I sympathise with your cynicism and generally agree with your point about the 'next big thing'.

I have to admit, though, that I have been seduced by the XHTML fanatics.

One reason was the realisation of what w3c actually meant when they darkly refer to 'other devices' and 'alternative presentation'.

For many years I was convinced that you only had to worry about screens that were 800 pixels or wider, there being so few screens smaller than that. Was that a mistake! Seeing the web site I help maintain on a 1500px laptop was a bit of a shock too! What's happened to all my lovely gifs? Replaced with xhtml/css2 that's what! Screens are simultaneously getting smaller and bigger very quickly.

A bit of the future is already with us.

It also dawned on this Neanderthal that another 'other device' was audio browsers and what they do, for instance, with tables. I've long been an advocate of "don't use tables for page layout" but now I'm convinced.

For a static site in particular these issues are far easier to deal with using the latest standards. Also, if you're planning to move to dynamically produced pages (as I am) having a compliant site in the first place will make the transition much less painful.

One thing that does underline your point is frames. I would cheerfully shoot the person who thought that was a good idea and break the legs of the person who left me with a framed site. Search engines don't like them, they interfere with the back button, links to and from your site can produce 'unexpected behaviour' and you're left with tricky dicky javascript on every page. I'm proposing and campaigning for the frames to be dropped but they've had them for 6 years or so and they are stubborn (you'd get on well with them!).

I welcome the attempt to move toward more strict standards. I believe that whatever the future does hold will have less traumatic consequences if these standards are supported and adhered too.

I also applaud you intransigence. These things often end up being some sort of fashion parade where the 'label' is all important. Keep up the good work!

In reply to Re^2: Your kung fu is excellent but what about... by wfsp
in thread Your kung fu is excellent but what about... by Your Mother

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