[digipaint]

Hang on don't bite my head off!!!

Of course I believe they do but the 2007 WEBBY AWARDS obviously dont.

The winner of every catagory i looked at has validation errors?

[R1gM]

standards and getting one or two "this element cannot have an id attribute here" errors are imo slightly different. Of course na designer should and could go in and fix them but standards and making accessible websites is about so much more than the w3c valiodator and a lot of people need to learn that.

However isn't it the case that the web standards site does show exactly who and who has not passed validation and what level of dtd they used?

[pgo]

I'd say that writing valid code is secondary to writing good code. It's an added bonus as far as I'm concerned. Something to aspire to.

[Blue Ire]

The webby awards are a joke. It's not really their fault, the current state of the web isn't really conducive to web awards.

That being said however, valid code in no way equates to good code; far too many people fail to make the distinction between the two. There are few to no reasons for your code not to be valid though. It's not as if it's difficult.

[pgo]

Very true. My old table layouts validated as XHTML Strict.

And some of my current CSS based layouts don't validate as HTML 4 Transitional. Don't ask - it's a CMS issue.

[Dusteh]

Theres a difference between sticking slavishly to the letter to pass validation, and following the principles behind the validation - good code.

You could nest 30 divs inside each other and its still going to validate - but its not good practice. Adding an IE fix and breaking your CSS validation, hardly an issue, because its for the greater good.

[2Dfruit]

my sites always validate until I start adding dynamic content via php. Not my fault the validator doesn't understand some of it. I always make sure the xhtml is valid, but I can't put the "valid sticker" on

[shangjay]

no

no the best,only the most suitable

[pgo]

Originally Posted by 2Dfruit

my sites always validate until I start adding dynamic content via php. Not my fault the validator doesn't understand some of it. I always make sure the xhtml is valid, but I can't put the "valid sticker" on

I'm not understanding how that's possible??

[joey]

My basic Wordpress layout validates. But once I add the WP content, it racks up errors like you wouldn't believe.

[steveb]

The stuff doesn't validate because the bone-idle W3C has never bothered to update its validation engine to accept all the different languages and standards which are currently available. They'd rather waste years (7) discussing how many pixels can dance on the head of a pin rather than get some decent practical rational and understandable guidelines with the co-operation of all major browser manufacturers on e.g. CSS3.

Wankers. It would serve them right if your site doesn't "validate" and yet works adequately for everyone.

[pgo]

The W3C has no power of to enforce standards to browser manufacturers. And they shouldn't.

[R1gM]

someone should the sooner every browser presents the same the better for everyone.

[Agricola]

If you are writing XHTML and serving it in correct way as application/xml to those browsers etc that recognize it, (spits at IE) then you DO have to have to pass the W3 validation. IF you miss off something simple like ending a tag correctly, / > then those readers like FireFox that actually do know how to process XML/XHTML properly will simply crash. FireFox will actually display an XML debugging screen for 1 error in the XHTML regardless of its nature or type.

Most people do not even know how to serve up XHTML, vast majority of websites that have are in XHTML are still using a blanket text/html for their content-type declarations. A simple check in PHP or whatever can see what kind of application is accessing the page, if it understands the content-type application/xml then declare it as so, otherwise just tell it its text/html. Some people go one better and convert all the XHTML to HTML before sending it on its way, but seeing as main culprit is IE I wouldn’t bother and just let it read the XHTML as tag soup.

You should produce valid code regardless if its XHTML or HTML, not only does this help with accessibility issues and technologies, but it will help having errors that will likely screw up layouts etc that can vary across platforms. If you know your code is perfect then you know it’s a browser compatibility issue etc.