Will CODE for FOOD

"Will CODE for FOOD" Seems like that is the statement going through most developer's minds these days. Why? Well to put it plain and simple, most likely their code looks like a 4 year old wrote it, and they are only coding, or working, for food. With the MILLIONS of sites on the Internet today I would assume only 10% adhere to the W3C Standards.

W3C Standards are the building block for my own - and LevelTen Design's - development of extraordinary designs and rich media. A wise man once said "The most you will ever learn is after you know it all..." Who the wise man is? ... I can't remember, but that's not the point. What he said is so true, if you stop learning after you "know it all" then you will stop learning, period!! I learn something new everyday (And this doesn't even include the stuff I read in MAXIM magazine).

"Make sure you follow all the HTML standards,my Mother would tell me when I was a kid - and I am glad I listened to her wise words. Sometimes it seems like the extra work is an exercise in redundancy, but remember that not everyone has the same browser as you do, and different browsers might interpret things differently...the more precise and detailed the content, the better the browser will be able to display it.

So who made Web standards anyway ... There is this little group of nerds - I mean people - that you might have heard of... The W3C. Here is a tid bit of background information on the W3C Gods.

http://www.w3c.org

The World Wide Web consortium defines itself as "a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding." Its mission is to develop and promote interoperable technology to allow the Web to achieve its full potential. These standards cover a multitude of subjects, including HTML. In fact, they offer a free HTML Validator that you can point to any URL and it will let you know whether it conforms to the standards. Just for entertainment value, try validating some common sites like www.yahoo.com or one of your own Web applications.

What you are likely to find is that the site offends the standards in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ways. Granted some of these are benign, but some are not. In fact, you may find blatantly illegal or incorrect coding practices exposed, and then find yourself wondering ... how does this page work at all?

(www.itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3500761)

So that said. Why do coders forget to design with standards? Are they too lazy, do they not care, or does the company they collect weekly paychecks from simply not push the standards hard enough? I'm not sure really, but what I am sure of is that EVERY last bit of code that comes out of my little finger onto my keyboard and every last bit of code that we place on the wonderful WWW complies with the W3C.

Along with the W3C, we have constructed some standards of our own, not that we feel we are better then anyone else (although we do, and rightly so), and we can proudly stand by all of our spectacular sites. Why? STANDARDS STANDARDS STANDARDS !!
I could ramble on forever about this subject so I will leave you with the link below that details the set of standards that we have compiled.

Thanks for listening to me ...
Bobby
WEB STANDARDS