2001-04-04 - 5:10 p.m.

A Brief Rant About Bad HTML

See that little checkbox on the left of your screen, down below the "Get Your Own" link?

It's a link to http://validator.w3.org/. It's a web site that will test your HTML code against the rules for HTML syntax and tell you if it's valid or not.

This is important. There *is* a standard for HTML. It's an actual, formal description of what's OK and what isn't. It is authoritative. "It looks OK to me" is not authoritative. "It works OK in MSIE 5" is not the same as "it's right." Validate your code.

This is a rant, not a diary entry, but it relates to Diaryland. When someone signs my guestbook, I usually look at their page, just as a courtesy. All too often their page doesn't load, because they didn't bother to check their HTML code. That makes me crazy.

I assume that people write for the internet in order to be read, not just to shout into a void. If that assumption applies to you, you should make it as easy as possible for people to view your pages. That means you try to use content that any browser can handle, not obscure Java functions. It means you don't write for just one version of one browser and hope everyone else will switch browers just to read your deathless prose.

If you aren't used to writing strictly valid HTML, yes, it's a bit of a pain to learn. But when you're done, your page is *right*. If someone complains, you can sneer at them and say, "Hey, the World Wide Web Consortium says my page is valid HTML. It's your browser that's wrong."

Otherwise, the problem is you.

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