body {
  display: "hhh"
           "ncs"
           "fff"
}

#header {
  position: "h"
}

#content {
  position: "c"
}

#nav {
  position: "n"
}

#sidebar {
  position: "s"
}

#footer {
  position: "f"
}

After refreshing my memory of the specification, I wrote that CSS in about a minute, and tested it using almcss. I have never tried to use the advanced layout module before, but it worked first time.

Of course, I could probably write a three-column layout using floats pretty swiftly; however, floats are notoriously brittle (I shed many tears over this when I was less experienced), so many designers prefer the precision of absolute positioning. Of course, this has nasty implications for footers which must be remedied; perhaps we now resort to negative margins, or combination techniques.

My point is not that complex layouts are intractable; you are correct that an experienced designer can achieve a lot with what we already have. My point is that they are certainly more complex, and that I have yet to see a general-purpose layout solution nearly so robust, simple and readable as that offered by the advanced layout module. CSS 2.1 is great, but it often results in uncommonly complex solutions to common and easily-specified design objectives.

PS: Great video! May I make a non-content related suggestion, though? It might just be me, but there was something a little awkward about having the hosts stand side-by-side. Perhaps if they were sat down a little farther from the camera and at an angle from each other (as is often the case on talk-shows), it would have seemed more natural.

IE’s blossoming support for the table values of CSS2.1 display property, as mentioned in the video, is likely to help with equal-height columns and “sticky” footers. But float isn’t too bad once you understand the basics and in some ways offers more flexibility than tabular layouts. Such as with horizontal menu bars which wrap to a new line if there isn’t enough space, or image galleries where grid-with-wrapping layout behaviour works great for most cases. Especially so flexible layouts.

The entrenched users of IE6 remaining more or less the same after IE8 is a good point. I guess they won’t upgrade IE until they get a new PC and install all the updates.

Imaginative use of the features we already have is how CSS took off (Taming Lists, for example). That’s what I think will keep it useful and realistic for widespread use, especially with the implementations getting closer and closer.

You have a typo in the copyright at the end of the video since episode 4: it’s written “standardsuck.org” instead of “standardssuck.org”

Gotta love the casual cameo by Wendy Hall.

A yaatch? Over-selling a bit?