molly.com
Tuesday 26 October 2004
what is a web standard?
The grand irony as we debate the importance of validation and what web standards are is this little bugaboo:
Web “standards” aren’t.
The W3C provides specifications and recommendations which have been coined by practitioners as “standards” when they are not precisely standards, but de facto standards. ISO, for example, is a standards organization with a full compliance set that if not met - well, products don’t ship, period. With a true standard, compliance is mandatory. With de facto standards, what we have are browser compliance problems up our collective wazoo.
What we also appear to have is confusion as to what qualifies as a “web standard.”
Taking a closer look
In HTML and XHTML there is an implication in the specs that working in a strict environment is the ideal. That using meaningful markup is ideal. But neither of these are a real or even de facto standard. So semantic markup is an implied goal, not even a measure of compliance, and something we are trying still to understand. Semantic markup is a best practice, not an explicit recommendation.
Separation of presentation and content? An implied ideal, not a measure of compliance, and something we are still working toward perfecting despite the user agent concerns. Documents using table-based layouts can be completely conforming and even Strict DTDs contain what could be interpreted as presentational elements and attributes (b, i, width, height, cellspacing). Separation of presentation and content is a best practice, not an explicit requirement across the boards.
Media types? The W3C uses very specific language in its recommendations such as SHOULD, MAY, STRONGLY RECOMMENDED and MUST NOT. This language is always written in upper case and presented in bold. Media type purists need to read this and weep:
“’application/xhtml+xml’ SHOULD be used for XHTML Family documents, and the use of ‘text/html’ SHOULD be limited to HTML-compatible XHTML 1.0 documents. ‘application/xml’ and ‘text/xml’ MAY also be used, but whenever appropriate, ‘application/xhtml+xml’ SHOULD be used rather than those generic XML media types. ”
This means you should serve XHTML 1.0 as application/xhtml+xml, but that you also may use text/html as a media delivery type for XHTML. XHTML 1.1 differs in that it SHOULD NOT be served as text/html. The only MUST NOT issues we see in the specs is that HTML 4 MUST NOT be served as any form of XML. Managing media types is explicit, and therefore a “web standard” although there is an implication of best practices in the case of XHTML 1.0 here, too.
Validation? Here’s a surprise! Validation is in and of itself not a requirement per se. What is required is conformance. So you theoretically don’t have to validate a darn thing but if you want to test its conformance, which IS an explicit requirement, you have to validate.
Add it up
So, here’s what we have:
- Separation of presentation and structure: implied as ideal: a best practice.
- Semantic markup: implied: a best practice.
- Content delivery via media types: explicit, a “standard.”
- Well-formed markup: explicit, a “standard.”
- Conformance: explicit, a “standard.”
Clearly a difference between what is an explicit part of a specification or recommendation and what is the ideal goal that’s implied by either the specification and practitioners (or both).
Separation of practice and science
There is also a separation within the industry of practice and science. This is an idea that applies to a lot of professions, but at the recent UI9 Conference, Jared Spool presented an interesting keynote in which he separated usability into practice and science, and I immediately noticed the relationship this has to web standards.
In our case, the science does not always provide everything required for practice, but it sure does provide lots of help. The opposite is also true: our practice doesn’t always follow the science (and we have plenty of evidence of that).
Ideally, the practice should follow the science wherever it can, and spurning the science as being unimportant is like telling a doctor to not treat a patient with antibiotics where there is a clear case of bacterial infection. The possible result in not bridging that gap is death.
I am deeply concerned about practitioners and advocates who blow off conformance when they can and should conform and claim it’s okay to do so.
When we cannot conform - for reasons beyond our control - there is a great need there for us to discuss why and try to help solve some of those problems (suck CMSs, ad servers, time factors), but that is no reason to say that validation and conformance are unnecessary, and certainly no reason to point a finger at the science as having failed. In those cases, the practitioners are failing the science, I’m sorry to say. Of course, the science - and our practice of it - can and should be improved as time goes on, and I believe that it will.
As an educator, and at this point in my own understanding of things (once upon a time I wrote all about web design practice without understanding any of the science, and I’m plenty guilty of not applying the science even when I know I should) what concerns me most is that anyone who takes the stand that conformance is an unnecessary part of practice is essentially acting as a doctor not prescribing the proper medication when there’s a clear scientific solution.
Such a message to other practitioners is a dangerous one. With it, we degrade our goals, and ultimately end up with poorly educated practitioners, poorly educated software developers, and severely compromised user agents and development tools as a result.
What’s more, there seems to be a belief out there that best practices are wrapped up with de facto standards when they are implied but not explicit. This is a problem with semantics (sorry to put it that way, but it is). The term “web standards” is and always has been a misnomer, and we are suffering many of these problems because of that fact.
So what can we do?
Obviously, the terminology itself has caused problems, but trying to name what we all refer to as “web standards” something else at this point is as impossible as trying to tell people it’s not an “alt tag” when they’ve been using that terminology for 8 years or more.
What we can do is work together more effectively to hone in on what should explicitly fit into a standard, and what is a best practice, and come up with some useful terms that we as professionals understand. These terms should also be more friendly to marketing departments, non-technical support people, and the lay public, and they should adequately describe the marriage of science and practice within our industry.
What we absolutely must do is take care to spread a message that encourages rather than discourages using the best science and best practice. It is holding that goal high that makes us professionals, after all.
Cross-posted with my WaSP entry today so people can comment here.
Filed under: standards, web design and development
Posted by: Molly | 12:53 pm |
October 26th, 2004 at 1:43 pm
It is probably worth adding that the World Wide Web Consortium website only has a note regarding the XHTML media types. The note indicates the best approach to serving XHTML, but it is not (yet) officially endorsed by the W3C.
With a little bit of PHP, it is actually quite easy to serve a document in the manner suggested by the note. More details can be found at Keystone Websites.
October 26th, 2004 at 1:50 pm
Simon - you are right on regarding the note. However, the note itself clearly states its own purpose in that . . .
“it documents a set of recommendations to maximize the interoperability of XHTML documents with regard to Internet media types”
It always boils down to semantics, it seems
October 26th, 2004 at 4:03 pm
Thanks for writing this, and thanks for posting it somewhere where we can comment.
I think it’s great that someone finally sat down and tried to pull apart and define all the different ways people look at, and define, Web standards, it’ll be helpful to refer back to if confusion ever arises again.
As someone who believes in Web standards and has struggled mightily (yes mightily, anyone who implies validation is always easy just doesn’t know) and failed to produce a valid site, I can accept science/practice metaphor very easily.
I guess the problem, in many cases, lies in those who make the tools (browsers, CMS) and third party code (adservers, etc.) that we lowly Web developers have to deal with. Untill we can get their science correct we’ll keep butting up against these problems.
It’s hard because as a developer you’ve got me sold, but that’s not enough. I need help. I need better browser support. I need a CMS that will clean up invalid markup in my comments without me having to degrade my user’s experience. I need other developers to educate themselves. The list goes on…
Through all of that it seems that most often the finger gets pointed back at me, the developer, when often times there is nothing I can do about it. I think we need to spend less time infighting and more time trying to communicate with those tool makers who probably don’t see a whole lot of value in listening to what we have to say.
Posts like this will help. If we can sort out the semantics we can break down one more barrier that divides us. Thanks for this.
October 26th, 2004 at 7:23 pm
“XHTML 1.1 differs in that it SHOULD NOT be served as text/html”
Pardon my inquisition, but why should 1.1 not be served as text/html?
October 26th, 2004 at 10:02 pm
William:
Because.
More verbosely: because XHTML 1.1 is subtly incompatible with conventional HTML processing. For example, it lacks the
langandnameattributes (except with forms, for the latter). It also lacks thebaseelement, which is supposed to be replaced byxml:base.October 27th, 2004 at 12:53 am
I like your mention of ISO. It offers a nice parallel and also a big stick which could (SHOULD?) be used to beat the browser makers with.
If you are designing a software product within an ISO system then you have to set out requirements, metrics etc etc. I can only presume that nowhere in the specification/requirements for Internet Explorer (for example) is there mention of “the browser MJUST adhere to the following W3C specifications…”
As someone once said, an ISO system can help you churn out the perfect concrete parachute (in other words, you get out what you put in and the system doesn’t care about the sensibility of your decisions).
Hmmm I’m losing track of what my point is…
Ohh yes. Standards. De facto standards make the world go round, and I honestly believe that the key problem with web design is both it’s youth and it’s speed of growth. We simply don’t HAVE defacto standard browser or editor and so often people end up confused by when something is a tool issue (CSS support in IE) or a design issue (UI features on a site).
Anyway, great article. Thanks.
October 27th, 2004 at 3:07 am
J. King, I understand those two points, but that doesn’t explain to me why 1.1 shouldn’t be served as text/html. My test site is 1.1 and is served as text/html. To my knowledge, it looks/works the same in all browsers and validates perfectly as 1.1. I understand how the evolution of markup itself can deprecate certain items, but are we honestly moving toward a goal of deprecating text?
October 27th, 2004 at 5:26 am
William, I suggest you read Ian Hickson’s excellent article, in which he fully describes of the problem of using
text/htmlwith XHTML.October 27th, 2004 at 5:32 am
Great post, Molly. I completely agree with your take on the issue of DTDs published by the W3C, but I was under the impression that the transport layer was standardised by the IETF, rather than through recommendations from the W3C. The relavent RFCs for the XHTML MIME type issues are RFC 3023 (XML Media Types, proposed standard), RFC3236 (application/xhtml+xml media type, informational), and RFC 2854 (text/html media type, informational). I don’t know what to make of that, but it popped in my head whilst reading your article, so I thought I’d share
October 27th, 2004 at 6:19 am
Yes, I was going to mention the “W3C Note” here as well but Simon bet me, so if interoperability was the issue then that’s accessibility machine-wise as in access to meaningful/useful data.
Yes, I believe the Transport Layer of the OSIReference Model is still swayed by IETF under the ISOC perhaps that’s one of the few things I can remember from my Cisco CCNA Course.
The Request For Comments documents occasionally will cancel themselves out why it is all good fun.
October 27th, 2004 at 9:21 am
What is a Web Standard?
An insightful article at molly.com on the true definition of what “Web Standards” are, or aren’t.
October 27th, 2004 at 10:29 am
What is a web standard?
Molly Holzschlag published a very comprehensible article what is a web standard?, featuring a simple explanatory introduction that just hits the bulls-eye.
The grand irony as we debate the importance of validation and what web standards are is this lit
October 27th, 2004 at 10:35 am
Great article; but how many of us really want an end to the ambiguity?
Of course we can all see the advantages to it, but deep down inside don’t we all like the idea of what we do, being, just a little, like witchcraft?
October 27th, 2004 at 11:04 am
Hey Molly!
You got it! Nuts and Bolts! In fact, you didn’t say anything new (that’s truly no accusation, but i thought, “hey, let’s hear what she has to say”), but used different words to sell the message. And that is what’s important, because different words find different ears that may now understand their meanings, where they heard nothing of interest before.
You once characterized yourself as “not being a developer, but a teacher” (i guess that were your words, if not it just gives their meaning), and i have to admit you really have what takes a teacher to be good in his/her profession.
Congratulations.
October 27th, 2004 at 12:31 pm
[…] o standards, what we have are browser compliance problems up our collective wazoo. ¶ Great article. Especially worth reading are the comments to the article from readers. T […]
October 27th, 2004 at 12:58 pm
What is a Web Standard
What is a Web Standard — Must. Read. This. Basically, she adresses the questions “What are Web Standards?” and “What not?”. Great read!
October 27th, 2004 at 4:11 pm
Ok, now I’m totally confused. I read the Ian Hixie article suggested by Simon Jessey. It basically blows everything about using XHTML out of the water! If this is true, what has everybody been preaching about? It seems using XHTML served as text/html is basically as bad as not closing your paragraph tags as far as UA parsing goes.
So when the XHTML+CSS “standards” are being shouted from the mountain tops am I now to understand that the “gurus” have gotten it wrong?
October 27th, 2004 at 4:40 pm
The importance of conformance testing for Web Standards
Molly E. Holzschlag writes on The Web Standard Project and her personal site Molly.com about the differences between standards and specifications. As a developer of web sites for standards development organizations, we witness these conflicts regularly…
October 28th, 2004 at 4:14 am
O please, we have had this before: http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/08/xhtml-media-types
I will respond more friendly and elaborative etc. when I have more time (and normal internet access).
October 28th, 2004 at 4:15 am
Simon Dvorak, what gurus? The “guru” here is Hixie.
October 28th, 2004 at 4:32 am
[…] m let alone know what “web standard” means. Molly E. Holzschlag, web goddess, explains it for us. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in that sort of s […]
November 1st, 2004 at 3:12 pm
The big problem with standards is the browsers. The big problem with the browsers is that they don’t update fast enough to deal with the standards. The big problem with updating the browsers fast enough is the users who don’t upgrade the browsers (why is .2% still using netscape 4.5?). The big problem with the users is that they have things better to do than hang out on the internet.
So the real standard is the web designer who can make the page that crazy client or boss requested present itself properly to 90% of the browsers correctly. If that means using tables instead of CSS, hacks, weird code, or anything else then so be it. I mean I haven’t used CSS until just this year, even though it has been out for 5. I have been sitting around waiting for everything to get to a level where I can produce a page in it 90% across the board.
I see something that might free us from all the crazy web design and that might be Firefox. Of course lets wait 5 years.
November 2nd, 2004 at 5:42 am
I have to agree with Andy. As easy as my job would be if the browsers actually *did* conform, that quirkiness is what I always loved about the Web. If everything fell into pace nicely, the Web would lose some of its rogue, pioneering spirit.
I personally believe that these irregularities in browsers help weed out the pros from the hacks. It keeps us developers sharp and always looking for new solutions. How complacent would we become if we didn’t have to make something work in both IE6 and Safari? Would we even *know* what the box model was had it not been a problem? I’m glad standards are merely best practices, not dogmatic mandates. The Web would be a bit more boring (for me).
November 2nd, 2004 at 7:16 am
links for 2004-11-02
The New Yorker | MIXED MOTIVES (categories: Business Marketing) what is a web standard? Molly’s article on webstandard (categories: wasp) The music industry The internet will eventually be wonderful for music buyers, but it is still a threat to…
November 2nd, 2004 at 4:44 pm
Excellent article. I find that sometimes I miss a connection to why we work with web “standards”. Standards in themselves are meaningless - there must always be a motive why we use them such as as increade interoperability or accessibility. There is always a motive to using ISO standards in manufacturing.
Having said that I find it very common that people always claim that web standards=accessibility which is not the case.
November 5th, 2004 at 2:09 pm
Hi Molly,
Fascinating article as always, especially since this is a subject I take some interest in. I would invite you check out the article on my own site relating to the W3C’s tricky wording and content negotiation, but I am sure you could do without the ramblings of an amateur.
Anyway, love the site and I look forward to the results of your collaboration with Dave in the near future.
Stay happy
November 5th, 2004 at 4:09 pm
Oops, sorry.
The link in my last post should have been: http://www.firelightning.com/archives/2004/11/05/serving_xhtml_revisited/
November 19th, 2004 at 4:50 pm
I posted a comment here a few weeks ago. Now, both my post and the post I replied to (about people’s misunderstandings of XHTML vs HTML) is missing. What gives?
November 23rd, 2004 at 6:22 am
Peterman: I had to clean up a bunch of spam and it’s possible that it got lost in that. I didn’t mean to remove your post and hopefully you will share your thoughts. I apologize for inadvertent removal of your post!
November 26th, 2004 at 12:51 pm
No sweat, I just thought it was weird.
I think the main point of the post I replied to was that if you serve XHTML as text/html, you’re not really benefitting from it and might as well be using HTML 4.01. My counterpoint was that if nothing else, you’re at least growing accustomed to XHTML syntax, which may or may not be a benefit to you. In general, though, I agreed and guessed that if I hadn’t bought the hype about XHTML a few years ago, I probably wouldn’t switch from HTML 4.01 today, either. Now that I already have, I see no reason for me personally to switch back.
The bottom line was that pro-”standards” people who misinterpret the “standards” might be doing more harm than the anti-”standards” people.
December 2nd, 2004 at 4:47 am
Hicks blows the damn thing WAY out of scope. It is nice to dwell in the perfect without understanding the perspective of real life development.
January 13th, 2005 at 1:16 am
Here’s an overview of the ISO HTML standard.
January 15th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
The article makes a lot of nice points.
People(like me) usually call the W3C standards, “standards”, because it would be nice if people actually followed most or all of their requirements. They are in no way mandatory. You bring up the example of ISO, which is a good example. But look at ESRB. These days ESRB is an industry standard. But believe it or not, its NOT required. It’s completely voluntary.
I still do and will continue to refer to the W3C as a standard because we web-designers NEED a standard. And the W3C offers a commonly accepted template (maybe thats a better word for this =) ). I agree that the W3C can be very weird. They usually have some reasons, most often to do with accessibility, for what they do. For example, the target attribute was deprecated because people in general like to keep things in one window or that is how the web was intended to function. That makes sense to me. People should be able to move back and forth between information (that’s what the web is all about) using the back and forward buttons (and the occasinal use of the location bar).
As for having terms that are understandable by lay persons, I don’t think that will ever happen. Even if you choose an easy name, they will have to know what the meaning of the tag is and what it does in order to fully “know” the tag.
I guess I sorta played devil’s advocate there.
My two cents.
June 2nd, 2005 at 6:21 pm
Web Standards are …
Not. An excellent article “What is a Web Standard?” by Molly Holzschlag examines web standards (explicit) vs. best practices….
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April 22nd, 2006 at 9:53 am
W3C is an idea not a standard. What they are trying to accomplish, (without applying since their own web pages contain errors according to them.) is what Macromedia Flash has already accomplished and applies. This is of course ‘code’ that works in all browsers. Yes, Flash works in all browsers due to it’s player. W3C is a waste of time and limits a web designer’s creativity. In creating code a web designer can not worry about catering to browsers, browsers must be advanced enough to read code correctly or get out of the business.
What is a web standard?
One would hope the standard is to have html coding that does only what it is suppost to do, (that means the code is valid reguardless of WWWC’s error list).
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May 29th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I think we are again at cross roads to discuss the differences between XHTML vs HTML.. I would be really interested to see how the debate spans out.
Any way well written article and still is pretty much valid.
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June 29th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Unfortunately Internet Explorer doesn’t support XTML. Irony is that the Internet Explorer is still the most used browser. So, the question remains XTML is supprted by which browser?
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[…] So is it worth the trouble, developing for not-yet supported standards. Sad and bad, but most people think so. But there are some aspects of Web-Standards and related practices which could be used to create a cleaner web, for which I agree. Also some of these practices make sites optimized for Search engines, which is an added advantage. But some are just cosmetics (Gadgets for geeks??) expected to be supported in future. […]
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