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Posted by Jim Higson on 11/24/05 16:08
Travis Newbury wrote:
> Here is the grim reality of the world. The new Georgia Aquarium
> was just built (the largest in the world I might add) Anyway, they
> obviously needed a website.
>
> Starting from scratch they could have done anything. But they
> didn't they did this (warning it may not work in your particular
> browser with yor particular settings):
>
> http://www.georgiaaquarium.org
>
> Or I should say, they hired this company to do it for them:
>
> http://www.spunlogic.com/
>
> Now go look at their list of client's. (Some of them are on the
> front page, but there are more)
>
> So, here in alt.html we read/preach/rant about validation, and
> using CSS, don't require javascript, flash blows, you know the
> drill. But in the real world we seem to find the exact oposite. At
> least the real world as known to Americans (which is obviously the
> target for all these companies).
Just a note, I don't think respecting standards is as much about validtors
as people make out, that's just an easy metric to point to. More important
for me is creating with the intended spirit of the format.
Validation might be the minimum, but it does not guarantie the formats are
used correctly. The obvious example is tables for layout, but there are
many others, such as the dominance of CSS for creating fixed-width layouts.
In the case of the Aquarium, this is the kind of site that'd I'd use without
too much moaning if it'd been created several years ago, but for a new site
the effort to make it compatable with standards is lamentable. Having said
that, it does work fine in Konqueror, which puts it above many
non-standards sites.
> I am not bringing this contrast up to argue which is better as
> there are more than enough threads in this group that talk about
> that. (Hell I have myself participate in one or two threads like
> that...) But rather to point out how there is a HUGE job market
> for many of the skills frowned upon in this group. As a matter of
> fact in Atlanta, the job market for IT positions is at pre-internet
> bubble burst levels. So what is causing this boom in the "evil
> technology"?
>
> Could the growing number of developers aware of validation etc, be
> shrinking the number of developers heading in the "non validating"
> direction, thus causing a need for these type of developers in the
> companies where the web page is still run by marketing?
I don't think this is about developers as much as the people who pay for the
sites. Most people commissioning a site don't know anything about web
standards, so with no increased payout for creating quality there's no
incentive for the web developers to improve their sites.
> Or could it be that more people want the web to be more interactive
> and sites like these are making tons of money, and that is why
> there is a boom for these types of developers?
> I find this contrast interesting.
>
> Civil comments?
>
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