Simon Willison’s Weblog

Well said. I think the zeal of the standards movement was effective in bringing the industry together and pulling together some of the pieces of the web development puzzle that were starting to get in the way of the whole process.

I think we're over the hump now, and to the point where good clean code is starting to be just another aspect of "doing it right", along with all the other pieces that have been there all along.

Wilson Miner - 11th June 2004 07:25 - #

My experience in other business area's made all alarm bells go off when reading the words "best practise". In many cases best practise has become a synonym for stiff procedures, useless certification and losing the eye for the requirements of the current situation.

Jeroen - 11th June 2004 08:52 - #

Right on Simon - I agree. I think the advocacy must remain in place, but we are coming to a time where we have to broaden the scope. Best practices sounds so corporate, but the term describes the greater good as I see it. When we really dig down and look at what standards do for us, that's what it is - a series of techniques that make up a greater goal: creating sites that work well and are positioned for ease of management as well as ease of use.

Molly - 11th June 2004 08:53 - #

"Andy King's peed up your site"?! Now there's a Freudian typo. Golden showers your bag, are they Simon :-)

Richard Rutter - 11th June 2004 10:39 - #

Simon, I'm really, really glad you posted this. The term "best practice" might not be the best, but I think we know what you mean. This is something I've been talking about for quite a while now. Web standards are important -- no doubt. But there is so much more to the story...

Keith - 11th June 2004 10:53 - #

Talk with any designers or others that aren't already in the know about web standards, accessibility etc, and they immediately have visions of handcuffs... Talk to them about best practices, and you get a lot further...

Its almost as if standards is to best practices as "what you can't do" is to "what you should do". Whether or not it is that way, is irrelevant. It is all about perception.

Derek Featherstone - 11th June 2004 13:09 - #

There is a saying in Database Land that seems oddly appropriate to this discussion - Normalize until it hurts, and then denormalize until it works. Perhaps this kind of thinking should be used in the approach to web standards?

Best practice is a very generic term, but one that the-powers-that-be are very familiar with. They know that adopting that philosophy is, more often than not, a winning strategy. When web standards are wrapped up in that package, then will probably get more penetration. It is almost like giving web standards a free ride.

Simon Jessey - 11th June 2004 14:25 - #

I think you're right on. One thing I've always had a hard time with is that so much focus has been on standards, with much less being said about all other facets of web design. I'm not an expert by any means, so my perspective is probably more amature-ish than the other commenters. Lately, I've been feeling that web design, in general, is like building a house by yourself, and needing to know all of the trades; from pouring the foundation, to framing, to finally slapping on the roof. I may be able to write the cleanest XHTML and CSS, but who cares if the content sucks and the graphics look like they were done in MacPaint?

Brandon Pierce - 11th June 2004 16:26 - #

I agree with your term but believe they are best used combined

mmmmm... sounds familiar:

The Web Standards Group is for web designers and developers who are interested in web standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT etc.) and best practices (accessible sites using valid and semantically correct code).

Russ Weakley - 12th June 2004 00:05 - #

Wow, I am glad I found this site

thedeuce75 - 13th June 2004 02:16 - #

I think so called web standards advocates blew everything like idiots. Initially everything was a just cause, but now it is totally stupid and people just gone mad. People who use the term standards even don't know what they are talking about, probably intentionally misusing the term. They are also highly religious people about this, and they are all in a position who will greatly benefit from this so called standards movement. In the real world, they are irrelevant. You want to use CSS, go and buy CSS books, go to web sites which teach them. You don't have to be forced to use CSS, XHTML from bunch of kids telling you that they are the only people who want you to use CSS and XHTML. Another stupid aspect to this issue is that, most of these people want you to convert everything to standards, and guess what, yes, they are open for business. Interesting, right? Some has books on this issue, constantly promoting each others' books. To unsuspecting people, they seem to be great saviors of our beloved web, but in fact they are con artists trying to make money without actually doing much, since none of these people implement browsers. They just want to influence the industry through abusing people and W3C. Check out google and you will see what I mean.

Daniel - 13th June 2004 13:30 - #

Daniel, I think that the main standards you should concern yourself with are grammatical.

I quite like "best practice", but I think it's on the cusp of becoming totally meaningless, like the term "stakeholder", which now means "anyone even remotely involved in your project, especially including the cleaning lady and the canteen staff".

Nick Caldwell - 13th June 2004 14:32 - #

" To unsuspecting people, they seem to be great saviors of our beloved web, but in fact they are con artists trying to make money without actually doing much, since none of these people implement browsers."

What an incredibly uninformed opinion. Don't care about standards? Fine. Just don't whine when the inevitable result of that point of view comes back to haunt us all.

Andrei Herasimchuk - 13th June 2004 15:38 - #

"What an incredibly uninformed opinion. Don't care about standards? Fine. Just don't whine when the inevitable result of that point of view comes back to haunt us all." Your opinion is the one based on misinformation. The link you gave point to another FUD article from someone on the internet with no responsibility whatsoever. We are sick of these slashdot-type of mentality where everything you do is based on some sort of conspiracy theory along with FUD campaign. Web was there without you and will be there with or without you. We don't need you to protect our web. Nick Caldwell's response is a nice example where you are standing, this is only bunch of kids trying to promote themselves on the net for their own benefits. There are thousands of them on the slashdot. If web is in danger, it is because of these people, not Microsoft. They are reducing the credibility of the web, thanks to Google's algorithm. We should fight with such people who are trying to take advantage of the honest hard work of people and companies. None of these people do real hard work for us, they are all talking as if they are doing something. Web means more than that to me.

Daniel - 13th June 2004 17:38 - #

Nick Caldwell's response is a nice example where you are standing, this is only bunch of kids trying to promote themselves on the net for their own benefits.

"this is only a bunch of kids, who are trying to promote themselves..."

Daniel, my dear boy, you might also wish to acquaint yourself with the concept of the comma splice and the correct application of the semicolon.

I must also note the dissonance of seeing someone who can't be more than about twelve trying to insult a community by calling them all "kids". Huh.

Nick Caldwell - 14th June 2004 06:48 - #

Hey, Nick Caldwell, my dear doggy, you may bark all day long, but you are living in a dream. You have no community, there is no such thing, there is no membership. All you have is bunch of kids thinking that they are important because of google. I will see them when google fixes their algorithms. You are amusing though. The best you can do is rant in these comment sections, you are not going to have any effect in the IT industry. People don't care about amusers like you. Everybody has real work to do. Troll on though.

Daniel - 14th June 2004 20:18 - #

Well, no-one else is disagreeing, but here are my thoughts.

David House - 14th June 2004 20:40 - #

We should fight with such people who are trying to take advantage of the honest hard work of people and companies. None of these people do real hard work for us, they are all talking as if they are doing something.

I suppose all that hard work I did on Photoshop... you know, that tool that nearly produces 90% or so of all the graphics you see on the web, and the tool so many designers use for their bread and butter... doesn't count? You still crack me up, Daniel. I wish you would post a blog for all of us to read. It would be an instant comedic blockbuster!

Andrei Herasimchuk - 14th June 2004 22:49 - #

Best Practices and Standards are fairly dissimilar although they are bed-fellows for instance; Web Accessibility is a combination of both but web accessibility can never be truly measured against a standard such as WCAG. That's is where best-practice may creep in though without using some formulised standard the other doesn't exist.

Again as was stipulated standard languages like XHTML are only really any good within the desktop browser for output when used semantically.

Robert Wellock - 15th June 2004 18:20 - #

I think the simplest reason for using the term "best practices" over "we aren't validating" is that it sounds positive rather than negative. Simple psychology tells us that people respond better when you put a positive spin on an issue.

Additionally, I believe that standards discussions become so bloated that they lose sight of the simplicity of the truth being communicated. In the case of standards, you are trying to develop and use technologies so that the web will be equally accessible to all viewers across all platforms. For all the convoluted discussions that have been had, this is what it ultimately boils down to.

Finally to Daniel, it seems to me that you are quite threatened by the individuals that you are working so diligently to insult. Also, they are trying to promote standards to unify the web. This tells me that your work, if not concerned with standards, is further fragmenting the web. Therefore all you care about is your own bankroll, and the rest of the world means nothing to you. Stop being a prick.

cmcooper - 7th July 2004 20:07 - #

I know I will be shot down for saying this but here goes..

W3C is looking old and tired (and not just its website). To me the only thing it has acheived is to open the floodgates for new browsers to be developed which can claim to be 'standards compliant,' although they have bespoke rendering engines and inevitable differences. 90% of my site visitors use Internet Explorer. The advent of Mozilla, Opera and the like simply make my role as a web developer harder as I have to deal with each browser's quirks. I would love to see Microsoft set the defacto standards for the web. I'm fed up with ankle-biting upstart, bleeding-heart, open-source fanatics claiming their standards are better than those set by the market leader of the computer software industry.

MS has acheived the incredible - they opened the desktop market to the masses. As a web developer you owe them a lot. They have brought your visitors.. and your customers. Without Windows (and it's UI research and innovation), PC's would still be the domain of the geek. Yes, Microsoft (like many large corporates) have been ruthless, but this is just the reality of real-world business.

Granted, IE hasn't been re-released in a long time but as a mark of it's stature, it's still the leader of the pack. With the addition of the excellent Google deskbar it sports a pop-up blocker, form auto-filler and best of all - ingenius integration with the Google search engine. As far as I know Google have not bothered creating various different versions of the deskbar for the rest of the browser rabble, and good on them!

There are those who hold up "tabbed browsing" as the be-all-and-end-all of the browser experience. Well, you might like to experiment with docking the start-bar to the side of your screen (you can then see all the titles of your open IE windows). Since IE is well cached by Windows, new browser instances open in a jiffy. You can even have several browsers open on one desktop in any layout. Opera/Mozilla's tabbed browsing doesn't add much more than that. And yes, the "gestures" plugin for Mozilla is cool but at the end of the day it's just a gimmick. Most Microsoft mice feature additional buttons which work much more elegantly.

At the dawn of personal computing there were rival platforms, and it took a while to establish the defacto standard (the x86 architecture). It was only then that PC's started appearing in the consumer market. I don't believe any buerocratic bodies were required to enforce this progression. It just happened because of cold, hard business drive. Although many rival platforms fell by the wayside in the process, the end result was a huge positive step for computer science in general.

I would love to see the same happen with the internet. Microsoft have created a well-thought-out and very powerful javascript DOM that supports element iteration much more flexibly than the W3C model. They have also created a rich set of CSS filter pseudo-classes which go far beyond CSS2. If CSS3 ever gets decided on by whichever buerocratic committee it will be taking its lead from Microsoft's own innovation.

When the next iteration of IE is released I'm hoping it will include support for PNGs with an alpha channel. This is the only feature of any importance that the rival browsers are starting to pick up. Once this is in the bag IE has won.

Goodbye, ankle-biters. Hello, standards!

Chris Beach - 11th July 2004 00:33 - #