Re: FN-FORUM: Opinions on W3C validator

date posted 24th September 2007 12:01

>> Designers and companies not worrying about non-standard websites is
>> what allowed Microsoft to get away with IE's bad behaviour for so long.

To a certain extent, I agree. IE's market share was, and is, the real
reason though. Microsoft's plan, like with Java, was to subvert the open
standards to push people towards using Microsoft-specific stuff
everywhere. It worked with Microsoft Office, and did for a while with
Internet Explorer, but the world (especially the non-American world) is
wising up.

> I'd be stunned if more than a small percentage of Net users where aware
> of standards and which sites do and do not adhere to them.

Only because browsers have compatibility modes to handle non-standard tag
soup. Dealing with the differences in different browsers' compatibility
modes takes time and effort, and is unnecessary if both the HTML and the
browser comply with standards.

> Usability is key not standards - the two are not necessarily the same.

But standards help us write usable sites that we know will work in
standards-compliant browsers. The standards are simply detailed
definitions of what HTML means, and hence how a particular page should be
displayed.

Standards may not be of direct interest to website owners, but they should
certainly be of interest to website coders. Not essential, but
increasingly interesting.

Anthony
--
www.fonant.com - Quality web sites