Web standards are not easy

Found this great article from Bobby van der Sluis: The learning curve of web standards.

I wish all the people who say that web standards don’t work would read this. Web standards do work, really, it’s just that they require a different approach. In some ways, it’s probably easier for people who’ve never learnt any old-school html to adapt to a new way of doing things. And learning web standards is not easy, but then, neither was learning table hacks and how to use spacer gifs, if any of us can remember that far back. But it’s worth it in the end.

My first experiments with web standards started with using css for formatting. Then, I read an article about xhtml and decided to take it on board. I hate to admit it, but back then, I didn’t even know about validation. I got some nasty shocks when I found out! The next step was using css for layout. This “transitional” stage took ages - over a year - but even those half-baked attempts at using css for presentation or getting table layouts to validate were streets ahead of my old way of doing things. Things just start to fall into place, markup gets cleaner and easier to maintain, cross-browser support gets less painful.

So, if you’re thinking about making the transition, take heart. It’s a journey. Hang in there. Yada yada yada. Don’t look back.

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