One of my favorite web publications, A List Apart, has pushed an article about a new CSS layout technique that the author, Eric Sol, calls Faux Absolute Positioning. Up until now, I’d always relied primarily on floating divs. Other folks preferred using (real) absolute positioning, but that required the use of JavaScript to keep the footer from smooshing things.

For gridtastic designs, this new technique appears to be the best answer CSS has to offer yet. The benefits of absolute positioning, but using relative positioning + negative margins so as not to break the layout. I plan to try this out on future sites I work on, so I withhold final judgment, but as things look right now, Eric Sol will end up as my new CSS rockstar hero.

A List Apart, the famous online magazine “for people who make websites,” just published a pair of articles that help people who want to start out with Ruby on Rails: Getting Started with Ruby on Rails and Creating More Using Less Effort with Ruby on Rails.

No more than a day later, Digital Web responded with an Introduction to Django. I just find it interesting that we have all of this in the same week.

Ruby on Rails and Django are competing web application frameworks that follow the MVC pattern. Rails is built on the Ruby programming language, while Django uses Python. It’s friendly competition, of course… it all boils down to whether you’re a Pythonista or a Rubyist.

I am a huge fan of Rails, but I’d also like to learn more about Django… that is, if I can overcome my own Ruby vs. Python bias. One of my fondest memories of SXSW this year was hearing Michael Lopp ask from the stage, “What’s wrong with this Python code?” and someone in the audience called out, “It’s not Ruby!”

Oooh, snap!