Ahem… If not made obvious already by the TLA, this is geek talk.

After years of hearing tidbits about it and thinking, “Stylesheets? We don’t need no stinking stylesheets!” I’ve finally come around. Would you believe it… I’m enjoying the heck out of it.

For anyone who doesn’t know and might care, Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) are an extension of sorts to web pages. It offers a lot more flexibility and simplicity than plain HTML code, and some pretty nifty bonus features. I’m still not convinced on its usefulness in creating the structure of a page… I see numerous advantages and disadvantages between CSS and old-fashioned table hacks. But what I really get a kick out of are things like this. Before CSS, rollovers had to be done in JavaScript… ick. Now, for text links, they can be quickly defined by the status of the link (visited, hover, active, etc.). Of course, that’s really just icing on the cake. I can put content first in the page and still have it desplayed below other elements such as the menu. I can change text properties for an entire site all in one spot. Get this: I can even produce different versions of a site: one for screen, one for print… even one for handheld devices like PDAs and cellphones! (And I plan to do that… It actually won’t be too difficult.) It also looks like, if I’m wise in using it, it’ll save me a fair amount of bandwidth as well.