HTML & CSS: The Good Parts

Why Web Standards?

Since the publication of the first IETF draft specification for HTML, browser vendors and site developers have made a frequent bad habit of disregarding published web standards. At the same time, the community of developers who make a point of respecting those standards (of which this author considers himself a devoted if usually quiet member) has never been anything but vocal and predictable, if not actually disciplined. There are a number of issues at work behind the scenes of the ongoing debate.

Note

This section addresses web standards as they are typically promoted.

Interoperability

Untested assumptions about visitors are a big mistake. Common adherence to standards would reduce the number of assumptions. Developers could build their sites and deploy them with a minimum of platform testing. And who doesn’t want that?

Market Forces

The virtues of interoperability do not, however, harmonize easily with the hot desire for bells, whistles, and pretty things often felt by artists and marketers. Browser vendors cannot ignore the imperative to innovate, and the market usually works on a shorter life cycle than the standards acceptance process.

Market forces are what drove the prospect of common standards compliance off the rails in the first place. In early 1995, table support was introduced in Netscape 1.1, while codification of earlier enhancements brought to market by Mosaic 2.0 was still awaiting acceptance. In effect, Netscape—then still deserving of the “startup” ...