Validation: Not just for looks anymore Aug 11, 00:14
It’s a common misconception amongst fly-by-night bloggers that validation is simply a means to get your website to display properly, and even if it does display properly without validation then you’re in the clear. That simply isn’t true, regardless of whether or not the front end looks good, the back end could be slowing your site down depending on the complexity of the errors. Those issues aside validation also helps in the diagnosis of problems plaguing your website, just think of what might happen should script writers suddenly turn out shoddy code without first checking it for errors, why the internet might be filled with scripts like Waks.
Let’s say your content is not floating to the right properly, let’s say that it it’s taking over the entire width of the container. Do you a) Check to see if there are any unclosed tags that might be causing the problem or b) piss and moan and still refuse to validate? Obviously the most popular answer is the latter, one that is uttered by many a person who is “just making the website for themselves” or “having fun”. Personally I’m of the “if you don’t know how to do it right, don’t do it and then try to weasel out of doing it right when people point out that you’re wrong” mindset, there are so many good resources out there that it’s insane to believe that, in spite of age or skill level, the biggest monkey out there couldn’t learn how to properly nest and close tags.
And that is the problem isn’t it? That people don’t properly nest tags or even properly use them. Swimchick used to use headings for blockquotes, this could all be solved by a simple trip to the W3Schools website, but that’s too easy isn’t it? To actually learn something that you should have learned from the get go. To expand your knowledge and widen your horizons. * shock * * gasp * THE HORROR OF IT ALL!
it had a few hidden errors here and there that didn’t even change the look of the site. I mean, seriously, if you were to just view the source of my site, could you find errors? I bet you couldn’t. But some stupid validator site comes up with 39 errors.
source
Is it really so hard to believe that there exist people who can spot HTML errors without the need for a validator? What the hell kind of world do we live in where a 22 year old can honestly sit there and say that because she cannot see the errors in her source, because she has never actually learned anything the proper way, they do not exist; except in some strange world where people validate and care about their sites appearance on both sides.
I guess in the end it all comes down to laziness. People don’t want to do things that might cost them some of their precious energy and god forbid they learn something. Your time on the internet is better spent browsing Youtube or talking on AIM, screw everything else this is all just fun! Anyone who says otherwise is being too serious and unfun and they probably have sticks up their bums.
Edit: For anyone who was wondering, the MRI showed that what everyone thought was a tumor is just a cyst or a lesion. She still has to see several different doctors to find out why she’s having trouble hearing and dizzy spells, but she’s no longer facing major surgery. At the risk of sounding dumb… w00t w00t!
Debugging errors comes as a hobby for me, so I really don’t know why it’s so hard for some people to go validate their sites. If you’re going to build a website, build it like it’s meant to be built! Too long have lazy people used “as long as it looks okay” as an excuse to avoid validation.
I don’t know what a cyst or lesion is but sounds like they’re better than a tumor so well, that’s good. :P
I always make it so my site looks perfect in every browser I can get my hands on, validating isn’t top on my agenda – but I like to think I follow good coding practises. The only thing that stops my site from being valid are stupid referral codes with &s in them (which just get the chop in that case!) or IE hacks in my css.
Amber: unless I’m blind, you don’t HAVE a sidebar!
#5 Phillip Aug 11, 08:35 Permalink
I’ve recently put my website on a hiatus and have been visiting W3Schools religiously in an attempt to validate everything. So at the very least, here’s one person that’s been converted.
Glad your sister is alright; hope the dizzy spells/trouble hearing can be helped without surgery.
I validate because, as you said, errors are clues to what’s wrong with your code. Like “Ooops, I left alt off an image.” or something. And I can understand the laziness. There’s a lot of frustration sitting there, yelling at the computer trying to figure out why it does a particular thing in one browser and not another. It would be so easy to just say “Forget it, it looks good in FF!” But since my grandpa reads my website, and he’s practically blind, it’s important for me to use code/CSS that works correctly.
“Is it really so hard to believe that there exist people who can spot HTML errors without the need for a validator? What the hell kind of world do we live in where a 22 year old can honestly sit there and say that because she cannot see the errors in her source, because she has never actually learned anything the proper way, they do not exist; except in some strange world where people validate and care about their sites appearance on both sides.”
Amen.
I do the coding section of a review by inspection. I debug programs by drawing memory models line by line. It’s an invaluable skill that the sometimes the validator undermines. People can validate their site by learning to read the errors the validator spits out, but they still don’t know what the hell they’re really doing. Wherea to spot errors on your own, you really have to understand why things are behaving the way they are.
I suppose some people just become edgy because they haven’t encountered something before, and when it’s brought into attention by someone other than themselves they feel a little… unknowing. And I think a lot of people don’t like being told they’re wrong by strangers. As they say, ignorance is bliss!
It’s so damned easy to validate, but I reckon a lot of people are intimidated by it thinking that it’s a ‘hardcore’ coding trend or that their site has too many mistakes to fix. Having said that my site is probably invalid due to some stray tag I’m blind to (just checked – my html tag is no longer valid ._. uh will fix in due time).
I don’t really get too worked up about invalid sites unless they load painfully slow or look like I do after a night of drinking. Mostly it’s something I point out in reviews and I’ll always try explain why it’s beneficial. Outside a review, I would feel awfully pretentious telling someone I’ve never met that their site has 13 errors. To me it’d be like walking up to someone in the street to tell them their fly is undone.
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Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular
I commented on the girl’s blog entry in regards to this validating issue. Personally, I am fine if you have 2-3 errors, but otherwise your site is working properly, but anything over 10 is pushing it quite a bit.
heh as for understanding correct and valid coding – well I’m a programmer and DO know that just because it works on your examples it doesn’t mean that a tester can’t come and click around a few times only to completely crash the whole thing :P
I’m very glad about your sister. I hope she gets better soon. keeps fingers crossed
#1 Vera Aug 11, 01:33 Permalink