aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/build/posts/html5-validator-badge/index.html
blob: 79ab53a81ca73b0176263824b019fff6c1599d87 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
	<meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light">
	<link rel="icon" href="data:,">
	<title>Using HTML Validator Badges Again</title>
	<link href="/atom.xml" type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="Atom feed for blog posts" />
	<link href="/rss.xml" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate" title="RSS feed for blog posts" />
<style>*{box-sizing:border-box;}body{font-family:sans-serif;line-height:1.33;margin:0 auto;max-width:650px;padding:1rem;}blockquote{background:rgba(0,0,0,0.1);border-left:4px solid;padding-left:5px;}img{max-width:100%;}pre{border:1px solid;overflow:auto;padding:5px;}table{text-align:left;width:100%;}.footnotes{font-size:90%;}</style>
</head>

<nav>
	<a href="#menu">Menu &darr;</a>
</nav>

<main>
<h1 id="using-html-validator-badges-again">Using HTML Validator Badges Again</h1>
<p>2019-07-05</p>
<p>There was a time on the Internet when websites wore badges of honor, declaring that their code was semantic and followed the W3C guidelines. The validators we used weren&#8217;t great (and <strong>still</strong> aren&#8217;t perfect) but they represented a community that took pride in caring about the quality of their work. I think it&#8217;s time we bring HTML badges back.</p>
<h2 id="getting-the-flaws-out-of-the-way">Getting the flaws out of the way</h2>
<p>Of course, there were reasons why these badges slowly faded out of popularity. Some of the reasoning made sense, but most felt like a stretch in logic from my perspective. I always looked at it as a &#8220;the good outweighs the bad&#8221;.</p>
<p>Jukka Korpela&#8217;s post way back in 2003, <a href="http://jkorpela.fi/html/validation.html">HTML validation is a good tool but just a tool</a>, highlighted a lot of problems with relying so heavily on these HTML validators. I suggest you give it a read if this kind of thing interests you. I found it fascinating, even though I disagree with most of the points he makes.</p>
<p>Some negatives used to dismiss HTML badges:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The badge system is outdated</strong>
<ul>
<li>Dismissing the worth of something based on how long it has been around is foolish. Many tools and frameworks are &#8220;outdated&#8221; but are still used to this day with great success.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>HTML5 doesn&#8217;t <em>require</em> validation</strong>
<ul>
<li>Technically <em>no subset of HTML</em> requires validation - but developers should aim for it. The W3C validators perform a solid job of keeping a standard for web development, so by following a standard we can keep experiences consistent for users.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Validation is too formal</strong>
<ul>
<li>I believe in the ability to achieve your desired outcome based on almost any constraints. If a project leans you towards invalid or non-semantic structure to fulfill requirements, a better approach needs to be evaluated. We as developers tend to settle too quickly on the easiest option available to us.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Websites &#47; web apps are just <em>too complex</em> to follow the W3C guidelines</strong>
<ul>
<li>I call <em>BS</em> on this argument. The complexity of a website should have nothing to do with keeping semantic standards. <em>This is your job.</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>It only exists to catch syntax errors</strong>
<ul>
<li>For the record, I still see this more of a positive take on using validators. Subtle and nuanced syntax mistakes can be easily overlooked by the human eye.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="nobody-puts-badges-in-a-corner">&#8220;Nobody puts <em>badges</em> in a corner&#8221;</h2>
<p>A large of amount of designers &#47; developers tend to forget that there are new people entering our industry everyday and they might not be as well versed in the basics of the web (HTML &#38; CSS specifically). Since so many newcomers start out with JavaScript frameworks or jump onto pre-existing projects, they don&#8217;t always grasp the core foundation of valid markup. Some frameworks even break basic standards for visuals or easier development environments - setting their initial expectations that ugly semantics is acceptable code. The ends justify the means, etc.</p>
<p>Guiding first-timers towards HTML validators let&#8217;s them rethink their structure when building products or at least give some forethought to their outputted code. We, the more <em>verteran</em> members of the community, have the knowledge of proper semantics since we grew our careers around this &#8220;trend&#8221;. We shouldn&#8217;t assume newbies have the same understanding. The basics are important.</p>
<h2 id="open-source-html5-badge">Open source HTML5 badge</h2>
<p>Since the W3C doesn&#8217;t officially produce any badges for HTML5 validation 1, I&#8217;ve gone ahead and open sourced <code>SVG</code> and <code>PNG</code> versions of a badge based off the current W3C designs. You can check out the Github repo: <a href="https://github.com/bradleytaunt/html5-valid-badge">HTML5 Valid Badge</a></p>
<p>If you decide to use these badges, be sure to link these images to your valid passing URL (<a href="https://html5.validator.nu">html5.validator.nu</a>). You can see an example of the link in the footer of this website.</p>
<p>Please feel free to reach out and share your websites &#47; projects that pass as valid HTML and include an HTML valid badge. I&#8217;d love to check them out!</p>
<h2 id="refs">Refs</h2>
<p>1 <a href="http://html5doctor.com/html5-check-it-before-you-wreck-it-with-miketm-smith/">Interview with Mike Smith</a>: &#8220;There won&#8217;t be any proper Valid HTML5 icon forthcoming, so if you&#8217;d like to use one in your content, you&#8217;ll probably need to create one on your own.&#8221;</p>
<footer role="contentinfo">
    <h2>Menu Navigation</h2>
    <ul id="menu">
        <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="/projects">Projects</a></li>
        <li><a href="/uses">Uses</a></li>
        <li><a href="/wiki">Wiki</a></li>
        <li><a href="/resume">Resume</a></li>
        <li><a href="/colophon">Colophon</a></li>
        <li><a href="/now">Now</a></li>
        <li><a href="/donate">Donate</a></li>
        <li><a href="/atom.xml">RSS</a></li>
        <li><a href="#top">&uarr; Top of the page</a></li>
    </ul>
    <small>
        Built with <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/barf">barf</a>. <br>
        Maintained with ♥ for the web. <br>
        Proud supporter of <a href="https://usefathom.com/ref/DKHJVX">Fathom</a> &amp; <a href="https://nextdns.io/?from=74d3p3h8">NextDNS</a>. <br>
        The content for this site is <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC-BY-SA</a>.<br> The <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht">code for this site</a> is <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht/tree/master/item/LICENSE">MIT</a>.
    </small>
</footer>