# CSS resets (geek pitting ahead!) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 30, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557 "2011-03-30T20:35:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/21 "2011-03-31T21:37:04Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > Yeah, because real programmers don’t need no stinkin’ server-side code. :rolleyes: Don’t be a retard. Server-side code is what I work on all day and get paid a shitload of money for. But PHP and [ASP.net](http://ASP.net) are designed by imbeciles and used exclusively by morons, masochists, and people who enjoy sexual intercourse with waterfowl. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/22 "2011-03-31T21:38:16Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > I just end every line in my .css file with !IMPORTANT. That way, it always works. > Whaaaaaa…? \*\*Zip, \*\* stop throwing things at me! 😃 Noooooo! ☹ The only time I’ve used !important is as an IE hack. > [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Yea I don’t get the CSS hate. I agree CSS is crap for layouts, but for formatting, sizing, and the like it’s the best. You can use it to move all that distraction up to the head of the document, or to another style sheet. Which keeps your html simple and focused. > I do get the \* hate. Why would people do that? Because Eric Meyer, one of the CSS gods, told people to. Except what he actually said was reset everything and then **redefine** it all so that your padding and margins are the same in every browser. People tend to miss that part and just reset everything. It also doesn’t help that it’s in the default CSS for a lot of lightboxes, so someone just installs a Wordpress plugin to give them purty popups and boom, everything breaks. ---
**Author:** ![Rotlla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Rotlla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rotlla)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/23 "2011-03-31T23:57:59Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > You know, looking at this you all are scaring me! I still code in HTML - am I going to be forced into CSS?? > > :eek: Whoa, how did you manage to post in this thread from 1998? Seriously, it’s tough to think of any use for HTML that doesn’t require CSS to be used alongside it. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/24 "2011-04-01T00:01:53Z")
> [@Rotlla](#): > > Whoa, how did you manage to post in this thread from 1998? > > Seriously, it’s tough to think of any use for HTML that doesn’t require CSS to be used alongside it. My whole site is HTML only. It’s non-commercial and non-flashy but it works! The guy who hosts my site keeps pushing at me to learn CSS but I’m of the school of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/25 "2011-04-01T01:15:58Z")
I thought the point of a CSS reset was to then go in and set up your own defaults for everything you’ve just reset. If you reset everything to zero then only put in selected code, then that’s just madness. I’ve never used a global reset, though I was considering applying [a limited reset](http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/css-reset/) on the next site I make, carefully selecting the ones that are normally problematic for me then immediately including my new defaults. In theory the resetting should therefore be unnecessary, but what I think it does is make every browser now be starting from the same state, giving you ultimate control. I may be being optimistic on that point. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/26 "2011-04-01T02:14:45Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Because Eric Meyer, one of the CSS gods, told people to. Except what he actually said was reset everything and then **redefine** it all so that your padding and margins are the same in every browser. People tend to miss that part and just reset everything. That’s actually quite brilliant! It could solve some problems I’ve been having. If it works I won’t have to murder Bill Gates in his sleep, yet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/27 "2011-04-01T02:21:46Z")
> [@Rotlla](#): > > Whoa, how did you manage to post in this thread from 1998? > > Seriously, it’s tough to think of any use for HTML that doesn’t require CSS to be used alongside it. [Here’s how.](http://thecoffeedesk.com/geocities/xkcd-geocities-tribute.html) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/28 "2011-04-01T03:50:14Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > The guy who hosts my site keeps pushing at me to learn CSS but I’m of the school of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. A lot of the things CSS addresses are practices that are deprecated in HTML, so the only way you’ll be able to make some things work at all is via CSS. So, soon it _will_ be broke, and I suggest you catch up quick-smart. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/29 "2011-04-01T06:04:00Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > A lot of the things CSS addresses are practices that are deprecated in HTML, so the only way you’ll be able to make some things work at all is via CSS. So, soon it _will_ be broke, and I suggest you catch up quick-smart. The thing is, that includes this site, when it comes to the font tags. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/30 "2011-04-01T06:13:15Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I’m all for using CSS to make every headline look the same and for making forms look good and all sorts of useful stuff. > > But layout is the biggest problem. And improperly using CSS, or just using it like an asshole (where there’s no .headline class but there’s .thispage-headline, .thatpage-headline, .etc-headline…or using #id declarations all over the place) is a problem. Absolutely agreed. I have all-but abandoned CSS for anything other than a) the enclosing page layout, and b) typography, forms, lists etc. Fuck the rest of it takes hours to put together a two-column layout in CSS, and even then the fuckers can’t sync their vertical heights. And even when you’ve got it working in IE8 and Chrome, you suddenly find it’s broken in Firefox and IE7 or some shit. FUCK it. Nested tables FTW, even now, 15 years after I started this career. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/31 "2011-04-01T13:09:19Z")
All I really want for Christmas is for everyone to agree on whether padding is included in a box’s specified width, or excluded. Also borders. Or has all that finally been fixed. I long ago stopped paying attention to IE (the advantage of building sites that will only be read by CS academics is that basically no one uses IE). ---
**Author:** ![Rotlla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Rotlla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rotlla)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557/32 "2011-04-01T13:50:24Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Absolutely agreed. > > I have all-but abandoned CSS for anything other than a) the enclosing page layout, and b) typography, forms, lists etc. Fuck the rest of it takes hours to put together a two-column layout in CSS, and even then the fuckers can’t sync their vertical heights. And even when you’ve got it working in IE8 and Chrome, you suddenly find it’s broken in Firefox and IE7 or some shit. FUCK it. > > Nested tables FTW, even now, 15 years after I started this career. Yeah. CSS layout is fucked and CSS3 positioning is pretty neat but it’ll be years before anyone can use it in real life. And the arguments against tables are irrational anyway – peppering your document with non-semantic DIVs isn’t somehow better than using non-semantic TDs. Tables are easy and they are perfectly consistent across browsers. > [@MilTan](#): > > All I really want for Christmas is for everyone to agree on whether padding is included in a box’s specified width, or excluded. Also borders. Or has all that finally been fixed. I long ago stopped paying attention to IE (the advantage of building sites that will only be read by CS academics is that basically no one uses IE). Okay, I guess we have another person posting from the past. Even IE6 used the standard box model if you used a doctype that triggered standards mode. CSS3 allows you to pick between the two box models. I’m not the only person who thinks IE5/5.5’s non-standards-compliant box model actually made way more sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/css-resets-geek-pitting-ahead/576557.md?page=1)