Comments on: Why Validate

By: DaveLL

DaveLL — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:12:13 +0000

Disagree with validation being something that is required. I can see your point of using validated code for error checking being useful for a novice coder, but as previous commentators have already mentioned, valid code does not necessarily = code that displays properly.

It’s much more important to focus on good clean cross browser compatible code rather than if your code validates according to the W3C.

By: 10 Things Any Web Developer Worth Their Spit Should Know

10 Things Any Web Developer Worth Their Spit Should Know — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:25:43 +0000

[...] Validation is not just a niceness, it’s a necessity. Paul O’Brien has done an excellent job explaining the significance of validation in his article Why Validate. [...]

By: BeCareful

BeCareful — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:26:15 +0000

Whilst it is true that coders should attempt to validate their coding, just because coding validates does not mean that it displays as intended.

It is far more important to have a site display correctly in the major browsers than to have it validate. Often this might be as simple as 1 or 2 lines of code that allow the site to be displayed in all browsers but also create a situation where the site no longer validates without “errors”.

So, whilst it is good practice to validate, and correct any bugs that might be causing your site not to display properly, it is also wise to ensure that browsers other than the one you are using, also display the coding correctly.

By: Paul OB

Paul OB — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:23:41 +0000

Thanks for all your comments and some good points raised

By: Max

Max — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:12:45 +0000

To people asking “Why Should I Validate?” I usually reply this:

HTML and CSS have rules. And you do not need a master in computer sciene to learn them. So learn them or do not develop for the web or at least don’t charge money for it.

Just because we have error-tolerant browsers (a bad thing imho) does not mean, we can use HTML and CSS as we see fit. That is just plain lazy and ignorant and it is unprofessional.

If you do not care about valid code, then you are not a serious webdeveloper. It’s like an architect who does not care about statics.

If I was to order a website and it wouldn’t validate, I’d complain about it and ask the developer to correct it. Because I ordered a website.

Validation is Quality Assurance – for you and your client. It is not optional.

By: James

James — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:45:54 +0000

I totally agree with you paul.

I always thought of validating as an error-checking procedure more than anything else.

I must say that I hate when people get into semantics about this stuff though… The problem is that some web “professionals” see it as a badge or some kind of additional skill worth mentioning – surely validation, along with coding semantically etc. are just part of the “web designer / developer” package, or at least they should be.

By: Marko Novak

Marko Novak — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:45:41 +0000

I agree with your point. Every web designer should validate their code. Browsers nowadays dismiss some mistakes in code and display designs correctly even though the code has error in it.

Example: If you forget to close tag in your html code, Firefox would still display it correctly, but other browsers won’t.

That’s way validating your code is very important.