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
Unfortunately, when browsers (MSIE is the worst of these, and it's getting better) do outright non-standard things, you have to accomodate them. Telling the user that 'well, the unenforceable standard wasn't followed' doesn't make them happy.
That said, I LOVE standards, but you have to fudge it a lot. I've always coded my HTML a coupla years behind the bleeding edge, and I don't have too many problems.
I've always coded my HTML a coupla years behind the bleeding edge, and I don't have too many problems.
Yes, that's exactly the solution. There is a very large subset of HTML, including much of XHTML/DHTML/CSS/$INSERT_BUZZWORD_HERE, which works just fine in any reasonably recent version of Netscape/Mozilla, IE, Opera, Konqueror/Safari, etc. And frankly, if you're trying to do something outside this subset, you're probably designing a crappy, irritating, overly complex website anyway.
The only standards on web code is.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The only standards on web code is.... (Score:2)
That said, I LOVE standards, but you have to fudge it a lot. I've always coded my HTML a coupla years behind the bleeding edge, and I don't have too many problems.
Re:The only standards on web code is.... (Score:2)