Never said I was looking for a student. I would NEVER use a student. He happened to be helping me with my computer issues.
Yes my budget is low & so if you are saying I shouldn’t screen based on validation, then you tell me if you were in my shoes & knew NOTHING about good code vs. lousy code, how you would screen.
Michelle
LOL, you assume too much, but I understand you are only going based on what I’m saying not understanding the full story.
The only time I’m using WP is with my blogs which aren’t my main source of income. Yes I want to move to them when I get the money, b/c they have tons of plugins & many large companies are moving to them now. So, as long as I can find someone to lock them down security wise, I want something that won’t break & others are moving to. You’ll understand more based on what I say below.
I’ve been using CMSMS for years & I hate it. I started to have problems with it several months ago when a kid upgraded the versions for me (3 sites) & it broke CSS pages or something. It took me months to find someone who knew what they were doing & wasn’t going to charge me thousands of dollars b/c she knew what she was doing. I had important pages missing the entire template. I looked like a fool which I don’t like at all & who knows how much money was lost b/c of this.
CMSMS has no support & people just ignored my questions on their forum not to mention one of their moderators hacked one of my sites once. Just lovely.
While this website coder fixed most of the most crucial problems, not everything was fixed, including the size of my text editor window. Hers is fine, mine is now skinny, so it’s very stressful when I want to go edit text. Can’t even center in one of the sites b/c the align buttons are off to the right & can’t be seen. Yes I could go in & do the code manually, but I don’t want to.
Then when my hosting company (yes, shared server) did whatever they bloody did to the php.ini file, it started to once again break things not just on CMSMS, but now also on WP. I go in & edit a page/post & the text disappears. Someone tried to fix it 2 days ago & said he couldn’t without redoing the entire template as there’s a conflict there. NEVER had this problem before. 
I’m spending more time trying to deal with this sh*t than working on growing my biz.
I lost it on the hosting company. Not right away, I was very patient for 3 days. So they fixed the 2 CMSMS index pages thank gawd. Those were the pages where I somehow deleted the close of the div tags.
Anyway, I went in to edit a merchant account page & AGAIN something broke. They claimed they couldn’t fix the problem b/c they aren’t responsible blah blah blah… It finally got fixed by the guy who can’t fix the blog post, but he was just doing me a favor. Not having anyone to help when things start to go wrong is very very scary unless you don’t care about your biz or site.
Everything was fine BEFORE the hosting company did something with the server. All they do now to protect themselves, is claim they did NOT touch the code. LOL who said anything about touching the code. I said “something to the server”. But they keep repeating the same stupid thing.
Obviously I have no clue what’s going on, all I know is that things are breaking & I don’t know why.
Sorry for the stress, it’s gotten tome.
Michelle
Hello Michelle,
Yes I agree, you at least need to know a little bit about proper, valid and up to date code.
It’s my position, that in this day and age any conscious consumer needs to educate themselves or take the risk of being duped. About 5 years ago I was wanting a website for my own business and I did not have a clue about html/css. At the time I could not afford to hire a developer to build it for me so I started learning it on my own through the web. That is what landed me here at SitePoint.
After I learned the basics of html/css I became very interested in it and it sort of turned into a hobby for me. I was able to build my own website and I have done several others for hire as well. It absolutely astounds me now to see some of the code that so called professional developers slop out for unsuspecting clients.
Here is a devs site from my area that I came across the other day, DFW Web Design.
The first thing I did was to take a peek under the hood (viewed the code) and here is what I see.
The list goes on and on, It seems they just slapped a XHTML 1.0 Strict on there old html3 or transitional pages. All of this coming from what is supposed to be a professional web dev.
I’d hate to pay for something like that and not have a clue what I was buying.
The time I invested in learning html/css was worth every bit of it.
P.S. As an aside question, I thought Magento was just a shopping cart. One that I really wanted to switch to, but for reasons already mentioned, I haven’t been able to. Has it also become a CMS now? <confused>
Michelle
Thank you for understanding my pov. 
So you turned website coder & ditched whatever other biz you were doing??? LOL
Michelle
validation === fool’s gold
I can “fake” validation easy, and you and the validator would never knew it’s not true.
<hr>
Simple. By testing. On lots of OSs, on lots of UAs, on lots of devices.
<hr>
You have no business looking for versions when you don’t even know what they mean or what they do. Your wants, your concerns are with things like: “do I want it to work on older IE browsers?” “is mobile a target?” “how are the performance parameters?”
<hr>
It’s for fishing. It seems like I caught another one today. 
You’re doing your selection in one way, I’m doing mine in another. Those that understand html semantics, get it, those that don’t… ask.
[QUOTE=itmitică;5105859]validation === fool’s gold
I can “fake” validation easy, and you and the validator would never knew it’s not true.
<hr>
Simple. By testing. On lots of OSs, on lots of UAs, on lots of devices.
<hr>
You have no business looking for versions when you don’t even know what they mean or what they do. Your wants, your concerns are with things like: “do I want it to work on older IE browsers?” “is mobile a target?” “how are the performance parameters?”
<hr>
It’s for fishing. It seems like I caught another one today.
You’re doing your selection in one way, I’m doing mine in another. Those that understand html semantics, get it, those that don’t… ask. :)[/QUOTE]
I don’t like your tone & half the time I don’t understand what you are saying. Please refrain from commenting on my thread so you don’t have to put me down & tell me what to do as if I’m your child & I don’t have to get upset about it.
Thank you
Michelle
Absolutely. Consider it done.
Thank you
Michelle
No problem.
Was never my intention to upset you. Sorry if that.
You just proved my point and gave the exact answer that the previous developer should have qualified his “client didn’t ask” reply with. You gave the reasons why the site was not valid and didn’t say “well no one asked” so I could gather from your reply that you were in control of the situation.
@Paul_O_B;
All my templates are valid, it’s the CMS processing that messes things up. Client’s in my experience don’t concern themselves with valid or invalid code. They are more geared towards seeing things the same in all browsers and it working in the way they want. It’s a little like asking a mechanic to put in my car a certain type of oil. Sure, he might do, he might not, the bottom line is, the car should run smoothly, whether or not he took my advice. This is what really matters.
You just proved my point and gave the exact answer that the previous developer should have qualified his “client didn’t ask” reply with. You gave the reasons why the site was not valid and didn’t say “well no one asked” so I could gather from your reply that you were in control of the situation.
Control is not the issue, if I can learn something new then I am always open to that (nobody knows everything). We work with what works best for us, and as we evolve the way we works evolves alongside that.
Again your answer confirms my original intention that you know what you are doing unlike the other developer who replied “no one asked”. That was the only point I was making
@Paul_O_B;
Oh looks like we had a mix-up in communication. Problem Solved! I like to think I know what I am going. I just finished watching an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. The humble ones always seam to win, so I try my best to keep myself humble and open to criticism. =)
So the question is:
how does the business owner decide who to hire to do the job?
Michelle:
since you do not have a mechanic friend, and since there isn’t an “Angie’s List” of web developers, I think you’re stuck.
Ideally, you should not have the opportunity to ruin markup when attempting to change content. The editor or admin panel you were using seems… faulty in some way. Or, you would hire someone who knows enough about code that they could safely update your information without hurting HTML code. But that’s another business cost.
I feel if a business owner hires someone to build or maintain a website, the business owner shouldn’t have to concern themselves with testing. As in, if I buy a new car, I am expecting that it is not having a major safety defect (now, it might, stuff happens, but it’s not my job as the over-paying customer to check that every which-way). I am paying for a new car and it should work like every other new car.
Similarly, a business owner (let’s say the business owner has stated “this needs to work in IE7+, all other major/popular browsers, and smart-phone-level mobile devices”) who is paying for a working site should expect to get it.
You started with a quote from me, but I can’t tell if the rest of the post was in-general or targeted at me or at the OP. But if it were targeted at me, I was not talking about crappy CMSes nor discrediting anyone. When I see a bad technique, as I stated,
Though frankly, I don’t care why a website doesn’t work, when I’m a user. Why should I? It’s borked and it doesn’t work and so I’m going to the competitor’s who does work. “Oh it’s broken because Drupal is affordable” means zip and zero to a user. They don’t know what Drupal is and they don’t care.
Re Magento: it’s an e-commerce system but it’s very much like a CMS. Well, it’s a content management system, just that the content is products and has an e-commerce side to it, so… I’d say it’s darn close to a CMS, yes. It’s certainly as complicated as one.
Certainly it has a section where you put in the information, and it generates HTML (and CSS and JS) so… yeah, same category.
So anyway we’ve all come to the conclusion that the OP can’t rely on w3 validation to know if what she paid for is any good. She could test on a few browsers, but she does not have developer testing tools and likely like most normal people only has maybe 2 browsers at most.
So what can she do to ensure that people she pays money to don’t give her steaming piles of bork?
At this time there’s no way for a client who has no knowledge of what makes a good website to know whether a site’s been executed well or not.
There should be some kind of independent firm by web professionals for clients who evaluate websites based on the criteria that define a good website. “human validators” that go beyond markup and style.
So what can she do to ensure that people she pays money to don’t give her steaming piles of bork?
They can only make the judgement based on the proposal stages were the potential client would see the breakdown of what will be done e.g. sitemap & hierarchy, wire-frames, then design or straight to development, depending on how you work.
A company with good business structure would limit issues. For examples, a company that give’s so many days warrantee on the site followed with a 12-month after support plan would pretty much put the client worry at ease.
The shocking truth is that many perceive a web design similar to a painter or a roofer, in that you pay for the service and that’s it. They forget the ongoing support and maintenance, which in my opinion is vital. Granted support is charged, but companies seek to reduce the price. If this reduction comes at the cost of your company image, then you’re only really asking for trouble. Logically thinking, it’s not about how much the web designer charges, but more importantly what he/she is actually charging for. The only way to protect yourself is to clearly evaluate what you’re paying for.
You’d be amazed how many businesses are not happy with their website. After I ask them it’s always seams to be because of support, or lack of knowledge. Now the I see more businesses not happy because of support. Then again the clients went for the cheapest web designer who naturally did not charge for support or some kind of maintenance.
WordPress sites only really need a plug-in installed which could potentially mess everything up. If the website is tested prior to delivery, then it won’t break, and given the warantee, if anything did break, the web designer would fix it if within the warrantee days, or if the client is on support.
I hope this helps.
I agree & have been saying this for years.
Michelle
The difference is, when you buy a lemon car, you have a warranty & most times (not always), the car manufacturer will replace the car & it’s usually pretty obvious the car’s a lemon with in a month or two. I also have a huge company I can go to to complain, when I hire a website coder, it’s one guy who has no boss as I am his boss.
With a website (as in my case), the site can run for years & I wouldn’t know it’s crappy code unless I’m editing the text all the time & something breaks, other website coders are coming in & saying it’s crap code (some just do it for ego sake), but that again, usually doesn’t happen until years down the road since I don’t hire new people all the time. Then they tell me they have to rewrite everything just to get something to work, or lastly, until something breaks the entire page/site.
While the cost isn’t the same as a car is worth a lot more, for me the cost is huge if I have to keep having sites redone. Also, by the time I know there’s a problem with the code, a) I may not even know who did the code if multiple coders worked on the site b) I generally don’t call out to coders who worked on the site years earlier which has been suggested to me in the past. I’ve never had the experience of a coder admitting they are wrong. Instead they usually throw a temper tantrum claiming they are right & there’s nothing wrong with their code.
If they were that good & we left on great terms, I would have kept them around. Some just disappear or get a f/t job or whatever.
Similarly, a business owner (let’s say the business owner has stated “this needs to work in IE7+, all other major/popular browsers, and smart-phone-level mobile devices”) who is paying for a working site should expect to get it.
I’m confused here. A site can work on all browsers, but not show up as valid in the validator?
Michelle
Browsers tend to be very forgiving of invalid/outdated code. If they weren’t so, bad code would be much more obvious.