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RE: Code Validation (was RE: spacing -  versus clear images)

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mar 8, 2006 6:50AM

> > It is a helpful, but not necessary, requirement in the
> development of
> > an accessible web site.
>
> WCAG 1, Priority 2, 3.2 Create documents that validate to
> published formal grammars.

Yeah, I think I've heard of that one! ;)

I'll still stand by my "helpful but not necessary" comment. Adhering to
WCAG 1.0 P1 and P2 doesn't make your site accessible, it makes it
compliant with those guidelines. You can still have a site that is
accessible to users even if 3.2 is not met.

This is recognized in WCAG 2.0, and there is no demand for valid code,
but rather that code can be "unamibiguously parsed".

> If we are going to talk about Standards Based Development,
> then using the standards as they have been authored should be
> the first and primary requirement from the developers.

We're talking about accessibility first and foremost. Standards based
development is a complementary topic, but doesn't fully overlap with
accessibilty.

> Advocating or even excusing non-compliant code development
> sets back Standards based development, and by extension web
> accessibility, by at least 5 years. The best guidance from
> the de facto web standards organization (W3C) is quite clear
> - use only valid code! (As an interesting aside, if you want

That's not my read on WCAG 2.0...

Again, I fully support standards, but first I support accessibility for
users in ways that work. If something is better, easier to implement,
etc. it is work looking more closely at even if it is not in a standard.

AWK