A rant on the W3C/Tidy HTML
I really need to vent this:
Back in the day, when I learned HTML, I was taught that “Hello World!” was nothing more than:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Hello World!</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Hello World!
</BODY>
</HTML>
So when I made my extremely simple Python page, I just did that. I obviously had to throw in some <a href=”http://whatever”></a>’s and some <em>’s (I actually thought I was being a good boy, using <em> instead of <i>) but it’s really a simple webpage.
So just for fun, I decided to run it through the W3C validator.
And it coughed up some errors. I have now looked through most of them, and all of them (with the exception of the DOCTYPE one) seem extremely arbitrary. And I would NOT like to use a stylesheet, I’ll get by just fine with my <FONT size=”4″>, thank you very much.
Now I’m sure that the W3C has legitimate reasons for these standards, but I just get the impression that they create new standards out of boredom, not necessity. Less is more and if it ain’t broke–don’t fix it for crying out loud!
I can hear your brilliant counterargument unfolding. “Timmy,” you say, “why don’t you just shut up and use Tidy HTML Generator? W3C had the good grace to include it, lest people greater than you are confused by their cryptic error generation.” to which I reply, “Take a look at what Tidy suggested”
WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!?!
OK.
</rant>
I can breathe now.
Seriously though–why?
