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Validation is worth diddly-squat

Written on July 17th 2008, filed under Web standards with 2 comments.

Let me get the cat out of the bag: Validation just isn’t important at all. There, I’ve said it and by now the validationistas among you will have steam coming out of their ears. W3C Guidelines or death and all…

When I first found out about the W3C validator and web standards – somewhere around the year 2000 – I was hooked. Every project I worked on needed to have that little button in the footer. It was a pride thing for me. The truth is that I’ve never written sloppier HTML code than I did in those days.

I made sure I closed all my tags and used the proper attributes. Then I’d run the code through a validator and it would call it “valid”. All 17 tables (non-nested, of course), 35 redundant divs and 43 onmouseover attributes. In my hunt for perfection I forgot that validation should only be used as a tool. It should never be a goal.

Think of it as writing a text, making sure you’ve spelled each word correctly and then placing them randomly on a page. The spellchecker will pat you on the back, but no-one will be able to read the text.

Stop focussing on creating valid code. Write great code instead. Structure your document so that you’re able to logically find the different areas with styles turned off. Don’t use redundant tags or attributes. Simple and clean code is better code. Validation is nothing but a distraction.

2 Comments so far

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  1. Thomas - August 26th 2008 - 21:34

    Don’t validation and writing great code go hand in hand?

  2. Tim Ceuppens - August 28th 2008 - 8:29

    Writing great code surpases validation. People who focus on validation never write great code.

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