Good Code

Being a responsible webizen:

The internet is something that most of us use daily, and it has revolutionized the way we live and do business. Whether you use the world wide web to do online shopping and e-commerce, or to look up directions and check email, there are a few important things that every webizen should know...

If you have not heard of it yet, there is an organization called the W3C that creates standards for web based technologies such as html, css, and xhtml. These standards are in place to ensure that all users of the www have an equally enjoyable experience. This also facilitates the expansion and interoperability of web sites and browsing technologies. There are 2 problems that have come into existance: bad coders and non-standards-compliant browsers, and I am going to tell you about both.

Bad Habits - When a web designer builds a web page, he has 2 real choices: taking the time and effort to write good code and develop a standards compliant web site (if you would like to see what this code looks like, right click this page and select view source) or slapping together a site that may look ok, but has a poorly written code base. It may not seem obvious to you, but sloppy coders affect the progress of the internet, and non-compliance to standards costs web designers countless hours of wasted time writing extra code for those who do not recognize the importance of standards.

Bad Browsers - There are a number of ways to browse the web, but the norm is using a web browser on your computer. There are many free web browsers available, and the importance comes in the choice of a good browser. You will notice that if you view this web site in any standards compliant browser such as mozilla firefox, netscape navigator, opera, safari, konqueror, or epiphany to name a few, it looks exactly the same. On the other side, if you view my web site using a non standards compiant browser (internet explorer) there are a few differences and it may not look as nice. This is because I had to spend many hours writing special code just to make this site display in internet explorer.

In a perfect world, nobody would use browsers such as internet explorer, but the problem lies in a lack of information. That is what I am here to tell you. By using a standards based browser (I reccommend mozilla firefox) you are not only ensuring yourself a pleasurable web browsing experience, you are also supporting the standards movement and encouraging web designers and software developers to write better code.

Here is a snippet from the mozilla web site:

Web standards are carefully designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users while ensuring the long-term viability of any document published on the Web. Designing and building with these standards simplifies and lowers the cost of production, while delivering sites that are accessible to more people and more types of Internet devices. Sites developed along these lines will continue to function correctly as traditional desktop browsers evolve, and as new Internet devices come to market. ^[1]

So do yourself, and the web a favor, and switch to a standards based browser!