How important is validation?

[Lars Eighner]

Re: How important is validation?

In our last episode,
<11fuvm21dcolc1 d@corp.supernew s.com>,
the lovely and talented Guy Macon
broadcast on comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:
[color=blue][color=green]
>>Maybe all website designers have giant monitors on which they run a
>>browser full-screen, so they've got space to waste. I always have
>>multiple windows open, and never have enough screen real-estate
>>available[/color][/color]

So why don't you increase the size of your desktop? I find a
3x3 is more than adequate: that's two full screen browsers, a
word processor, a text edior, a couple of screens for graphic
work, a terminal, a screen full of control-panel type junk, and
one left over. It is also convenient to jump around with a mod
key and the key pad, which conveniently has an intuitive
relationship to a 3x3 layout.



--
Lars Eighner eighner@io.com http://www.larseighner.com/
I don't see posts from or threads started from googlegroups.
"We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with
Kuwait." -- Bush's Ambassador April Glaspie, giving Saddam Hussein
the greenlight to invade Kuwait.

[Spartanicus]

Re: How important is validation?

"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> As much as I support validating, to claim that validation ensures
>> cross browser compatibility and/or can replace testing in various
>> browsers is nonsense.[/color]
>
>While the word "ensures" there is clearly a hopeless exaggeration,[/color]

I hope you are attributing the exaggeration to David Ross.
[color=blue]
>validation can nevertheless reveal errors which would be fixed-up in
>different ways by different browsers. Correcting those errors is no
>less optional than correcting spelling mistakes in a decently-produced
>web page.[/color]

Spelling errors are revealed to all users 100% of the time, validation
errors are often both invisible and of no consequence to most visitors.

Comparing natural language syntax with markup and/or styling language
syntax makes no sense and can only muddy an already poorly understood
aspect of web authoring.

--
Spartanicus

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: How important is validation?

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Lars Eighner wrote:
[color=blue]
> So why don't you increase the size of your desktop? I find a
> 3x3 is more than adequate:[/color]

I typically want to see two or more windows that I'm currently working
on alongside each other - not to merely have the option to switch
between them.

The remaining windows can indeed be hidden from view for the time
being - either behind the several currently active windows, or
minimised, or on another logical screen - but that's a different
matter.

Anyway, this isn't really the point. As an author, it's our job to
produce web pages that are useful and convenient for our *readers*.

Hassling each other here (most of us are presumably here because we
regard ourselves as web *authors*) to use our own displays in
different ways doesn't really address that important principle of
authoring for our users.

best regards.

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: How important is validation?

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Spartanicus wrote:
[color=blue]
> "Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> >> As much as I support validating, to claim that validation ensures
> >> cross browser compatibility and/or can replace testing in various
> >> browsers is nonsense.[/color]
> >
> >While the word "ensures" there is clearly a hopeless exaggeration,[/color]
>
> I hope you are attributing the exaggeration to David Ross.[/color]

I'm sorry - I thought my meaning was evident from the context.
[color=blue][color=green]
> >validation can nevertheless reveal errors which would be fixed-up
> >in different ways by different browsers. Correcting those errors
> >is no less optional than correcting spelling mistakes in a
> >decently-produced web page.[/color][/color]

[...][color=blue]
> Comparing natural language syntax with markup and/or styling
> language syntax makes no sense[/color]

Was I comparing them? I was trying to say that both can contribute to
a quality web page.
[color=blue]
> and can only muddy an already poorly understood aspect of web
> authoring.[/color]

I say that both are aspects of quality control in publishing a web
page. I did not mean to imply that the two things are equivalent in
principle. I stand by my original assertion that both can and should
be non-optional quality control features of a web publishing process.

I'm not, of course, suggesting that correctness of either, or even
both, of them is a complete QA programme! Markup can be syntactically
correct while being semantically nonsense; spell checking can pass the
wrong word if the wrong word is spelled correctly. But both
procedures stand a chance of picking up inadvertent errors which would
be better corrected. And potentially much more effective as a QA
procedure than merely reviewing the completed page on one or a few
browsers. Sadly, the browser review is also a necessary chore
(particularly with MSIE, which rules itself out in various ways as a
web-compatible browser), but I still say that the formal syntax check
is a valuable and IMHO non-optional part of QA in the web publishing
process.

all the best

[Spartanicus]

Re: How important is validation?

"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> >validation can nevertheless reveal errors which would be fixed-up
>> >in different ways by different browsers. Correcting those errors
>> >is no less optional than correcting spelling mistakes in a
>> >decently-produced web page.[/color][/color]
>
>[...][color=green]
>> Comparing natural language syntax with markup and/or styling
>> language syntax makes no sense[/color]
>
>Was I comparing them?[/color]

"Correcting those [validation] errors is no less optional than
correcting spelling mistakes [...]" suggests a comparison of some sorts.
[color=blue]
>I was trying to say that both can contribute to
>a quality web page.[/color]

No argument there.
[color=blue]
>I'm not, of course, suggesting that correctness of either, or even
>both, of them is a complete QA programme![/color]

I know.

I'm concerned that albeit with good intentions people are using
incorrect arguments to justify validation. Imo the case for validation
cannot be summed up in a few simple "here's why you should" type rules.
Providing a case depends on many other variables.

Notwithstanding considerations such as voiced by the OP (requiring it
narrowing down the list of people able to do the work), perhaps
reversing the logic is the better approach: there are no good reasons
not to produce valid code [1].

[1] for the sticklers amongst us who think they've detected me
contradicting myself with an earlier post in the thread, note the
"public DTD" qualifier of that earlier post.

--
Spartanicus

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: How important is validation?

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Spartanicus wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
> >Was I comparing them?[/color]
>
> "Correcting those [validation] errors is no less optional than
> correcting spelling mistakes [...]" suggests a comparison of some sorts.[/color]

So, if I were to remark that in book publishing, checking of spelling
and of punctuation were both important, would you accuse me of
muddying the vital distinction between spelling and punctuation?
[color=blue]
> I'm concerned that albeit with good intentions people are using
> incorrect arguments to justify validation. Imo the case for
> validation cannot be summed up in a few simple "here's why you
> should" type rules.[/color]

Well, I'm sorry, but from my point of view, markup syntax validation
is a natural part of the QA process for web publishing; I don't feel I
need to justify it, any more than I'd need to justify checking the
spelling of the content, or making a reasonable effort to verify the
facts which I'm going to report on the page.

As I see it, it's the responsibility of anyone who claims that any of
these QA checks are unnecessary, to produce a convincing argument as
to why it's unnecessary, and I haven't yet seen an argument that I
found convincing. Some claimed that they were assembling the web page
automatically from parts that were stored in a database or content
manglement system, but that's no excuse for not having an assembly
process that either guarantees to produce correct markup syntax, or
one that checks the result of the assembly, IMNSHO.
[color=blue]
> Notwithstanding considerations such as voiced by the OP (requiring
> it narrowing down the list of people able to do the work), perhaps
> reversing the logic is the better approach: there are no good
> reasons not to produce valid code [1].[/color]

It looks as if we might be converging on some kind of agreement, in
our different ways ;-)

best regards

[Spartanicus]

Re: How important is validation?

"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> >Was I comparing them?[/color]
>>
>> "Correcting those [validation] errors is no less optional than
>> correcting spelling mistakes [...]" suggests a comparison of some sorts.[/color]
>
>So, if I were to remark that in book publishing, checking of spelling
>and of punctuation were both important, would you accuse me of
>muddying the vital distinction between spelling and punctuation?[/color]

The flaw in your (original) statement lies in the suggestion that both
have a similar effect on the user experience. This, as I pointed out
earlier, is not the case. I see no point in twisting an already
fundamentally flawed comparison between natural and markup/style
languages.

The OP is looking for a "be a good dog, validate and here is your bone"
reasoning and wants to know what bone he's going to get. My argument is
that there may be no bone, or at least that the bone is undefined in the
absence of further data.
[color=blue]
>It looks as if we might be converging on some kind of agreement, in
>our different ways ;-)[/color]

Hope springs eternal.

--
Spartanicus

[Henri Sivonen]

Re: How important is validation?

In article <Pine.LNX.4.62. 0508151013090.5 058@ppepc56.ph. gla.ac.uk>,
"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm not, of course, suggesting that correctness of either, or even
> both, of them is a complete QA programme! Markup can be syntactically
> correct while being semantically nonsense; spell checking can pass the
> wrong word if the wrong word is spelled correctly.[/color]

One problem is that markup can validate and still be even
*syntactically* nonsense.

Example:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fhsivonen.iki.fi%2Ftest%2Fv

alid-img.html&ss=1

The problem is, of course, that DTDs are inadequate for expressing all
the requirements set forth in the HTML 4.01 spec that should be
machine-checkable.

Petr Nalevka has developed (building on James Clark's work) RELAX NG and
Schematron schemas that express more constraints than the HTML and XHTML
DTDs. His validator is available at http://badame.vse.cz/validator/

However, that validator uses TagSoup for HTML parsing, so some errors
are fixed before validation. I have been working on solving that problem
with HTML5 conformance checking in mind:

http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2005-August/0

04536.html

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi

http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Mozilla Web Author FAQ: http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html

[dingbat@codesmiths.com]

Re: How important is validation?

Henri Sivonen wrote:
[color=blue]
> One problem is that markup can validate and still be even
> *syntactically* nonsense.[/color]

That's a reasonable caveat, but it depends on some nit-picking over
"validate" as meaning "that which an available validator does" rather
than "comply with the specification". The absence of a validator
capable of detecting its errors does not mean that your example is in
any way "valid", or that any reasonable and competent person would
claim it to be so.

[Dr John Stockton]

Re: How important is validation?

JRS: In article <42FF9C3E.35474 4EF@nowhere.not >, dated Sun, 14 Aug 2005
12:32:14, seen in news:comp.infos ystems.www.authoring.html, David Ross
<nobody@nowhere .not> posted :[color=blue]
>
>According to one estimate, Internet Explorer (IE) reached a peak
>market share of 88.0% of all browsers in March 2003. Since then,
>it has declined to 73.5%. Other estimates might show IE still well
>above 80% or even 90% of the market, but they all seem to agree
>that IE's share is declining.[/color]

I doubt whether those are market shares.

A market share should include only browsers that have been chosen for
use, and should omit those that came with the system.

They are more likely to be usage shares; but those are likely to be
affected by the much-used copies of default browsers used in libraries,
which attract low-value users.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon. co.uk Turnpike v4.00 IE 4 ©
<URL:http://www.jibbering.c om/faq/> JL/RC: FAQ of news:comp.lang. javascript
<URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/js-index.htm> jscr maths, dates, sources.
<URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/> TP/BP/Delphi/jscr/&c, FAQ items, links.

[David Ross]

Re: How important is validation?

Spartanicus wrote:[color=blue]
>
> David Ross <nobody@nowhere .not> wrote:
>[color=green]
> >As a software developer, you know that the task is not completed
> >until the testing is satisfactory. Instead of viewing the pages in
> >a variety of browsers on a variety of platforms (you omitted
> >Safari, which Apple now installs on all Macs), testing should
> >involve validation against <URL:http://validator.w3.or g/> for HTML
> >and against <URL:http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/> for CSS.
> >Then, you only have to view the page with one browser on one
> >platform, to see that the content and layout are correct.[/color]
>
> As much as I support validating, to claim that validation ensures cross
> browser compatibility and/or can replace testing in various browsers is
> nonsense.
>[color=green]
> >A page whose content is updated
> >should be upgraded to HTML 4.01 or XML 1.1[/color]
>
> I presume that you are referring to XHTML1.1, note that to have that
> rendered by IE it needs to be served as text/html, and serving XHTML1.1
> as text/html violates w3c guidelines. If XHTML is going to be used at
> all (it rarely makes sense to do so), then XHTML 1.0 Strict should be
> used.
>[color=green]
> >If there are HTML or CSS errors, don't necessarily reject the
> >candidate. Instead, ask them to explain the errors. Judge the
> >candidate by their explanations.[/color]
>
> Now this is a much more sensible approach.
>[color=green]
> >Ask them if they can develop a
> >Web site that not only has the content and layout you want but also
> >can be validated without any reported errors.[/color]
>
> But then you blow it again :-) Validation is merely a tool, a skillful
> developer can have a good reason to produce HTML that does not validate
> against the public DTDs, and particularly "invalid" CSS (not that there
> really is such a thing to begin with).
>
> [other sound advice snipped][/color]

Before I retired, I was a software test engineer for over 30
years. I would always reject software that failed to compile
error-free without ever attempting to test it. Similarly, I would
strongly recommend against testing a Web page by viewing it if it
contained HTML errors.

A Web page that passes both HTML and CSS validation might not have
the desired content and layout. Thus, testing must indeed include
viewing the page. However, unless you are willing to view the page
with IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Konqueror -- all of
which are browsers that have been used to visit my own Web pages --
on PCs with both Windows and Linux, on Macs, on Sun workstations
with UNIX, on IBM workstations with AIX, etc, it is necessary to
determine if the page follows the specification. If it does and if
the content and layout are satisfactory with one
specification-compliant browser on one platform, then any problem
in viewing it with another browser most likely lies within that
other browser and not within the page.

I quote from my own <URL:http://www.rossde.com/viewing_site.ht ml>:

"Standards

Compliance with the HTML and CSS specifications is important. If a
compliant page fails to display appropriately, it is likely the
fault of the browser. The Web developer has done all he or she can
do towards communicating with the page's audience. The browser
developer is clearly at fault.

If a non-compliant page fails to display appropriately, however, it
could be something within the page itself, even if that page were
created by a professional. In this latter case, it is very
difficult to determine where the problem lies. But the problem
could indeed be the fault of the Web developer."

(© 2003-2005 by David E. Ross)

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[Spartanicus]

Re: How important is validation?

David Ross <nobody@nowhere .not> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Before I retired, I was a software test engineer for over 30
>years. I would always reject software that failed to compile
>error-free without ever attempting to test it.[/color]

Ah, a programming background, that explains a lot about your fundamental
misunderstandin g of markup, validation, tag soup etc. Setting you
straight on those issues will take some effort, I don't have the time.
[color=blue]
>Similarly, I would
>strongly recommend against testing a Web page by viewing it if it
>contained HTML errors.[/color]

That statement is so misguided, it's almost funny.

--
Spartanicus

[Chris Beall]

Re: How important is validation?

Scott Meyers wrote:
(snip)[color=blue]
>
> Can somebody please explain to me what the practical advantages of having
> pages validate are? Also, I'm open to suggestions on who to consider hiring
> to do the work at my site (which happens to be aristeia.com).[/color]

The biggest practical advantage is that the page is likely to appear
somewhat as you intended on any browser, recent past, current, or
future, rather than just on IE.

As IE loses market share, I think you will see some of those invalid
major sites scrambling to redo their sites to work with other popular
browsers. The message that goes down to the grunts, of course, will not
mention standards, but will be "make it work with browser XXX"....and
the grunts will do what they are told 'cause they're paid by the hour or
month, not by the long-term quality of what they write.

If you are working for yourself, standards are the best way to keep your
costs low, especially if you will be maintaining the site into the
future. And if you are working for yourself, reduced cost means more
profit.

When you start your hiring quest, ask questions about:
- How they learned HTML. A 3-day class? (bad). Capt'n Willie's
Whiz-Bang on-line fancy web-effects tutorials? (bad). Dull Dave's
on-line methodical hierarchical training course? (OK). Reading the W3C
specifications and trying stuff until you understand how it works? (Best).

- If they use a Strict DOCTYPE. If they look vague or say they've
never found it necessary, run.

- If they require their pages to validate without errors. If they
look vague, run. If they say "no", listen closely to the reasons. If
it's BS, move on. If they allow errors on more than 2% of their pages,
move on.

- Ask to see the source code for a page, both HTML and CSS. If it
looks pretty from 3 feet away, you may have a live one. Look closer.
Can you read the HTML without guidance? Does the CSS seem lean (good)
or is every parameter repeated on every selector (bad). You know what
good code looks like; HTML should be no different.

- Ask how they deal with accessibility issues. Listen. If they are
uncertain, run. If they are absolutely positive, run. If they can
state several of the issues and possible approaches for dealing with
each, that's good. Accessibility is fuzzy.

- Ask to see a real site, on the web, that they recently completed.
If you like what you see, submit it over at alt.html.critiq ue and see
what others think. Explain that it isn't your site, but that you are
trying to evaluate someone else's work.

Chris Beall

[Brian]

Re: How important is validation?

Andy Dingley wrote:[color=blue]
> Brian wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Most pages don't. In the case of Yahoo, CNN, et. al., they likely
>> have substantial budgets for coders and testing. Do you?[/color]
>
>
> Why would you think that ? 8-) I'm dealing commercially with two
> of these "blue chips" right this week and their technical knowledge
> borders on the negligible.[/color]

I don't doubt that. But

substantial budgets for coders and testing != competent tech departments


;-)

--
Brian

[Chris Beall]

Re: How important is validation?

Spartanicus wrote:
[color=blue]
> David Ross <nobody@nowhere .not> wrote:
>
>[color=green]
>>Before I retired, I was a software test engineer for over 30
>>years. I would always reject software that failed to compile
>>error-free without ever attempting to test it.[/color]
>
>
> Ah, a programming background, that explains a lot about your fundamental
> misunderstandin g of markup, validation, tag soup etc. Setting you
> straight on those issues will take some effort, I don't have the time.[/color]

Spartanicus,

Pity about the time constraint. I'm inclined to disagree and it would
be interesting so find out why I'm wrong. :-)

A programming background teaches you:
- The computer will do exactly what you tell it, not necessarily what
you wanted it to do.
- Getting the code to work is only the beginning; you have to be able
to maintain it too, because someone will always want changes and there
will always be a bug or two to fix.
- Source formatting and comments are critical to being able to make
changes later. No one can remember with enough precision what he did 6
months ago and often the person maintaining the code is not the one who
wrote it.
- If the code does not compile without errors, it becomes much harder
to detect new errors when you introduce them during maintenance, since
you have to first weed out the ones that were previously deemed
'acceptable'.

Markup is not code. Most of the considerations above, however, still
apply. The browser will NOT do exactly what you tell it, because the
markup language is not as precise as a programming language. Yet you
have a better chance of getting what you want if your markup adheres to
the W3C Recommendations than if it doesn't, simply because it provides
you and the browser developer with a common frame of reference. Each
time your markup deviates from that frame of reference, you are trusting
the browser developer to have accounted for the possibility AND to have
made the same assumptions you did. This is nigh onto impossible.

BUT, if you've passed validation and then discover that the world's most
popular browser displays your page as garbage, you are between a rock
and a hard place. The best solution is to try to accommodate the
#%@#$%^ browser, while still adhering to the Recommendation. Next best
is, alas, making it work and sucking up the validation error (hopefully
carefully commenting the source code to show that you did this
deliberately and why).

I wouldn't automatically turn down a site developer whose site had
errors, but I'd sure ask a lot of questions about why.

Chris Beall