So I have spent some hours this week making sure that our web sites are “valid”. This means going through and filling out “ALT” tags in images, making sure “INPUTS” have a trailing “/” at the end and that your randon “DIV” has a closing “DIV” to match it. What does that /really/ mean to my team? why does that matter?
Well.. this is from the w3c site:
Validation as a debugging tool
While contemporary Web browsers do an increasingly good job of parsing even the worst HTML “tag soup”, some errors are not always caught gracefully. Very often, different software on different platforms will not handle errors in a similar fashion, making it extremely difficult to apply style or layout consistently.
Using standard, interoperable markup and stylesheets, on the other hand, offers a much greater chance of having one’s page handled consistently across platforms and user-agents. Indeed, most developers creating rich Web applications know that reliable scripting needs the document to be parsed by User-Agents without any unexpected error, and will make sure that their markup and CSS is validated before creating a rich interactive layer.
When surveyed, a large majority of Web professionals will state that validation errors is the first thing they will check whenever they run into a Web styling or scripting bug.
I know that we do this for new projects, It is a great starting point for trying to figure our why /new/ problems are occuring as well as just a great double check to your own code.
Validation as a future-proof quality check
Checking that a page “displays fine” in several contemporary browsers may be a reasonable insurance that the page will “work” today, but it does not guarantee that it will work tomorrow.
Validation is one of the simplest ways to check whether a page is built in accordance with Web standards, and provides one of the most reliable guarantee that future Web platforms will handle it as designed.
Validation is a /starting point/ to figure out bugs, If you can prove that your site is valid, you can also rule out a lot of possible problems with it and discover the actual problem with your site.
Validation eases maintenance
It is reasonable to consider that standards such as HTML and CSS are a form of “coding style” which is globally agreed upon. Creating Web pages or applications according to a widely accepted coding style makes them easier to maintain, even if the maintenance and evolution is performed by someone else.
I completely agree with this, If sites are coded with standards then /anyone/ can come in and update them with ease. Understanding that /you/ might not be the one in charge of the site within the next 2 or 5 years is key.
Validation helps teach good practices
yes, I think we’ve covered this by now.
Validation is a sign of professionalism
As of today, there is little or no certification for Web professionals, and only few universities teach Web technologies, leaving most Web-smiths to learn by themselves, with varied success. Seasoned, able professionals will take pride in creating Web content using semantic and well-formed markup, separation of style and content, etc. Validation can then be used as a quick check to determine whether the code is the clean work of a seasoned HTML author, or quickly hacked-together tag soup.
I feel weird about this one, but I agree with it. If you hire a development firm to… say… design and develop a new template/system for a significant web property that you own, you would expect the final product would validate!
So, what have we learned here?
Validate to check your code, its another pair of eyes which we all know is very useful in the IT world.
Validate as a leveling ground for bug tracking, if you know your code is properly formatted then you have a place to start with debugging user issues.
Validate as a statement of professionalism, consider your customer and think of them “secretly” checking the validity of your work and to their chagrin it validates! that gives you +1 internets!
Source: validator.w3.org
Fri, Feb 26, 2010
IT, Web Team, web