[tain]

Do W3C standards hold any importance to you as a web developer?

When you finish a website, do you run it through a validator, W3C or otherwise?

What browsers do you test against?

Do you develop content to standards, or to the browsers that will render it? (Poll can only have the 1st 3 questions)

[Zxian]

I'll usually run my site through a validator to make sure that everything checks out. Better to follow the rules than have something that's halfway there.

My usual check for browsers is IE/Mozilla/Opera

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Yes I usually try to make sure they comply.

P.S. You need a "Multiple" section in area #3.

When you edit it (If you add that) please change my vote to that from the "Other" option.

[Tarun]

Added multiple and changed your vote to it, Kel.

I validate, check in IE and Fx usually.

[gamehead200]

Don't care, check it every once and a while, same with browsers.

[CoffeeFiend]

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Do you care if your web site is W3C compliant?

To some extent. I make sure everything validates when I make an app or site, but it's not like I lose sleep over an image that's missing an alt attribute either.

Quote

Do you run a validation check?

When developing, yes. Not just on the markup either.

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What browsers do you test against?

It's developed using Firefox (Gecko), then I test against the current-ish versions of IE (6 and up -- Trident), as well as other major engine (KHTML & WebKit). There's just no excuse these days for the people that only test using IE (2 votes like that, heh).

Thankfully the grossly incompetent (those who are only testing against IE) are quickly finding themselves out of a job these days.

This post has been edited by crahak: 12 December 2008 - 01:24 PM

[cluberti]

Well, considering I do this sort of for a living, I do tend to design 2 sites - one for IE8 and FF/Gecko/et. al (yes, I want to be ready for IE8), and one for IE6 and IE7. I know the sites that are fully compliant generally run awful in IE6 and 7, so that's why I have to have pages that work for both (either comingled in the same site, or using browser detection to serve up the right page if it gets complicated). So whilst compliance is very nice (and does mean it will render correctly in Opera, webkit, and newer FF versions), I also face reality when the majority of the people who interface with these sites are running IE6 or IE7.

[CoffeeFiend]

That's a bit extreme. Worst case scenario I'll serve browser-specific CSS to older IE's but that's about it, not 2 different sets of pages. With a bit of work, one can usually get IE 6 and 7 to display pages acceptably too. It's a bit of a pain though. Can't wait for IE pre-v8 to be extinct already...

(it's also part of what I do for a living, ASP.NET FTW!)

[jcarle]

As a developer that tends to serve customers with varying backgrounds and often antiquated technologies mixed with clients that want the cutting edge stuff, I go through rigourous testing and backwards compatibility testing. The depth of which depends on the site and the client. My experience saves me time because off-hand I usually already know what does or does not work cross-platform, cross-browsers, etc...

At the extreme when I need to support an insanely large variety of users, platforms and browsers, I'll go through the following process.

Define my base layout using mostly CSS1 level properties and the most widely supported CSS2 properties using the XHTML 1.0 Strict doctype. This insures that I can validate strictly against the doctype using the W3C validators. And yes, I correct every single possible error that validator throws at me. So far, there's only been a single property that I cannot validate that goes against the doctype is the autocomplete attribute (IE specific) on input fields.

Once I'm W3C valid, I make sure that browsing the site without flash will display the images instead and that no functionality is lost if javascript is off. Basically, I try to develop so the site works without both and I use flash and javascript as augmentors to the overall functionality and feel for the site.

I finalise it all by checking the site in as many browsers as possible (which I'm always expanding). I have seven virtual machines that I run just for that purpose.
One Windows XP Virtual Machine with : Internet Explorer 8, FireFox 3, Opera 10, Chrome 1
One Windows XP Virtual Machine with : Internet Explorer 7, FireFox 2, Opera 9, Safari 3, Netscape Navigator 9
One Windows 2000 Virtual Machine with : Internet Explorer 6, FireFox 1, Opera 8, Netscape 8
One Windows 2000 Virtual Machine with : Opera 7, Netscape 7
One Windows 2000 Virtual Machine with : Opera 6, Netscape 6
One Windows 98 Virtual Machine with : Internet Explorer 5, Opera 5, Netscape Communicator 4
One Windows 98 Virtual Machine with : Opera 4, Netscape Navigator 3

One of the advantages of getting used to coding cross-platform like this is that it makes it easier to support special browsers like WebTV, smart phones, windows mobile, etc...

This post has been edited by jcarle: 11 December 2008 - 11:17 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

jcarle, on Dec 12 2008, 12:16 AM, said:

Once I'm W3C valid, I make sure that browsing the site without flash will display the images instead and that no functionality is lost if javascript is off. Basically, I try to develop so the site works without both and I use flash and javascript as augmentors to the overall functionality and feel for the site.

VERY good points indeed.

There's lots of ways to replace static images with flash (if it's detected) and text with images and all that, in case the browser doesn't support "fancy" things. I test with a fair amount of browsers just like you, inside VMs as well, but not quite as extensively: I've never seen a single hit on our web sites using Opera, and it's been years since we've seen IE 5.5 or less. Netscape? Years without a single hit too. No hit that I remember of from a Linux box either. Our visitors use mostly IE6 & 7, Firefox, and then there's the odd hit from Safari.

[jcarle]

A simple trick for Flash is to use a DIV with a background image and insert the flash using Javascript, so if Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the image is shown instead. A good example of that technique can be seen on one of my current projects, http://www.barsduquebec.com/. This is a site where I'm trying to support as many platforms and users as possible. In fact, if you navigate to the site using a browser that supports Javascript but does not have DOM support, you'll be redirected to a HTML 3.2, 640x480 appropriate page asking you to upgrade.

[CoffeeFiend]

jcarle, on Dec 12 2008, 01:20 AM, said:

A simple trick for Flash is to use a DIV with a background image and insert the flash using Javascript, so if Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the image is shown instead

That's what I'm doing too. Albeit the lazy way, using swfobject

[jcarle]

crahak, on Dec 12 2008, 01:31 AM, said:

That's what I'm doing too. Albeit the lazy way, using swfobject

Nice find... *bookmarks*

[Tripredacus]

They do for me up to a point. I typically only run test for CSS and against IE. I've done XHTML before but I find that standard is too wordy to follow properly, like there needs to be less code or to make it easier. Example, why is it required to have alt text for all images? Even ones that are background elements, and especially if you use spacers or slices, it gets annoying.

[cluberti]

crahak, on Dec 12 2008, 12:05 AM, said:

That's a bit extreme. Worst case scenario I'll serve browser-specific CSS to older IE's but that's about it, not 2 different sets of pages. With a bit of work, one can usually get IE 6 and 7 to display pages acceptably too. It's a bit of a pain though. Can't wait for IE pre-v8 to be extinct already...

(it's also part of what I do for a living, ASP.NET FTW!)

My problem is, most of what I'm working on are actual web apps (either ajax or actual older POS code, or webbrowser control stuff). I'd love to just do it via CSS, but sometimes (OK, a lot of times) it's not enough based on the customer environment. Ask jcarle, he knows a little of my personal hell .

[Zxian]

jcarle, on Dec 11 2008, 10:20 PM, said:

A simple trick for Flash is to use a DIV with a background image and insert the flash using Javascript, so if Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the image is shown instead. A good example of that technique can be seen on one of my current projects, http://www.barsduquebec.com/. This is a site where I'm trying to support as many platforms and users as possible. In fact, if you navigate to the site using a browser that supports Javascript but does not have DOM support, you'll be redirected to a HTML 3.2, 640x480 appropriate page asking you to upgrade.

For what it's worth... I think the layout of that site is incredible. Very clean, very easy to navigate.