[UPHPU] Validation

[Brandon Stout]

Mac Newbold wrote:
> Today at 5:07pm, Jonathan Duncan said:
>
>>> I have a question.  I am referring to the recent "CSS and IE"
>>> thread.  I
>>> know I will probably be laughed off the list or flamed or something,
>>> but why
>>> is validation so important?  Is is just to be able to display the
>>> validation
>>> image?  I know it's important to have standards but sometimes it
>>> seems we
>>> give up what we want so that our code will validate.  I usually ignore
>>> validation.  If I can get my code to work properly and it's (somewhat)
>>> useful then I feel that's 90 percent of the battle.  IMHO.
>>
>> Good question:
>>
>> http://validator.w3.org/docs/why.html
>
> They present some reasonable arguments, but they're not very practical
> about it. They say:
>
> "Well, firstly there is the very practical issue that non-valid pages
> are (by definition) relying on error-correction by a browser. This
> error correction can and does vary radically across different browsers
> and versions"
>
> If all browsers were standards compliant, that would be perfectly true
> and reasonable and practical. But they aren't. If you make standards
> compliant pages that validate, but they use things from the standards
> that aren't implemented by MSIE (or any other browser), or are
> impelmented wrong by that browser, they won't work properly in that
> browser, despite their correctness and validation.
>
> Most people who have tried to do anything remotely complex or out of
> the ordinary and have it work on MSIE+Firefox+Safari know how small
> the set of instructions is that works the same in every browser. That
> is the subset that I out of necessity must code do, and I guess you
> could call it a "standard" of sorts.
>
> This ties into the "table-less" issue too. I don't agree with it, and
> find that it produces much simpler code in a much shorter time to use
> tables where they help, since it is one of the things that the
> browsers do reasonably compatibly.
>
> Mac
>
> -- 
> Mac Newbold        MNE - Mac Newbold Enterprises, LLC
> mac at macnewbold.com    http://www.macnewbold.com/
>
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I thought I'd give it a try because of this article, among others:

http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/throwing_tables/

In this article, you'll find a table that sums up his points nicely. 
With a CSS makover using Microsoft.com as an example, he cuts down 62%
overhead.  This includes removing spacer.gif files and their associated
<img> tags (from 122 to 6), and using a single codeline for multiple
browsers instead of different code for different browsers.

Of course, 95% of our problem is IE non-compliance.  Microsoft
integrates its browser in 1998, and then stops releasing new versions
since 2001.  They made their browser take the bulk of the browser
market, then stopped supporting new standards for the past 5 years.

Now my question for you:

Does Safari usually look the same as Konqurer, Epiphany, or Firefox?

Brandon Stout
http://mscis.org