Good quote on standards and validation
This was posted at 456 Berea St. today as part of a larger post on government sites and validation. I thought this bit made a really important point - developing with web standards isn't just about getting the page to validate - it's about a whole host of proper development methods that go far beyond what an automated script can test for.
Quote: It should be noted that out of the Swedish public sector websites that do validate, several only technically pass validation. I say technically because they apparently use a CMS that litters the markup with layout tables, inline styles, attributes only allowed in transitional DOCTYPEs, and generally bad coding practices like JavaScript dependence and fixed font sizes. That kind of invalidates most of the benefits of being valid.
So, the point is that standards isn't just about closing tags and proper structure. It's about a broader methodology of proper website development. (I would add non-semantic CSS selectors to that list as well.)
bja888 (not verified) posted this at 17:43 — 13th October 2005.
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Its ok! I'm still thinking about wsl if only I can get the time to start working on a syntax and broswer. If the pre-beta versions turn out to be as usefull as I think it will be then I will try to recrute some people to get it done faster. (wsl isn't the final name, its still up for modification).
kazimmerman posted this at 20:26 — 13th October 2005.
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I agree. That's why I hardly ever even take the time to validate my files.
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demonhale posted this at 13:43 — 14th October 2005.
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at least validating is a start... having the methods correct would come naturally...
Im still taking a really long time validating xhtml pages...
JeevesBond posted this at 22:49 — 14th October 2005.
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I absolutely agree, and have in fact ranted about this in the past (I'm always right and have always done everything good first
).
What that's touching on is the fact that not many people actually understand semantic web (class="redleftbox" being a typical example - as said: non-semantic selectors, my pet hate!), the different styles of XHTML (I can remember this thread) where great the guy had code that validates but he'd completely missed the conceptual differences between the different versions.
Next is things like 508 and WCAG. How can an automated validator tell whether you've included a "skip navigation" link, effectively see a server-side image map, find whether your page is qualitatively "accessible enough" to not need a text-only version, detect if you have any animated gifs/Flash that flicker/flash/refresh at that magic frequency that can trigger an epileptic fit, automatically know if you're not using css to control layout?
They can't! The checkpoints actually need to be read and understood, validation is just adjunct to the process; a support, not the be-all and end-all.
So yes I agree with that article, but wanted to rant about it a little because it's a subject close to my heart!
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Rincewind posted this at 03:17 — 23rd October 2005.
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I actually saw someone on another forum suggest that a person should put his invalid code inside javascript in a .js file and use docment.write to add it into the html. That way the page could validate without having to replace the invalid elements. Kinda missing the point.
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demonhale posted this at 15:23 — 23rd October 2005.
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a hack mode... waaay out of point...
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