This is a page for frequently asked questions about pointlessness (most of which are actually just anticipated, seeing as I've had very few questions asked).
My name is Rachel and I'm a 22 year old single female living in central England. That's about all the details you're getting off me.
I've made various unnamed sites before, that only survived a few days before dying off and becoming inactive. pointlessness survived this long for two reasons. First, I realized all the crap I random post on forums and in IRC would actually make good web pages (so I post new pages now when I get those urges). Second, because I wanted to update my web coding skills (which were very rusty at the time). I'm still doing both, so pointlessness keeps going.
All of the coding on pointlessness is entirely sound and has been described as 'sexy' at least once. The fault is with Trident (the layout engine in Internet Explorer) which is completely inadequate for this day and age. If I can find a way to make pointlessness work in Trident without killing compatibility with other layout engines, then I'll try it out. Otherwise, better browsers are available.
Update: The content negotiation code should now be perfect, so Internet Explorer compatibility has been restored. This doesn't mean you should stick with it though, it's still a horrible browser.
I use XHTML partly because I wanted to teach myself new coding styles, and partly because it shows up Trident as the aging pile of crap that it is. If my site gets one person to switch from Internet Explorer to something else, I'll feel that this has all been worth it.
Yes, but they will be depreciated in XHTML 2.0, which I plan to use as soon as is reasonably possible. Seeing as support for Internet Explorer is already broken as I type this and other browsers are likely to be updated quickly for the new standard, that may not be long after it appears.
Update: I've now changed to using <strong> and <em> rather than <b> and <i> respectively, as this is an easier solution, sufficient to my needs, and will not be depreciated when XHTML 2.0 is finalized.
Somewhat ironicall given the broken Trident issue, that's to make it easier on layout engines. XML (used in XHTML) can be parsed using a much smaller and simpler parser than SGML (used in HTML) and strictly adhering to standards and guidelines gives the best guarantee of a page that looks consistent on all browsers and devices. At least that's the theory...
Update: pointlessness no longer passes CSS validation, reasons for this have been posted.
Most of my page design philosophy has been taken directly from The Best Page In The Universe. Maddox's rationale for using big, plain text on a black background seemed logical to me. Hence I modelled the after his quite a bit, though with totally original coding (comparing the coding on both sites shows very marked differences in style).
I actually took a bash at a redesign concept of The Best Page In The Universe, using HTML 4.01 Transitional and CSS. After a full day of working, I gave up and decided I wasn't up to that sort of task yet. I'm still learning though.
I'm not really sure. The two reasons I have for it (both of which may have come after the actual idea) were to contrast with my usual style of writing, and to cause problems for Wikipedia (which couldn't handle all lowercase page names at the time) if it ever became big enough. Wikipedia seem to have fixed their problem with that since though, which only leaves the first reason now. It's stuck anyway, and is unlikely to change now.
Personally, I prefer the terms free software, FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), or FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software). Free software and open source software tend to have similar end results, but with different philosophies behind them, and I prefer the free software philosophy. That's why although I recommend both Mozilla Firefox and Opera, I recommend Mozilla Firefox first since that's under an MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-licence, while Opera is fully proprietary. If Opera were to go down the free software route, I may change my tune (since Opera is pretty good) but for now I recommend Mozilla Firefox first and Opera second.