The problem isn’t new, but it’s still present. Standards and best practices have not just been invented for fun, or mere entertainment for nerds. They actually fulfill rather important purposes. Without standards and best practices, we wouldn’t know how we should do things. Without compliance to the defined rules there would be chaos. Or actually, there is chaos… Because the standards and best practices for the web are not being followed completely at all.
The World Wide Web Foundation is responsible for the definition of such rules, and continuously works to improve and strengthen the possibilities for web developers, by providing a flexible, yet standardized compendium of possibilities. However, even though developers might follow the recommendations completely, then some browsers are not displaying content the same way – giving rise to one of the most annoying topics for web developers: Cross browser computability. A problem I find not only totally unnecessary, considering technological possibilities and achievements to date, but also very embarrassing for the web-world. I really hope the browser developers will get that problem fixed. Lot’s of improvements have happened, but we’re far from there yet.
On the other side, we have the web-developers. Please make sure you produce valid code. Cross-browser compatibility can only be expected from the developers who produces standard compliant code himself. How else should the browser have a fair chance of understanding your gibberish? Also note that messages like “Optimized for 1024×768″,”Works best in Internet Explorer”, “Please install Flash” are not nice information for the users, but a declaration of sheer incompetence on behalf of the web developer. No sane business owner would ever make his door only three foot tall, just allowing dwarfs to access, when he really sells supersize clothing. So have a look at your site, and make sure it’s compliant. Once you get used to creating standard compliant code, it’s actually not that hard to do it – every time.
Check out the W3 Code Validator.
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