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Comment by kwamenum86 | Hacker News Reader

code that does not validate is more lielly to break with browsers updates.

In my experience preemptive fixes are akin to procrastination when there's no empirical evidence to necessitate the change.

We have web standards to prevent browser bugs. Ironically sticking to standards 100 percent of the time often causes buggy visual display in some browsers. Standards are supposed to make things easier but the browsers have been pretty slow in complying. That does not mean that standards are not a good idea.

The lack of empirical evidence is due to that non-compliance. The same browser sometimes allows non-compliant code and chokes on valid code. This is a coordination game (just like driving on the right side of the road). If everyone complies (developers, browsers, etc.) things work. If enough don't, everything breaks.

that's an awesome quote - can I borrow it ??

sure

That assumes that there's extra work in coding to standard. In fact, it's quicker to do so.

Really - adding a doctag is faster than not adding it? That seems incorrect to me.

I think gp is talking about the long-run. That is, getting things to render right on all browsers, on all devices, printed, etc.

Have you ever tried printing a thread? It's bearable, not certainly but pretty.

That's like saying you don't indent your code blocks because hitting tab is slower than not hitting tab.

The point being that there is a lot more to development than keystrokes.

But let's user your argument anyway: what's faster:

<div id="content">content</div>

<table id="content"><tr><td>content</td></tr></table>

Now, lets say I want to move the table text from left to right alignment. While you're mucking around in your code, I pull up the css file and add a line.

and code that validates is likely to break with certain current browsers :/

good point- but you can always figure out a way to write valid cross-browser code. it's difficult to tell whether or not the effort is worth it because some "broken" code works well in all browsers and there is no reason not to expect this to continue.

Really? My valid code doesn't have any problems in current browsers.

And the hilariously invalid intranet app I built in 1997 doesn't have any problems in current browsers either. What's your point?

I'm not saying it's impossible to write valid code that works (duh). But having code that validates doesn't exempt you from browser bugs and quirks. And sometimes it makes life quite a bit harder.

> What's your point?

That the problem is with your coding. Invalid or not, if you can't make it work properly that's down to you and bugger all to do with validity.

That would be a good argument if it were true, but most of those invalid 1997 apps don't work at all in any browser but IE.

An now, they're a nightmare to upgrade.

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