I'm embarrassed to admit that the last time I took a serious look at CSS was in 1999, when I worked alongside two of the top DHTML/Javascript guys in the world -- Peter Belesis and Giorgio Braga. At that time of Netscape 4 and IE 3/4, support for CSS was patchy and much sneakiness was necessary in order to get the right effect. (Somehow, Peter and Giorgio managed to construct an entire javascript-based presentation rendering engine, replete with animations and shared whiteboard conferencing.) As a bystander, I learnt to avoid CSS and instead rely on the old-fashioned HTML layout tricks of <table>-ing and transparent-pixeling pages to death.

So call me slow, but yesterday I decided to catch up and give CSS another chance. What did I discover? The little kid grew up, browser support is now widespread and generally excellent, and I can finally cast aside my table and transparent pixel baggage. At the end of the day, it boils down to throwing away unnecessary code, and that's one of the best things that can happen to a hacker.

What I'm wondering now, though, is how to avoid delaying this kind of enlightenment in future. At some hard-to-define point, using a particular technology flips from being a liability to a superability. I want to define that point for myself.