validator: validate or not?

[gamesinwild]

I have seen many people around this forum who doesn't want to validate their code, and they said that they HATE validator(s), because they
just take a longer time to make all pages get done (in business sites ONLY). the validators doesn't make it x/html TIDY.


If you have other ideas why quirks hate validator, post here.
Please vote in the poll!

[Bill Posters]

It's not the be all and end all, but it should certainly be a matter of professional pride - and a sign of competency - that sites validate at the time of launch (or, at least, up until the point where you hand it over to some back-end code monkeys who know bugger all about quality markup output and tear the heart out of your code by filling it with all kinds of legacy junk from the mid-'90s).

Valid code is more portable code. End of.
If you know that the code you've produced is valid, then running it through the validator is probably a waste of time (though some validators can validate entire sites, rather than just single pages at a time).
If validity is important to you - and it should be - then, even if you tend to trust you own code, it's often wise to use the validator as a fresh set of eyes, capable of spotting mistakes which you've missed, mistakes which could lead to rendering or accessibility issues in some UAs.

they said that they HATE validator(s), because they

1. just take a longer time to make all pages get done (in business sites ONLY).
2. the validators doesn't make it x/html TIDY.

Whoever said that clearly doesn't understand what validators are for.
If they don't like the fact that validating adds time to a project, they should improve their coding skills so that they can make reliable, valid code as they go.
The validator isn't there to fix your errors or create nice, valid code from erroneous code. They're there simply to point out the errors which you can then choose to fix or not.

[gsnedders]

I hate validators. I don't, however, think that having valid code is unimportant. It's important to remember that validators are just another UA, and will and do have bugs. If you want to properly check that code is valid, go read over the specifications that it is meant to comply to yourself, and check that it follows them.

[jkd]

As Geoffrey said, being valid is more than just passing an automated utility found on the Internet. DTD and Scheme and RelaxNG can define infinitely many "valid" documents, but most online validators have on idea how to actually parse those files.

Being well-formed is infinitely more important than being valid as well, in my opinion.

[codingmasta]

validation is good, however, takes a long time. a bit hard, but don't take it "easy come-easy go"

[nexosis]

The only thing I hate in the w3c validator is "tentatively valid document". If that happens, I just think to myself it is 'valid'

[Bill Posters]

validation is good, however, takes a long time. a bit hard, but don't take it "easy come-easy go"
validate. if you didn't validate your code, you're messing up in 1000's.

I feel it would be helpful to draw a distinction between 'validation' (i.e. checking that the code is valid) and 'creating valid code'.
'Validation' is simply running your code through the validation process. It's a check which, more often than not, takes only a minute or two.

The thing that might (but shouldn't) take time is creating valid code - which is to say that it shouldn't take any longer to create valid code than to create invalid code.
Once you know what you're doing, you should be able to write code which you know is valid and which would get a clean bill of health from the validation process.

Not putting the code through a validator is not a sign that the code is invalid and/full of 1000s of errors.

[felgall]

As long as you write valid code so that it will actually work properly in standards compliant browsers it doesn't matter whether you actually run that valid code through the validator or not.

Running code through a validator is a useful tool while learning how to write valid code. Once you know how its importance becomes less.

Invalid code is bound to screw up in at least a few web browsers and lose you a part of your potential audience.

[NancyJ]

I think FAR too much emphasis is placed on validation. Yes, the validator can be a valueable tool in debugging layout issues but beyond that its fairly meaningless.
I could create a 100% valid page that would be absolutely awful - tag soup, non semantic code, tables for layout etc and I could also create a light, well coded, semantically correct css driven page that might fail validation - eg. not enocoding my & etc

Which would be better? The valid tag soup or the non-valid but semantically correct page?

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

I really think it depends on what type of business you do. If you are a web designer for a client then you probably want to validate because you are getting paid to do a good job. Another example is if you are a web design company trying to get hired then you should validate. Not having your own site valid says a lot about the kind of work you do. If you are just making a web page for a personal site then no one is really going to care about whether or not your page is valid. Well the average user won't care.

[jlhaslip]

Often I won't necessarily run a "snippet" through the w3c, but I use Firebug in FF2, so I know how "valid" it is.
For a demo page that I am going to submit to a tutorial, or to assist someone in a Forum, I try to create a page with 0 warnings and certainly 0 errors.

[chump2877]

Use a doctype in every X/HTML file that you create, learn how to write valid code, and test your code in multiple browsers....Then you really only need to run your code through a validator if something isn;t working...

Writing valid code takes care and maybe some extra time....But it eliminates future headaches and saves money in the long term (from a busines standpoint)...

[VIPStephan]

I'm a friend of valid code. However, of course valid code (validated by W3C validator) does not imply that it's also good (i.e. well written) code. I can nest a million tables and it would be valid but it's certainly not well written.
I think, and I believe I've read it somewhere, that it's more important that your code is well formed and semantic and it doesn't necessarily have to validate to be like that (although semantic code is also valid code most of the time).

Anyway, for the people using this forum to ask questions it's at least a good indicator for the primary quality of their code.
And for the business website coders that don't produce valid code because they would need to spend more time on it I think they should be dismissed immediately and never be hired again.

[ahallicks]

validation is good, however, takes a long time. a bit hard, but don't take it "easy come-easy go"

Not to pick on you at all, but validation shouldn't be a long and arduous process if you are capable of creating good semantic and valid code from scratch. I always validate my pages because they are for public use and should really be the best possible with the amount of traffic using them. But I can run a completed stylesheet through the validator and have very few, if any, warnings or errors because I've been buildings stylesheets for a long time and know what validates and what doesn't.

Sure there are some content aspects that require workarounds and are more difficult to get through a validator but I've never been able to build a site that I can't validate with a general amount of ease since I joined the professional web design industry.

It's not THAT important, because they do have bugs. The W3C Validator won't pick you up on the fact you have closed br tags with a / even tho you are coding strict HTML (as I found out), but others do. However, having the symbols at the bottom of the screen is the first indication to users that your code is valid as well as the content that they can read. Because a lot of people won't view the source of your page the little symbol tells them, without having to look, that your code is neat and tidy.

However, you have to remember that it's not just the code that should be valid. To encourage users to your site, get good SEO rankings and generally build a decent site you have to have the content there to start with, a decent design and valid informative pages... I don't think there is a validator that can test this for you so it should be the more difficult part!

[Karen S. Garvin]

Running code through a validator is a useful tool while learning how to write valid code.

Absolutely. In my CMST classes we had to use the W3C validator, and all pages for my "advanced internet" class had to be XHTML and validate. It was a real pain, trying to learn and at the same time get things to validate... wow, only 2 errors... fix them after re-reading 72 pages in the textbook... then re-run the validator to find... 67 errors :eek:

While validators aren't foolproof, at least it's a step in the right direction. And for those of use "code monkeys" trying to evolve into real coders ;) it's a big help in trying to proofread that stuff. Especially when you work alone.

[Excavator]

Just because you half spelled it write dozen mean it says what you meant for it to say. The validator is not the end all cure, it's a tool that can help you. Check out the first line in my sig below.

[Karen S. Garvin]

That's trew. :thumbsup: