Ethan Marcotte writes an excellent article on web standards over at A List Apart.
I must confess that I’m a validation stickler, but this article gives me some good reasons to stick to those standards, apart from sheer, blind pragmatism.
What do you think? Where do you sit?
When I was starting to learn html I figured I’d learn standards. Reason: I wanted it to work.
Then there was IE. Which I promptly dumped. And as you saw with my blog the other day I don’t care to test with it. I’m not a professional web designer. I know enough to do what I want only.
And I don’t want IE.
I try to use standards, but as we know, it’s not always possible. I’m not strict to the point of dumping other people’s code (haloscan) if it breaks the validation.
Hmm.
It’s a different story if you’re developing for other people – clients, readers, etc. – over whose browsers you have no control. You can’t dump IE.
With a bit of experience, you become familiar with the quirks of the various browsers and can learn to design/develop around them.
Keeping it simple helps too. If you’re trying to do something in particular but find the mark-up/CSS/work-arounds/hacks are getting too complicated or out of hand, then perhaps the design should be re-worked to enable simpler coding.