Brian Garside's message to those who would point out validation errors by e-mail -- don't do it! -- has generated a lot of back-and-forth at Dave Shea's mezzoblue. For the record, I want you to point out my validation errors. I can't catch everything and I appreciate those who care enough to take the time.
Unfortunately, the resulting discussion has led Keith Robinson to "retire" as a standards advocate, citing frustration with those of us who demand 100% standards compliance from our standards-gurus. Keith has felt this way for a while, as evidenced by his much-linked rant from last year. I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now. Jacques Distler on the importance of validation:
Not [the point] of the the Web (nor of the internet, nor of life), but it is *surely* the point of Web Standards. I am *baffled* that anyone can *advocate Web Standards* and simultaneously hold that validation doesn't matter. Maybe you mean something different by the term *Standards.*
You can't support standards without, well, supporting standards! What's so frustrating about Keith's stance is that it gives designers with less experience an excuse to ignore difficult errors, all while patting themselves on the back for making an attempt. You can't, by definition, support standards without adhering to the rules outlined in the standards. By definition.
I like Keith and read his site regularly. He says a lot of smart things about the Web every week, but his retirement from standards happened a long time ago, the day he decided to support only parts of standards and not others.
Yes, folks, there are other things to worry about. This Web thing isn't easy. But standards are a baseline. They make things easier, not harder. That's the message.
I am really convinced that my interlocutors over at Mezzoblue really mean something other than those documents produced by the W3C, the IETF and others, when they use the word "Standards." It's the only rational explanation.
I must say that the only positive spinoff (not enough to make up for the foul taste in my mouth; I hate the antagonistic tone of the whole discussion) was that someone ran my whole site through the WDG bulk Validator.
If you are interested in catching any validation errors on your site, maybe you, too, should try poking a stick into a hornet's nest.
I can see that, to an extent; Simon's talk of "best practices" seems more in line with what most people these days are saying when they talk about standards -- after all, nothing in any standard says you can't use tables for layout, but switching to CSS-based layout is one of the big issues of the "standards" movement.
Perhaps, then, it's time for the buzz to be about best design practices, where adhering to standards is lauded along with accessibility, good IA, etc. Otherwise, "Web standards" is going to become a hopelessly muddled term.
And Wayne -- I've found that if you want to catch all your niggling little errors, a great method is to start serving your content as
application/xhtml+xmlto user-agents which support it; then Mozilla-based browsers will start throwing XML parsing errors and refusing to display your pages if you screw something up. It's a thrill a minute sometimes, but it sure helps keep you valid.He is number 20 on the list of X-Philes. O and he is also still worth that position.
Anne: Ack. That'll teach me to trust my "view headers" bookmarklet. In the future I'll
wgetbefore I shoot my fool mouth off.Ctrl+I) also reports a document's media type.