Opinion: Do web standards matter?

[Sugapablo]

Just out of curiosity, while checking on a site I was working on, I
decided to throw a couple of the web's most popular URLs into the W3C
Markup Validator.

Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".

So if all these places, with their teams of web developers don't seem to
care, should the rest of us small time web devs concern ourselves with
standards? I do, but sometimes I feel it's a wasted effort. What do yinz
think?

P.S. Slashdot returned a 403 Forbidden to the validator but when I saved
the homepage locally, it failed too.
--
[ Sugapablo ]
[ http://www.sugapablo.net <--personal | http://www.sugapablo.com <--music ]
[ http://www.2ra.org <--political | http://www.subuse.net <--discuss ]

http://www.subuse.net : text-only, low bandwidth, anonymous web forums

[Steve Pugh]

"c.thornqui st" <c.**********@i nsightbb.com> wrote:

How does one implement a user stylesheet when browsing?

Write a stylesheet that you would like applied to all sites (pay
attention to section 6.4.1 of the CSS 2 spec to understand how your
styles and the authors styles will combine). Then read the
documentation of your browser to see how to apply your stylesheet.

Your stylesheet can contain generic styles (e.g. setting a background
colour for all pages) or more specific stuff. See
http://steve.pugh.net/articles/taming.html for an example of how I use
user styles to (un)fix a site that puts all its contents in narrow
columns.

Steve
--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Michael Stemper]

In article <I0i2e.3212$Vx1 .1823@attbi_s01 >, c.thornquist writes:

I'll try to think of analogies in other media & art forms whereby standards
(not related to health & safety) are required to be met, before
publication/viewing by others. That may aid in understanding both sides.

How about PAL or NTSC? If your television broadcast doesn't follow one
(the right one) of those standards, the user agents (television sets)
will probably not display it properly.

If you encode music on a small circular piece of metal without following
the standards set forth by Philips, the user agents (CD players) will
probably not display it properly.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Discl aimer>
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

[Toby Inkster]

me wrote:

(not that I have any problem with fixed fonts and non-fluid designs I
prefer them myself).

I must ask... for what reason do you prefer the font size to be fixed?

Surely, unless you resize your fonts half-way through reading it, you
can't possibly even *know* whether the font size is fixed or not?

Ditto fluid designs. Unless you resize your browser half-way through
reading the page, you can't know whether it's fluid or not.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:58:58 GMT, "c.thornqui st"
<c.**********@i nsightbb.com> wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Pi******* *************** ********@ppepc5 6.ph.gla.ac.uk. ..

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, c.thornquist wrote: [...]

What's wrong with 100% width on a 19" monitor set at 1024 X 768?

Too wide for comfortable reading at normal font sizes.

Not if the author broke up the text into columns;)

Well, it seems that you may want to really grasp the fact that the WWW
is originally designed to provide the user with the ultimate final
control of presentation.

An analogy; if you find that a TV-show comes through with the sound set
too loud for your liking I would assume that you do /not/ call the TV
station to tell them to lower the volume?
You would do that locally on your own set, right?

Properly authored www pages will allow you to have that final control.

Major parts of the following was once written by a highly regarded CSS
designer...

<http://www.css.nu/articles/font-analogy.html>

....it still illustrates most of today's www situation.

Now; some well known (so called) browser makes it very hard to exercise
that "users ultimate final control" but it seems unfair to blame that
"defect" on how correctly authored CSS sites are delivered.

--
Rex

[Travis Newbury]

Toby Inkster wrote:

Actually they do all look boxy and similar.

No more so than table-based designs. After all, a table is a table -- a
grid of boxes.

But they use the grid (mistakenly) to hold their images which include
curves and shapes, etc... Not that this can not be done with css,but it
usually isn't. Again because the graphic artists have not embraced css
yet (key word being "yet")
--
-=tn=-

[Travis Newbury]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

So to hell with those that use their browsers full screen eh? Not at all; but if they insist on using a browser window that's
inappropriate for purpose, and their browser fails to apply any
relevant max-width suggestions, they might not get the best result
possible.

But that is just my point, That exact same argument can be made for a
fixed width. Let me Pseudo quote you:

"Not at all, but if you insist on having a browser window that's
inappropriate for my fixed width site you might not get the best results
possible."

See, virtually the exact same argument. You are telling me my size is
inappropriate to view your site, and I am saying the exact same thing.
(Mind you the you and I are generic and not you and I specifically)

Wait a second! Who's browser is it? It is mine, so it is NOT
ridiculous for me to have it full screen!

Well, it wasn't me who was complaining about the results.

Sure you are, you are saying fixed width is wrong because you need to
change your browser window size right?
Making those proposals flexible, in the various ways which CSS allows,
can make a page which adapts itself more comfortably to variations in
the presentation situation. But if the reader takes that to extremes,
then the occasional sub-optimal result isn't so very surprising. At
least, to my way of thinking, it's better for the reader to have the
option of choice, as opposed to getting tiny fixed-size text cramped
into a narrow fixed-width column on an otherwise empty wide screen.
So which would *you* prefer?

I already said, I prefer a full screen browser.

--
-=tn=-

[Travis Newbury]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

That's very odd. I've never met a browser which installs to open in
fullscreen mode before. They all installed to open in a fairly
reasonable sized window, and needed extra effort to get them to be
fullscreen.

LOL! Like clicking the little box in the upper right corner.... Do
that once, and your set.

--
-=tn=-

[Travis Newbury]

Uncle Pirate wrote:

Still close by? Which campus? I believe they have a campus in El Paso
which is about 80 miles away from me.

I was in Japan (Camp Foster, Kadena, and Kinser mostly) It was by far
the most rewarding job I have ever had.

When the education community got together and came up with a set of
standards fr building learning content, they decided this was the best
way to go.

That's too bad. I cannot think of a single valid reason to ever require
JavaScript, Flash, cookies, etc. But, NMSU has done it too.

ADL (SCORM) did in fact need to require these things to make course ware
compatible with the most LMS's and LCMS's. It allowed the courses to be
launched from any web server, and speak to virtually LMS or LCMS. If
you read their reasoning it makes sense. Their goal was for the
courseware to be compatible with as many LMS/LCMS's as possible. In the
long run this really is to the benefit of the students until the
LMS/LCMS makers get their shit together. Not saying it is perfect, but
it is the best thing going right now.

I have several threads on the ADL website dedicated to the use of Flash
as the connection medium between the content and a LMS/LCMS that can
eliminate some of the requirements of IE. Flash is a perfect medium or
learning content.

--
-=tn=-

[Travis Newbury]

Els wrote:

I find it harder to read a 1000px wide page in a 500px wide window
(horizontal scrolling for each line) than to read really long
sentences.

And that's why they call it personal preference...

--
-=tn=-

[c.thornquist]

"Michael Stemper" <ms******@sieme ns-emis.com> wrote in message
news:20******** *************** @walkabout.empr os.com...

In article <I0i2e.3212$Vx1 .1823@attbi_s01 >, c.thornquist writes:

I'll try to think of analogies in other media & art forms whereby
standards
(not related to health & safety) are required to be met, before
publication/viewing by others. That may aid in understanding both sides.

How about PAL or NTSC? If your television broadcast doesn't follow one
(the right one) of those standards, the user agents (television sets)
will probably not display it properly.

If you encode music on a small circular piece of metal without following
the standards set forth by Philips, the user agents (CD players) will
probably not display it properly.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Discl aimer>
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

But aren't those standards very basic (referring to the # of lines, refresh
rate & color definition - from
http://www.ee.washington.edu/consele.../ntsc/95x4.htm ), like a
webpage requiring HTML, head & body tags? And saving your files with certain
extensions. That moves us to back-end development on the server. Web
designers work front-end, so the analogy should be with how TV content (what
we end up seeing on our TV screen) is developed. Right? I'm guessing there
are many ways of producing the content.

HTML is our paintbrush, our clay, our musical instrument. What you see in
your browser is our creation. Maybe that's why some of us take issue with an
organization impeding the creative process.

Maybe that's why so many who are aware of validation & the efforts of the
w3c, don't comply fully. What do you think?

Carla