valid strict cross browser = pipe dream?

[Beau Hayes]

Greetings,

Thanks again for the kind answers to my last question. I'll confess up
front this post is part "vent"; I'm just plain frustrated. I have been
out of the business for almost three years. Three years ago CSS support
was such that I wouldn't sink any more time in it than the time it took
to pick one of the 8 core styles served up by the w3 stylebot.
Currently, I've got all this free time and thought it would be great to
try and get my chops back up, and what the hell, maybe tackle css.

So far, however, I'm not happy. I can have valid, strict xhtml, and valid
css if I stick to the w3 core. That's the only way I've seen that
really works, valid, strict, cross-browser; and it only works becuase
it's a limited set of css being served in various configurations based
on the stylebot browser sniffing. Is that what it takes? Do I really
have to give up strict and valid and strong cross-browser support for
the sake of having a three column layout? Is it really worth it?

Okay, that's the rant. I looked at some browser stats and it appears if
I code for IE6 I get something like %70 of the surfing populace, and if
I shoot for valid css I'll automatically get good degradation for the
rest, right?

On a less wide-ranging note, anyone know how to get table background
color transparency to work in firefox 0.9?

Cheers,

--
beau

[Chris Morris]

Beau Hayes <di********@ykwtdwt.oblios-cap.com> writes:

Okay, that's the rant. I looked at some browser stats and it appears if
I code for IE6 I get something like %70 of the surfing populace, and if
70% and likely falling, though. Obviously it has to work (and work
fairly well) in IE6, but it's not a good idea to code 'for' it.
I shoot for valid css I'll automatically get good degradation for the
rest, right?

No, not necessarily. It does make it a lot easier, but there's still
no substitute for testing.

--
Chris