I certainly don’t consider myself an expert coder. However, you may be stuck in 1998 if you code your sites using:

Image Maps – Seriously? I’m trying to remember why I ever did that to begin with. Oh right, because I wanted to make my website ONE BIG IMAGE. Hello? Slice and optimize people.

  – Dude, try one of these instead, it’s like magic (margin, padding). How many sites do I have to open up and have to filter through lines of &nbsp!

Tables – I hate tables and try to avoid them at all costs. There are VERY FEW times when it’s alright to use a table. They were never meant for layout and with the flexibility that CSS offers they never should be. Remove the damn TR’s and TD’s guys.

Floating anything – Flash was sooooooo cool when people started getting on the internet. The problem was that nobody bothered to turn past “Flash 101: Chapter 1: Animation”. It’s those silly floating text graphics that give Flash a bad name. Now Apple’s giving Flash a bad name. Hey Jobs, I just called my Macbook pro, iPod and iPod touch a really bad name… what do you think of that?

Squished sites – Remember when everyone had 15″ monitors and thought that was darn cool? OK, at least remember when everyone had 15″ monitors? Yeah, just so you know the only 15″ monitors are used for TV remote controls now. I don’t even think you can buy a monitor that’s under 17″ so PLEASE stop making your website 3 inches wide and using 8 point text. I have glasses and STILL have to sit right up to the monitor. Yeah, yeah… your next argument is that people using iPhones won’t be able to see it. Well, if you can’t code your website to fit into a mobile device correctly I have a few choices words I’ll email you personally.

Home buttons – I have never understood the purpose of a “home” button. I have ranted and raved about this before but people are just being lazy now. A websites main page should be a place to START looking for the information you want. Guess what, you should STILL be able to find that information at every point through your browsing so there’s no need to START all over. OK, that’s not totally a coding related issue but I’ll take any opportunity to vent about it.

Empty Div’s – I have to yell at myself about this one. I’m so dumb that I can’t always avoid empty Div’s. How else do you get those pesky columns to go full height? My friend always yells at me about it and I can’t argue with him. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a way to get around that 100% of the time. Stupid I tell ya.

Clean up your act and stop coding the same way you did 12 years ago. Or at least be fair and NEVER charge anyone for that crap.

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