The only standards you need to follow are the W3C Web Standards [w3c.org] They even have a validator for your convience if you need to make sure that your code is valid. I did that at my summer internship and over the course of a summer was able to make our 1000+ page website 99% w3c complient. It might take you a few days to get in the rythym of doing things, but once we had our site up to html 4.01 standards, we never had a problem with any browser compatability issues, and we tested all the way back to Netscape
A site I'm building has a lot of browser-specific CSS code - stylesheets that will only be loaded by certain browsers. Every bit of it validates at validator.w3.org (except for internet-explorer.css, which is only loaded by MSIE 5 and 6 on Windows, and is loaded using conditional comments which the W3C validator doesn't parse). The problem isn't creating code that the W3C says is valid, the problem is creating code that works as you intend across multiple browsers, which the W3C won't help you with.
Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful tool, but it doesn't eliminate the need for practical books like this.
Geez. W3C never intended to create standards that adapt to the browser one is using. Browsers are the ones who should implement W3C correctly, instead.
But I agree that, in real life, due to Microsoft dominance, standards will never be standard, and there will always be the need for hacks.
"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons
for it afterwards."
-- Soren F. Petersen
The only standards on web code is.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The only standards on web code is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful tool, but it doesn't eliminate the need for practical books like this.
Doing things W3C way (Score:1)
But I agree that, in real life, due to Microsoft dominance, standards will never be standard, and there will always be the need for hacks.