’t know about it or don’t intend to fix it, it’s a “feature”. If they can’t figure out how to fix it permanently (yet), they issue a “hotfix” (“hack”). If they find some company that’s figured out how to fix it, it’s called an “acqusition”.

By: Egor Kloos

Egor Kloos — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 14:43:33 +0000

Personally I call em hacks, just so that others know what the hell I’m talking about. And for them to realise that IE is f***ed up. ‘Work-a-round’ sounds a bit like you’re not trying hard enough, ‘hack’ sounds like your breaking it to make it work and patch implies to me that you are fixing at or near the source itself. But the source of the problem is not in the CSS but in IE. ‘Filter’ sounds okay, it sounds safe and non threatening. Which in many cases could be understating the problem. So there isn’t any word that feels right. Hack to me is the closest, because the fix is often an exploit of a non supported but valid W3C feature in CSS. I tend not to use exploits of a non-valid CSS nature because I know that I will have to fix it later. It’s not like I have nothing better to do! :)

By: Bruce Gilbert

Bruce Gilbert — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:23:27 +0000

I think there will always be CSS Patches/Hacks/Workarounds. CSS is not an exact science, at least not as long as the different browsers render CSS declarations so differently. I SERIOUSLY doubt IE 7 will be workaround/Hack/Patch free. For that matter even the “good” browsers require certain “adjustments” from time to time.

By: Isaac Lin

Isaac Lin — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 16:56:11 +0000

There is no guarantee for some of the CSS workarounds that they will work properly with new releases of all browsers; they might trigger an entirely new bug, for example, or they might continue to work with one browser but fail in another one. Thus the workarounds may need to be fixed with each new release of all browsers, and checking for this is an ongoing task that gets more complicated with more complicated workarounds.
I know there are reasons for disliking IE conditional comments, but because they clearly target the specific buggy browser version, I think patch might be a better fit for this case (for example, I might be more inclined to call Dean Edwards’s IE7 scripts, when installed as per his instructions, a patch to IE).

By: Dan Cederholm

Dan Cederholm — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 00:49:33 +0000

But how, for example, will the 3-pixel text jog bug disappear from IE6, when IE7 is released? Unfortunately, it won't. Plenty will still be using IE6, and therefore I'd like my patches (I said it!) to remain. At least until marketshare for IE6 dwindles. Which will be years. We're still supporting IE5 (in general)! This is where hack (or patch!) managment becomes really useful. Keeping things separate, for pruning later on down the road. Most likely, "down the road" will be several years.

By: Isaac Lin

Isaac Lin — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 00:09:41 +0000

Dan, your typical CSS workaround will potentially require future maintenance, because it relies on specific behaviour from specific versions of web browsers, which may change in new versions. Thus a negative connotation is appropriate, since ongoing maintenance of the workaround may be required.

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 11:15:04 +0000

While Faruk’s post and first comment was overdoing it in being violent and raving, I think he makes a good point saying that we should avoid go into details and labeling when discussing with managers, decision makers etc, for as long as possible.
Then, if the need really arises, I’m not sure hack nor patch is a good name.
How about Non-standardized CSS, maybe?