I am so thrilled! I am now blogging on a site that is XHTML, CSS and RSS valid! That means a lot to me.

I used to blog in Blogger, but no matter what I did, I could not make the site XHTML valid. What was so displeasing was that the template that I was using boasted the following code:

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”

and the errors were coming from codes that were server-side, over which Blogger users have no control. If you try to check this site’s XHTML validity, it only shows validity with XHTML Transitional. That’s okay, at least it validates.

But why validate? Why do a lot of developers and designers go to extreme measures just so that the favicon of the W3C Validator would show green and not red? Contrary to common belief (and insecure beliefs), this isn’t just for bragging rights.

According to the W3C article, Why Validate?, there are a lot of reasons. The following is one summary only:

1. WYSINWOG – What You See Is Not What Others Get – Validation, in part, ensures that you website displays more uniformly across most browsers and platforms.
2. Validation offers more accessibility and interoperability across most browsers and platforms. Validated websites do not rely on the error-correcting capabilities of a browser, which varies across the different types.
3. Validation observes the syntactical correctness of a website’s code.

The W3C article, Why Validate?, also attempts to address the following statements:

1. “My site looks right and works fine – isn’t that enough?”
2. “Lots of websites out there don’t validate – including household-name companies.”
3. “Validation means boring websites, and stifles creativity”

Those are only a few reasons, and a simple Google search leads to a multitude of other reasons.

Why do we need CSS validation? This W3C article on CSS Validation states the following:

[CSS Validator] tool will be an invaluable ally. Not only will it compare your style sheets to the CSS specifications, helping you find errors, typos, or incorrect uses of CSS, it will also tell you when your CSS poses some risks in terms of usability.

Now, why do we need RSS (or feed) validation? This W3C article provides:

RSS is poorly implemented by many tools. This validator is an attempt to codify the specification (literally, to translate it into code) to make it easier to know when you’re producing RSS correctly, and to help you fix it when you’re not.

Basically, these tools can be used for the simplest of reasons (much like when you press F7 when typing a document in MS Word), or they can be used for more noble reasons (such as ensuring that you have correct code so that handicapped people wouldn’t find it difficult to access and navigate through your site).

These services are free. And wouldn’t it be cool to be able to add the following icons to your site?

Personally, I found these icons not suitable to my site’s theme, so as you may have noticed, I’ve modified mine. They are on the sidebar.