Standardizing the Web

Look, the standards for HTML and CSS maintained by the folks over at W3 are important. Every language – whether programming or spoken – needs a set of rules to provide coherent structure. In a sense, the W3 standards are the ‘grammar rules’ of HTML and CSS.

The effects of standard coding practices are far reaching. Web browsers are slowly moving towards display uniformity (thank you IE8 Team for finally recognizing the W3!). Archaic tags are depreciated, and approachs to new features are defined. And together the colloqiuem of W3 members do more than document the rules, they look forward to the future of HTML and CSS.

The design community has embraced the W3 standards, and many designers now feature valid HTML and valid CSS tags on their websites. But as this trend continues to grow, its important that we as a community take a moment to reflect on what W3 Standard Compliance means.

As important as the Web Standards are, there are some truths about W3 Standard Compliance that get lost in the shuffle:

Web Standards Are Only A Starting Point

In other words, Web Standards are an important piece of good design, but they are only one piece; mastering a language requires more than a syntatical understanding of grammar. Understanding Standards are just one step on the long road to mastering HTML and CSS.

W3 Standard Code !== Best Coding Practices

Although validation may rid code of improperly nested elements or those pesky block-level elements lurking inside inline elements, its no guarentee of quality code. A validator doesn’t mind a dozen nested div’s when two div’s and an unordered list would do. It doesn’t know whether class names are semantic, or overly semantic (every element does not need a class or id, CSS has parent selectors for a reason!).

To put it another way, knowledge of English grammar doesn’t guarentee the next coming of Shakespeare. Spoken language requires elegant composition, vocabulary, grammar, and a lot of experience. HTML and CSS really aren’t any different, quality code means more than syntatically valid markup.

Noncompliant Code !== Poor Coding Practices

Web standards take time to be adopted. A new standard requires a lot of forethought, often times spanning over numerous colloquia. The result is that new technologies may become common place long before a standard is agreed upon and adopted. Waiting around for standards to exist before using a technology just isn't practical. And if IE6 + IE7 have taught us anything, its that standards don't guarentee support in all browsers.

Conclusion

Lets be clear, web standards are a good thing. They provide the set of structural rules, and challenge designers to to take a good look at their code. But standards are just a stepping stone on the path to quality code, a path that just may mean breaking a few rules along the way.

A very big thank you goes to Mike Davidson. His piece, March to your own standard, opened my eyes and made me reflect on the role of standards in web design. In addition, a big thanks to the rest of the web design community – there’s too many to list, so let a big thank you suffice!