Dev-Picayune

Thankfully, Blogger finally has a final solution to the layout problems they were causing with their new image feature stuff. The solution involves a new blog setting under the format tab. No more needless div’s. While I am relieved that it is solved, and while it has also encouraged me to improve my XSL and general markup for the better, I see another lesson in software development here. What could have been done to prevent this problem?

As I see it, there were at least 2 or 3 other possible methods for resolving the problem or not causing it in the first place. They could have updated the standard set of layout templates with the necessary additional markup embedded in the template. This would force nearly everyone to upgrade to the latest version of the template since most have at least some minor template modifications. But for those not using the new image feature, it would pose no problems.

Another and better method would be to modify the CSS for each of the standard templates with a clear:both line in the leading and trailing elements for each post. This is obviously time consuming as each of the available templates would have to be modified and those running older templates might not get the changes. I believe this would have worked, but again, probably would have required a lot of up front work. But then you end up with less superfluous markup on the page itself and special templates should be unaffected.

Yet another option would have been to add a new blogger template tag that doesn’t include the new additional div’s and immediately notify everyone what they were for. Then folks like myself could switch to the new tag without a serious hickup. Alternatively, the existing tag really should have stayed the same, and a new tag created that would include the new div’s. But again, that would require folks changing over to a new template.

My thought here (rather than some grand solution) is just that someone obviously believed that including two new div’s at the beginning and end of every post would not pose a serious problem. I don’t understand why they believed that exactly, but certainly it was some amount of short sightedness. It’s a problem that either a little more design time up front, or some more thorough testing could have avoided.