Posted by Beauregard T. Shagnasty on 09/12/06 21:59

Runnin' on Empty wrote:

> "Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous@example.invalid> wrote:
>> If you write well to the standards, there should be little to tweak
>> for Internut Exploder.
>
> Actually Standards are great as a goal post, but they apply best to
> static brochure sites and not to anything approaching enterprise
> level.

Heh. Wrong.

> Do this simple test, run any major enterprise level or ecommerce site
> through the w3c validator, guess what, none validate.

Some do, but not many.

> That's right, the most expensive, intensively used sites with some of
> the best and brightest developers in the country, (or out of the
> country), that are making the most money, don't validate worth beans.

Making money and observing standards are apples and oranges. What's that
expression? Mutually exclusive? Read the current thread in
alt.www.webmaster subject: "Validation? Tables? Business?"

> The reason is that there is more to successfully using the Internet
> (or WWW, if you prefer), than making sure the HTML or CSS validates.

Of course there is. A valid site selling used vomit won't make much
money. (Well... who knows what people will buy?) [1]

> Making a simple 10 page vanity site, it should validate and conform
> to standards,

Sure, why not?

> working on a major n-tier ecom application with several
> layers of access, admin and functions, backed up by a multi terabyte
> database,

...can still be written with valid code.

> you concerns are more making sure it and the multiple functions0 work
> and are secure against improper use, in the IE and Firefox.

And that too. Secure multiple functions, works in all browsers, has
nothing to do with the designers writing invalid code. C'mon now.

> This often means standards are thrown to the wayside in choosing
> better methods for the task at hand.

Why would deliberately writing bad code be a better method?

> I know this drives CSS and validation zealots nuts, but it's the
> case.

The case is those designers you speak of haven't been trained yet.

> I'm all for standards, but they don't apply to every site.

...but most of them.

I retired five years ago from a fair-sized marketing company which did
web sites for, among others, a major U.S. drug company and a major U.S.
bank. All made extensive use of MSSQL databases, dynamically generated
pages, took orders for drugs - or money - and did the job.

The required tools were Visual Interdev, MSSQL, and SourceSafe. I wrote
valid code, the rest of the team used the graphical editor, never looked
at the souce window, and didn't write valid code. When I tried to
convince the IT manager that, when updates and changes were required, it
took *3-4 times longer* to update everyone else's pages, he argued that
it would take too long to train the others. (Bollocks, I said. It only
took me a few days to catch on.)

I put comments at the top of all my pages: "a pox on anyone who messes
up this layout" but it didn't help. One of the reasons I decided to
retire.

[1] Is there such a thing as new vomit?

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck.

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