CFUNITED 2007 Speaker Interview: Sandy Clark

 
May 16, 2007
by Clark Valberg

About Sandra Clark

Sandra Clark, an advanced Macromedia Certified ColdFusion developer, is a Senior Software Developer with the Constella Group in Bethesda, Maryland. She has contributed material to the ColdFusion 5.0 Certified Developer Study Guide published by Syngress Media/Osborne McGraw Hill and to the ColdFusion Developers Journal. She has also spoken at various CFUGS and ColdFusion User Conferences around the country. Sandra is an active proponent of applying accepted and proven web standards to development as a way of improving accessibility as well as making life easier on developers. She can be reached at sclark@constellagroup.com. Sandra also maintains a website and blog at http://www.shayna.com, where she shares information on CSS, Accessibility, Fusebox, Coldfusion and also offers training classes.

Sessions:

  • Testing for Accessibility
  • CSS - Back to Basics
Clark Valberg is President of Epicenter Technology Consulting. Epicenter provides software design and consulting services to organizations of all shapes and sizes. Clark's under-visited and under-authored blog can be found at this cleverly worded URL: http://www.clarkvalberg.com/
Clark Valberg: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today, Sandy.
Sandy Clark: It's nice to chat with you, Clark.
CV: So everyone knows you're the official CSS guru of the ColdFusion community.
SC: Oh, Clark, flattery will get you everywhere.
CV: So I see here you're not only into CSS, but also accessibility, and you're doing a talk on both. Which came first?
SC: Accessibility, actually. CSS is just part of the toolbox I use to make sites more accessible. Separating content from presentation, which enhances accessibility, is a job for CSS and Structural HTML together. Structural HTML supports the content with extra information and CSS provides the presentational layer.
CV: So when people hire you for consulting gigs, is it usually to enhance the accessibility of a site?
SC: Nope, most people hire me to fix their CSS. Of course, since I know it enhances their site's accessibility, it works out just fine as far as I am concerned.
CV: You're in the Washington, DC area right?
SC: Yes, I've been here about 5 1/2 years now.
CV: I imagine that living and working around so many government agencies, you must get calls from businesses who just need you to help them make sense of the whole accessibility, usability, standards compliant, CSS, XHTML, universe.
SC: Quite often. It's still an unknown quantity for many people, even here in DC, where Section 508 is a matter of law for many Federal agencies and departments. I think that's one of the reasons I evangelize it so much in the ColdFusion community. It's a big deal for states and universities now and will eventually be a major deal for businesses. (It will eventually come under the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA).
CV: So let me get this straight. They call you up, then you come onsite and give them the CSS/XHTML religion to get them right with the Web Standards gods?
SC: Doesn't Ben Forta do that with ColdFusion?
CV: As developers, not necessarily in the public sector, how important is it that the sites we build are "standards compliant"?
SC: I think it's very important. We've all had issues of trying to make things cross-browser. It's painful and never really works right. By working within standards, we make things easier on ourselves and pressure browser makers to create browsers that follow those standards. It's a slow and painful process, but it is working. Microsoft's IE7 is much more standards-compliant than 6 was. IE8, which has been announced, will be even more compliant. By working within standards, we guarantee that our CSS works correctly, that our DOM is correct for Ajax applications and that when a newer browser implementation comes along, our pages will display correctly without reworking them.
CV: So you're saying a little pain now equals a lot of gain later on?
SC: The pain is in changing our paradigm, how we think about the code we write. Once we get over the shock of the change, it's actually a lot easier. To give an example: Two years ago I got my manager to agree to do a project in a standards-based manner. The programmers hated it, and me. But when it came to maintaining the application (and we all know we spend a lot more time maintaining the application then we do building one from scratch), they realized it really cut down on their time and effort. Maintenance became easier. Today, this particular group of programmers (and my manager) won't work on a project unless it's standards compliant. It just makes it easier for them.
CV: Sounds like you've made true believers out of them. What about those table junkies among us who find it hard to get their heads around all those floating divs and such. Is there a way they can start small so they can move toward standards while staying productive?
SC: Actually, the hardest thing for a table junkie is to stop thinking about divs as substitutes for tables. Structural HTML means only using HTML to add additional meaning to the content. For example, a table junkie who uses <td class="title"> might want to change to <div class="title">. In reality, they just need to use an <h1>. For someone like that, keeping a main table for their layout and converting all the nested tables into Structural HTML might be a small start in the right direction, but I think it's just much easier to simply go whole hog and rework the entire page and structure. CSS is so much easier when I get to style an h1 rather than figuring out what class works where. It makes the content easier as well, and the user doesn't have to worry about classes when writing content and can just use the HTML that supports it structurally.
CV: Reminds me of the mind-altering journey from procedural programming to OO.
SC: Yes, but fortunately, it's not as hard to wrap your head around as going from procedural to OO.
CV: I guess we have to thank the Web Standards gods for that.
SC: Eric Meyer is the CSS god. I am but a humble disciple.
CV: So what will we learn in your session and what should we know before we show up?
SC: Basically, you need to know HTML. I'll be focusing a lot on Structural HTML and also showing the different CSS selectors that can be utilized. Now that IE7 supports all of the CSS 2 selectors, there's a lot of cool ways to get to the HTML, provided it's structured correctly. I'll also be demo-ing a site that I found on the web that was redone to be HTML/CSS by a table junkie who did not use Structural HTML and that I have redone into a Structural HTML/CSS site. The differences in file size and maintainability, as well as in the CSS needed to support the site, were pretty dramatic.
CV: Sounds great!
CV: So I know you had a special hand in the production of the new Fusebox site, set to release at CFUNITED. I can only imagine it's a model of best practices..
SC: I've tried my best. The initial templates that I have placed in Farcry are all XHTML-strict and CSS. I also had to rework a number of the internal items that FarCry uses to make them compliant. The biggest stumbling block will be contributors who want to add presentational code to their content. I hope to keep a sharp eye on that and hopefully educate people as we go along. So for those who want to contribute to the new Fusebox website, please make sure you brush up on your Structural HTML. There are a lot of us who are working towards a new and better Fusebox. I just happen to be working on a very public part of it.
CV: The Fusebox community thanks you, Sandy.
SC: So will I see you at my talks, Clark?
CV: But of course, Sandy. I never miss the chance to applaud another "Clark". I, for one, am looking forward to it.
SC: See you at CFUNITED.
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