Question: Does “compliant code” and W3C validation matter?
Answer: Yes and No. Yes it matters that there are “standards.” It matters because the World Wide Web is already a “Wild West” kind of place, so having some benchmark of what is the “perfect and proper way” to write code for the Web is a good thing. However, the vast majority of web pages are NOT compliant to W3C standards, including most major corporate websites. Why is that you ask? Because the developers of browser software (the most common are: Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Mozilla Firefox) understand that the World Wide Web is an “every man’s” place and common ordinary folks will be building websites by the millions. So they program their browsers to “forgive” non-compliant code. It’s really that simple.
So if you are a “web designer” and it’s faster and easier to write a part of a web page using non-compliant code rather than “compliant code” you will often take the path of least resistance, since time is money and you are billing your client for time. Your client just wants a website that looks good on everyone’s browser, and however you achieve that, frankly, he really doesn’t care.
I am guilty of taking that approach. But so are many other “professional” web designers. And my hundreds of clients have been happy with the results. But “code-purists” are not, and they often use code-compliance as a way to undermine my finished work with clients. So I am designing new templates in W3C compliant code. However, I am NOT designing them to be XHTML compliant until it can be proved that XHTML is really the “new web.” I don’t think so. Currently, HTML 4.01 is the latest standard for pure HTML coding, and that’s how I will design new templates. HTML 5 is on the way, and I think that may become the new standard, so we’ll see.
Question: How many websites are compliant to W3C standards?
Answer: An article on Wikipedia states that only 1 in 141 websites is compliant. I’d be surprised if it’s that many.
Question: Where can I check to see if a website is compliant?
Answer: The W3C has two easy to use validators. One for HTML or XHTML, and the other for CSS (the code that governs how things look on a website).
