Web Standards
Web Standards will help us fulfill the WWW dream.
Web Standards make Web Development easier.
Why Web Standards?
Web developers are often struggling with time-consuming double-coding to
solve problems with different browsers versions. This situation will get much worse when new hardware (like
mobile telephones and other handheld devices) and new software (like micro-browsers)
start browsing the Web.
To make the Web a better place, for both developers and end-users, it is of paramount
importance that both browser vendors and site developers follow standards
when they develop new applications.
With its tremendous growth, the Web needs standards to realize
its full potential. Web standards ensure
that everyone has access to the same information. Future use of the Web, including applications that we only dream of today, will not
be possible without world wide standards.
Web standards also make site
development faster and more enjoyable. Future Web sites will have to be coded according to standards to shorten
both development and maintenance time. Developers should not have to struggle
with several versions of code to accomplish the same result.
Other Considerations
When Web developers follow Web standards, web development teamwork is
simplified, since it is easier for the developers to understand each other's
coding.
Some developers think that standards are the same as restrictions, and that taking advantage of
nice browser-specific features will add credit to their work. But future
adjustments to these Web pages will become more and more difficult as the variety of
access methods increases. Following standards is your first step to solve
this problem. Using only Web standards will help you to ensure that all browsers, old and new, will
display your site properly, without frequent and time-consuming rewrites.
Standardization can increase the access to your site. Does it make sense to limit your audience
to only those with a particular browser?
Standard Web documents are easier for search engines to access, and easier to
index more accurately.
Standard Web documents are easier to convert to other formats.
Standard Web documents are easier to access with program code (like
JavaScript and the DOM).
Want to save yourself a lot of time? Make a habit of validating your pages with a
validation service. Validation keeps your documents up to the standards and free
of nasty errors.
Accessibility
Accessibility is an important part of the HTML standard.
Standards make it easier for people with disabilities to use the
Web. Blind people can use computers that read Web pages for them. People with
poor sight can rearrange and magnify standard Web pages. Simple Web standards like HTML 4 and CSS,
will make your Web pages much easier to understand by special devices like voice browsers, or other unusual output devices.
The World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), founded in 1994, is an
international consortium dedicated to "lead
the Web to its full potential".
As developers, especially when creating educational
Web sites, we can help them turn this dream into reality.
You can read more about W3C in the next chapter.
ECMA
The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) , based in Switzerland, was founded in 1961 in order to meet the need
for standardizing computer languages
and input/output codes.
ECMA is not an official standardization institute, but an association
of companies that
collaborate with other official institutes like the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
To Web developers, the most important standard is ECMAScript, the
standardization of JavaScript.
ECMAScript is a standardized scripting language to
manipulate Web page objects specified by the W3C Document
Object Model (DOM). With ECMAScript, DOM objects can then be added, deleted,
or changed.
The ECMAScript standard is based on Netscape's JavaScript and
Microsoft's JScript.
The latest ECMAScript specification is ECMA-262:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/ECMA-262.HTM
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