Sick Of Web Standards: Reloaded
June 11, 2004 | 
18 Comments
I’ll try keep this short, I promise. And, yeah, I know the reloaded thing has been done. Sue me. ;)
Since my Sick Of Web Standards post yesterday I’ve received quite a bit of feedback, via various channels, from my readers. As many of you know I really try and keep in close contact with my audience and I do listen to you!
(This is something I think many more people and businesses on the Web could do a much better job at. Expect a post on this soon!)
It seems that many of you are disappointed in my decision to “retire” from Web standards advocacy and stop writing about standards.
Because of that, I’ve decided to rethink my original position a bit. Not a complete 180, but I realize that I might have been wrong to some degree.
(Did I just admit I was wrong? Someone slap me!)
I’m still retiring from standards advocacy. For quite awhile anyway. I put that burden (if you want to call it that) on myself and now I’m putting it down to take a long, and I think deserved, breather.
I just find it very draining and I’ve got too much on my plate to constantly try and convince people of the value of Web standards. And, to be brutally honest, I find the arrogance and tone of some folks (a very small, yet loud, minority) who are supposed to be on the same “side” as me grating to say the least. I just don’t want to deal with it any more.
Having said that, it’s been expressed to me many times in the last day that y’all find real world examples of Web standards in action and the like very helpful. So, in that context, I’ll be more than happy to keep talking about Web standards.
Like Simon says (I love saying that) in his post “Embracing Best Practice”:
It’s time to extend the discussion. Web standards are a small but vital part of a larger solution, something I like to think of as web development best practice.
This is what I plan to do from now on. In the context of best practices I’ll be talking about, sharing my experiences with, and detailing my lessons learned from Web standards in the real world.
Now that I think about it, as Web standards are central to my work, it’d be very hard not to talk about them at all.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Arthur! said:
I too have given up on preaching the webstandards advocacy – although I shamefully admit I have sent one or two emails to authors whose websites didn’t validate. I agree with the notion that webstandards are to be used as a tool in the process of finding better solutions, not as an end station in webdesign. It is just one facet of the greater picture, the way I see it.
I also liked simons comment. It might be tricky though, to find an objective way to define best practice, because the word “best” implies a somewhat subjective norm in the end. It might be better to change best into better. I’m curious where this brings us.
Posted on June 11, 2004 01:45 PM | #
2. Ste Grainer said:
Heh, that’s kinda what I was trying to say in a post a few months ago. I think standards are important, but they are just one piece of a very large puzzle; concentrating wholly on advocating them can lead to huge detriment in other areas… after reading what Molly and Simon have said, I really hope to see the WaSP move towards a broader web advocacy.
Posted on June 11, 2004 02:52 PM | #
3. Christopher said:
Keith,
Don’t let em get you down. You encourage me all the time (you just didn’t know it until now!) so I’m going to encourage you now. Don’t give up. Standards benefit everyone and I would encourage you not to give up the fight completely. Take a break, vacation, siesta or whatever and evaluate things, but don’t give up on it. It’s a fight worth fighting. Remember - there’s a lot more of us that believe in standards that have your back than are against you. (We’re just quieter sometimes…)
Posted on June 11, 2004 03:29 PM | #
4. Eric said:
Well said.
The advocacy lobbying thing is what gets old, and gets tiring. Dave didn’t do it; instead, he built the Zen Garden, which has had much more an effect on the design world than screaming about standards ever would have.
What we need is examples, in the real world, of implementation. And since you are in the real world (something most of your readers really appreciate) you can provide this.
We are grateful.
(and sorry for the double comment yesterday…I didn’t realize it would post even if Safari gave up after 60 seconds…)
Posted on June 11, 2004 05:22 PM | #
5. Tim said:
Keith,
I’m one of those who is new to the arena. I don’t need you to convince me of standards - their benefit is pretty self-evident. Standards are just something I “do” now - or at least try to do.
I read your blog for your expertise and insight into how to make this stuff work. I assume that whatever work you do and share with us will, by your nature, involve standards. That is what I love to see - stuff in the real world.
Just do that voodoo that you do….
Posted on June 11, 2004 05:30 PM | #
6. Pier Carlo said:
Heh, heh, you young ‘uns! I’m a veteran of the standards wars: Unix, SQL, C, C++, CORBA Objects, Learning Objects, as well as all these web standards. Now I’m the first to admit that standards are good, its nice to have fewer variations or at least variations that are close (although I’ve been known to repeat the line “God must like standards or he wouldn’t have created so many!”), but which of those I just listed actually succeeded in establishing a single agreed-upon standard with no variations? Just look at SQL: a MUCH simpler thing to standardize than the web AND a huge and powerful user base (X/Open “required” SQL-92 compliance), yet, what happened? Each vendor still pretty much does what they want with their products. Although some lip service is paid to SQL-92 in these products, developers basically know that you’re better off writing “native” (and try to use JDBC, JavaBeans or whatever and you’re going to have overhead too). I’d like to see you keep going, if only to keep the attention to the practical in application of web standards. I sure hope though that Bill G and company don’t end up doing to web standards what he and Larry Ellison did to the SQL standard… If not, y’all out there are gonna make Don Quixote look down right practical…
Posted on June 11, 2004 08:16 PM | #
7. Dan Bowling said:
Web design is full of many aspects that are great to discuss, but I think we need to regain perspective on what we should be discussing. Web design can be akin to DVD production: if you have some weird standard on your dvd that no ones player supports, you are SOL. It is up to the manufacturer on what they want to support, and no ne of us (especially if we aren’t their client) are justified in telling them to change their DVD. Likewise, I can’t think of a single site (excluding government sites) that I can tell, "You NEED to use standards, your current coding schema is WRONG!"
We can’t go around telling people to change their code. Standards are around now, and prety much every developer at least knows of their existance and has chosen to implement them or ignore them for reasons of their own choosing. The resources of the community are better spent focusing on how to help the current beleivers and practitioners create better, accessible and just plain top notch sites. Web standards, amongst the web standards community is a gimmie. We can work for betterment of different areas and make a strong impact; perhaps, after some off standards talk, some of the discussion can just show propper web standards and it can become accepted as dogma.
The volume of information out there advocating web standards is huge! Is it your (our) responsability to devote time and keyboard to more of the same, or simple lead by example and move in new, exciting directions.
Keith, as a side note here after my rant, if you keep track of demographics at all, how many people come to your site without knowledge of standards? Aren’t you mostly preaching to the choir or beating the dead horse? I doubt the in-betweens would more than rarely even stumble on a site like yours or zeldmans… I know I didn’t until I came face to face with Kevin at alazanto.org.
Posted on June 11, 2004 10:40 PM | #
8. Terry said:
I sympathize with your frustration, especially since Dave’s Standards Police post the other day and the inevitable tirads in the comments.
As far as I’m concerned, it has all been said before a million times over and there’s not much else to add. And frankly its the easiest part, technically, to get a handle on when it comes to web design. Keep your code clean, check it before publishing and be done with it. It doesn’t take a Michio Kaku to get it!
When a newbie comes along and needs a refresher just point them to the many tomes already written on the subject and strewn across the web. As far as my clients go - when starting with a clean slate - they’ll be getting a website built with standards whether they realize it or not :)
Posted on June 11, 2004 11:41 PM | #
9. John said:
Glad to see this follow up to the original post.
I think we amatuers need to give more feedback more often instead of just lurking, feeling intimidated by you gurus and saying nothing.
There seems to be trend against standards lately however, if kept in proportion, the effort still seems like a worthy one.
So, a long winded way of saying thanks for all you offer, including sometimes standing up for standards.
Posted on June 13, 2004 05:52 AM | #
10. Daniel said:
I am sad to hear that you reverted your decision. Your decision was a good one, since this web standards stunt turned a specific issue into a stupid foolish show. First of all, nobody owns the standards, it is there for people to use and everybody on the web already use it. HTML 4.0 3.0 are all standards, and anybody denying that is a cheap liar. Secondly, if you define your way of doing coding as a standard, and try to dictate that as the standard, then you are a con-man trying to cheat people. You may be profiting from your effort as the “standard advocate” by publishing your comments and expecting people to buy your future or currents books and/or hiring you because you are the guy who advocated these technologies available to all of us, but that’s not going to happen. Only very few people will fall into that trap. I am also using CSS and XHTML as much as you use, but for some reason I don’t pose as the good guy who simply view people who don’t use “standards” as evil people. That madness should stop. Like slashdotters, you are inflating your each others’ views as if they have any truth to it and others simply reinforce your twisted views.
You are like somebody advocating to use HTTP protocol according to the specs, who view any browser maker using a quick hack to speed things up as evil, and you also view web servers as non-standard server if they ever do something different even though it doesn’t affect anything, oh and you view the specs differently than the rest of the world. By your definition the whole internet is non-standard, since we use TCP/IP protocol. If you accept TCP/IP as the standard, probably you are not even aware of the fact that there are different implementations of TCP/IP. Maybe you think UDP is a non-standard and anybody using that protocol should be phunished by death sentence. None of this makes sense, the web is great, but it is also bad since many con artists and their friends make it look like they have a point, even though they have not.
If you are trying to improve the lives of people, tone down your voice, make specific comments which are to the point, not like “oh, use the web standards, are you using standards, are you standard complaint, are you using firefox, no, don’t use IE, Microsoft is evil etc…” This sort of comments will only get you credibility within a few people as you define “community”. For the real world out there, who already use standards, you are a weird guy trying to get attention.
Posted on June 13, 2004 06:01 AM | #
11. Adrian Rinehart-Balfe said:
Daniel, you do your arguements no favors by mixing in childish, personal attacks. I have seen you do this elsewhere and was not overly impressed there either.
Keith, it sounds to me like you are right on track.
Posted on June 13, 2004 11:57 AM | #
12. Dan Bowling said:
Keith: as along as you don’t advocate like Daniel from number 10 I think you are doing alright.
Daniel: Lets try to keep it professional here, please? As well, try reading the new zeldman book… it brings a similar message of realism to the debate, but in an enlightened sense; and it is a fast read.
Posted on June 13, 2004 12:14 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Thanks guys.
Daniel – You’re a right jack ass. You really are. I’m going to leave your comment up and try to be somewhat polite in responding to it, but where the hell do you get off man? Who the F*CK do you think you are?
Ok, calm down Keith….
You have a right to your opinion I guess. (Talk about “twisted views”…) But you’re way off. I’m not trying to get attention. I don’t profit in any measurable way from this site and that is not my goal. In fact, between this blog, Digital Web and the other volunteer stuff I do for the Web community – I don’t make shit and I put in countless hours. I’ve got a full time job for crying out loud.
I love what I do and I want to share my passion for the Web with others. Period. Sure I’d love to make some money, but if that was what it was all about, I’d have quit looooong ago.
I don’t profess to be right all the time and I sure as hell don’t tell people what to do. I changed my stance because I felt I was wrong. Is it cool with you that I make mistakes? Is it? I’m learning here along with the rest of y’all.
That’s pretty much the bottom line.
I sure as hell hope the in the “real world” you are the exception to the rule.
If you don’t like what I’ve got to say – don’t read and for f*cks sake don’t waste our time with your pedantic little comments. It’s that simple.
Nobody asked you to join the party and if you’re going to be a pooper, go somewhere else.
Posted on June 13, 2004 03:36 PM | #
14. Ty said:
OMG Keith…want me to beat him up for you? ;)
Sorry you had to read that, truly. Know that fools like that don’t represent the majority, no matter what he trys to tell you. Reading that crap I can understand why you struggle with this stuff at times.
I, for one, appriecate all your work. It’s been a real help to me, really.
Some people just don’t get it.
Oh and “Daniel” – f***uuuuck you.
Posted on June 13, 2004 03:46 PM | #
15. Kevin said:
Actually, I stubled on asterisk looking for blogs about (you betcha!) Web Standards.
Just to let you know, I’m enjoying every part of your blog, preaching web standards (erm should we call it: web’s best practices now?) or not.
Posted on June 13, 2004 07:50 PM | #
16. Dan Bowling said:
Just a little aside here, but does anyone else see the irony in Daniel’s email address?
Posted on June 14, 2004 12:00 AM | #
17. Kris said:
Webstandards are indeed part of a larger set of best practices. I talked a lot of ‘newbies’ (in the charming definition, not the offesive one) into using standards after making them understand the benefits of other, less abstract best practices. Like, well-though out IA, graphic design and usability.
There is still the 3 to 1 ratio of people who don’t get it (I’m working on my part!), but the ones who do get it make up for that, because I know that one day, with their enthousiasm, they will spread the word as well.
Posted on June 14, 2004 01:09 AM | #
18. Michael said:
I agree with your restated direction. And as someone that doesn’t get to play with this stuff in the “real world,” I would love to see additional examples of how “real world” sites are put together. I only have a little time to play around with my personal site and would love to learn from others, like yourself, who do this on a full time basis.
Thanks for taking the time to share what you’ve learned!
Posted on June 14, 2004 08:54 AM | #
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