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 ]
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Jul 23 '05
250  10460 
accooper wrote: I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
rarely incorrect.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Toby Inkster wrote: accooper wrote:
I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
rarely incorrect.
Actually it answers (should answer) "it /is/ correct", as defined by the
standards in question. At present this means that it will "rarely be
rendered incorrectly by browsers". This implies that some browsers are
broken, not the validators which rely on formal standards.
Roy
--
Roy Schestowitz http://schestowitz.com
in alt.html, Roy Schestowitz wrote: Toby Inkster wrote:
accooper wrote:
I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
rarely incorrect.
Actually it answers (should answer) "it /is/ correct",
No, being correct is irrelevant. Validator chacks if it is valid, nothing
more, nothing less. Valid has technical meaning here that differs from
correct.
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/validation.html
At present this means that it will "rarely be
rendered incorrectly by browsers".
Again, that is not true. It is extreamily easy to make valid document
that is always rendered wrong.
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Utrecht, NL.
Benjamin Niemann wrote:
You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean the
large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are dynamically
constructed with content from various sources. [...]
Not so. Large sites use a Content Management System of some sort. Once
the CMS is set up to generate valid code, having a standards-compliant
site is automatic.
Really it's some combination of hubris, sloth, poor education and
ignorant management.
--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)
Benjamin Niemann wrote: You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such
pages (I mean the large portal like microsoft, yahoo...)
valid. Such pages are dynamically constructed with
content from various sources. It is more of an
organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in
databases in various departments (finding and convincing
the responsible people first), hardcoded in custom
software (perhaps developed by external contractors), ad
code delivered by affiliates...
I have to disagree on that one. Generated pages are
almost as easy to get valid as static ones. If these
places cared about standards they'd be able to to it very
quickly. (I'm not saying that they could necessarily get
rid of the complex tables. But they could easily get
their pages to *validate*.)
--
mbstevens http://www.mbstevens.com
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Sugapablo
<ru**@REMOVEsug apablo.com> writing in
news:pa******** *************** *****@REMOVEsug apablo.com: Out of microsoft.com, google.com, amazon.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, and
mozilla.org, only Mozilla's site came back "Valid HTML".
Opera is valid XHTML
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?
I write valid markup for a few reasons:
1. It's easier for me to write to standards.
2. It's easier to find bugs. I do a lot of server side coding, and I
find it's easier to find a server side bug if I know the markup is valid
first. 3. Documents are more consistent across browsers and platforms.
4. Search engines seem to like valid markup better, and they seem to like
semantic markup even more. 5. I'm a control freak. I like everything to
be "just so".
--
Adrienne Boswell http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
All I know is that you have to take the validators with a grain of salt or
you can be chasing rabbits more than building pages.
--
Andrew C. Cooper www.wordforlife.com/cmhm
Check Out Our New Free Christian
Music Downloads At www.wordforlife.com
"Roy Schestowitz" <ne********@sch estowitz.com> wrote in message
news:d2******** ***@godfrey.mcc .ac.uk... Toby Inkster wrote:
accooper wrote:
I too try and follow the standards but I don't take much stock in the
W3C validator. Sometimes it will say stupid stuff like " a space is not
allowed here". I mean is that really gunna make a difference.
The W3C validator doesn't ask itself "is this mistake going to make a
difference?" It just asks "is this valid?" And when it answers, it's
rarely incorrect.
Actually it answers (should answer) "it /is/ correct", as defined by the
standards in question. At present this means that it will "rarely be
rendered incorrectly by browsers". This implies that some browsers are
broken, not the validators which rely on formal standards.
Roy
--
Roy Schestowitz
http://schestowitz.com
Benjamin Niemann wrote: You should note that it can be pretty hard to get such pages (I mean
the large portal like microsoft, yahoo...) valid. Such pages are
dynamically constructed with content from various sources. It is more of an
organizational monster act, to get the code corrected in databases in
various departments (finding and convincing the responsible people
first), hardcoded in custom software (perhaps developed by external
contractors), ad code delivered by affiliates...
But look at Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) for a
counterexample. That site lets any idiot edit it, and the editing is
done in a tag-soup mishmash of plain text, proprietary wiki markup, and
a subset of HTML... but the end result, as output to the browser, is
completely valid XHTML; at least, every Wikipedia page I've ever tried
in the validator has passed.
--
Dan
If my Web page complies with the W3C specifications, any problem
you have with viewing it as I intended is the fault of your
browser. It's not my fault, and I won't do anything about it.
If your page does not comply with the specifications and guidelines
— or worse uses proprietary capabilities found in only one
company's browser — any problem that I have with viewing it as you
intended may easily be the fault of your Web page. You need to fix
your page before pointing an accusing finger at my browser. If you
don't care, then I don't choose to view your page.
For details, see
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/internet/Webdevelopers.h tml>.
--
David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>
I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.
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