Why is the W3C box model considered better?

Question

Why do most developers consider the W3C box-model to be better than the box-model used by Internet Explorer?

I know it's very frustrating developing pages that look the way you want them on Internet Explorer, but I find the W3C box-model to be counter-intuitive. For example, if margins, padding, and border were factored into the width, I could assign fixed width values for all my columns without having to worry about how many columns I have and what changes I make to my padding and margins.

Under W3C box model I have to worry about how many columns I have, and develop something akin to a mathematical formula to calculate my values. Changing them would nightmarish, especially for complex layouts. My novice opinion is that it's more restrictive. Consider this small frame-work I wrote:

#content {
margin:0 auto 30px auto;
padding:0 30px 30px 30px;
width:900px;
}
    #content .column {
        float:left;
        margin:0 20px 20px 20px;
    }
    #content .first {
        margin-left:0;
    }
    #content .last {
        margin-right:0;
    }   
        .width_1-4 {                    
            width:195px;                
        }                       
        .width_1-3 {
            width:273px;                
        }
        .width_1-2 {
            width:430px;
        }
        .width_3-4 {
            width:645px;
        }
        .width_1-1 {
                    width:900px;
        }

These values I have assigned here will falter unless there are three columns, and thus the margins at 0(first)+20+20+20+20+0(last). It would be a disaster if I wanted to add padding to my columns too, as my entire setup would have to be re calibrated. Now imagine if column width incorporated all the other elements, all I would need to do is change one associated value, and I have my layout. I'm less criticizing it and more hoping to understand why it's better, or why I'm finding it more difficult.

Am I doing this whole thing wrong? I don't know very much about this topic, but it seems counter intuitive to use W3C's box-model. Some advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Personally, I prefer -to my occasional shame- IE's box-model. As noted by the OP it seems to make more sense to have a pre-defined width from which margin, padding and border-width are subtracted, than to have a width to which these are then added.

On the other hand, I can work with both models quite happily, all I really want is consistency between implementations, whichever implementation is chosen.

Answer 2

One word answer - -box-sizing

You choose how you want your box model to work.

Answer 3

It is not so much an issue of which is better or worse, but which follows the standard from an accepted organization and which not..

On the other hand of your problems would be someone who wants his text wrapped inside a 300px container, which has a distance of 10 pixels from the next one.. Now you would have to make the same calculations as your example in order to calculate the width.. it is a case of how you view the same problem..

Answer 4

Not everyone considers it to be better. To extract a quote from Quirksmode.

Personally I find W3C's box model counter-intuitive. To quote myself:

Logically, a box is measured from border to border. Take a physical box, any box. Put something in it that is distinctly smaller than the box. Ask anyone to measure the width of the box. He'll measure the distance between the sides of the box (the 'borders'). No one will think of measuring the content of the box.

Web designers who create boxes for holding content care about the visible width of the box, about the distance from border to border. The borders, and not the content, are the visual cues for the user of the site. Nobody is interested in the width of the content.

I agree, the border-box model makes more sense (at least, it does to me). The reason the CSS3 box-sizing property became defined was disputes over the current box model