The problem with viewing the source of a php or asp page is that alot of the code is executed server side and the page source on the client side is what is written by the server side execution.

I’m not sure if I’m really explaining this very well. Just know, that when I code a website styled heavily with css, instead of using tables and such, if I were to view the public page source instead of the original code, it looks as though it was done using tables, etc.

I personally LOVE css and am experimenting with it all the time but have not found it to be practical for developing a site for clients at a break-neck pace. And believe me, many clients don’t care HOW you do a site, they care about when.

I think that the web is actually going through a period of over-simplification with respect to design and layout. We were bombed in the late 90′s through just last year when I noticed that sites became cleaner and more readable.
I believe that CSS is the vehicle that is driving this movement. The clean layouts, readable text and simple access to more information with a single click are examples of useability that have been widely ignored for the sake of “pretty” designs.

So, I think that the underlying fact is that developers are more than likely diving in to the “CSS in 10 Minutes” books all over the world. But until these books move from casual (dare I say this?) bathroom reading to their office, we may have to wait for the trend to catch on.

Actually, I also used LaTeX sometimes (back in those days when I remembered how to use it) to format my fiction writing because the finished layout is quite nice and clean-looking.

Back to your main point: I agree with you completely. In many ways the whole HTML/CSS web evolution has been unfortunate and complicated. I guess that’s the tradeoff we get for having an Open Specification and generally free Internet instead of the vision that companies like AOL and Prodigy and MSN and Compuserve originally had, where the interface would be completely proprietary and companies would pay a fair amount of money for their service (what we think of now as a website) to be available to customers.

No, the web was an accidental evolution where the original HTML encoding wasn’t meant to involve fancy layout, and instead it was intended to be the next version of Gopher. We’ve weathered the days of proprietary HTML tags in the old Netscape/IE wars, the hyped-up and mostly failed Java Applet revolution, Microsoft’s stupid VBScript…

It’s an imperfect world. But separation of content (HTML) and layout (CSS) is good form, leads you to better—and more easily maintained sites, helps web crawlers understand your content in a non-visual context, and even makes it easier for blind people to use tools to access the web. And I still say it’s “good for you” in the same way that learning how to hold a watercolor brush or curling your fingers just right when playing the piano is good for you: if you want to excel at the medium, it’s worth going through a bit of pain to learn to master it properly. (Translation: Eat Your Broccoli!)

Also man, WordStar dot codes? Dude, please tell me you’re also an expert in LaTex, because that would just make you the geek king of layout and formatting.