Yes I realise that but the point I was making was that from the answer you received you could gleam that the coder wasn’t proud of their work otherwise they would have qualified with the reasons why the site wasn’t valid - other than the client didn’t ask 
That is a lame excuse “the client didn’t ask” more like; the coder wasn’t aware or didn’t care. 
Welcome to the Lemon Market!
It’s like buying a used car without being yourself a mechanic. You have no idea how good or bad a state the car is in. Someone can sell you a lemon and you’d never know (well, until later when it breaks down all the time).
Yeah, there has been a huge discussion about this at Fronteers (a Dutch professional group for front-end developers). The problems that came up were huge (who decides what the criteria are? And who watches the watchmen?) and ultimately people were more against the idea than for it.
Partially because we’ve all seen “certification” (think Microsoft products certs) that don’t mean anything, or you went to a class. Partially because we rely very much on our networks as developers to let clients know both things like where we are on the price range and whether we are good or not.
What would be really helpful for you right now is to have a trusted front-ender who knows what’s what who you don’t hire and doesn’t write code for you, but simply explains what your possible hires are doing and whether it’s retarded or not. Kinda like finding a mechanic friend to bring with you when you’re looking for a used car. I’ve seen a LOT of invalid code and often brittle or strange (but valid) techniques and usually I try to guess why the developer did it. Very often it seems to be something that was popular a few years ago (or a decade ago) as an idea and has diffused through the developer community, and when later it either turned out to be bad or cause some problem (like with accessiblity for example) that information spreads much slower. I see it with settings of font sizes, image replacement techniques and float enclosing/clearing.
Some use HTML5, and many don’t. I’ve seen many new sites using it. I feel in a year or so we’d probably be there with HTML5 open to criticism. CSS3 on the other hand can be used today. I use CSS3 pretty much all the time. For rounded corners and drop shadows. I don’t go overboard with it because there are still some rendering issues which make your browser run slow.
DOCTYPES are important, but it’s pretty easy to start using one DOCTYPE to another. My preference is xHTML STRICT. It’s valid, clean and easy to use. There are no issue with xHTML and pretty much all the open-source CMS’s still work as if they are working with xHTML.
Not many check if code is validated. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all have invalid code. It’s more important for them to have the websites displayed properly on browsers than having valid code. My templates are valid, but once they become Wordpressed, they become invalid. Guess it’s something we have to live with.
The best thing to do is send them a design and ask them to come up with a proposal breaking down what they will do and for what price. From there on out, you’d be set. If you’re hiring somebody on-board to your company then you’d probably not have a clue what to do. Recently I designed a website for a client and they wanted somebody internal, but it did not work out for them as they had little clue on what to look for.
It might be worth asking a company specialized in hiring, like a recruitment agency to help. There are plenty of online services which convert designs to code for you, so depending on what is it you’re going to do it might be worth going for an online service.
Hope this helps, and good luck.
In the cases of many CMSs that make it possible to provide web services to people on low budgets the advantages far out weigh imperfections client side. I’m not saying I agree with them but there is a reason for less than ideal mark-up. Like if you using Drupal you need to understand that your sacrificing client side perfection for flexibility without programming. WP much of the same though not early as powerful but a more business refined admin. I haven’t done much work with Joomla or Magento but I would guess much of the same.
Whether you like it or not these systems make it possible to provide services without charging tens of thousands of dollars on custom development for medium to large projects. The reason(s) they output poor HTML by default may be debatable but there are reasons. Most of time reasons which provide more flexibility clients-side without needing to change any programming by providing wrappers(hook points) for just about any element that needs to be targeted by CSS or JS. Again not saying it is right but you can’t simply discredit people who use these things and take on their inherit failures because in many cases it a question of budget.
Of course someone is going to come along and say this is what is inherently wrong with web development but I beg to differ. Considering it is solutions like that of Drupal, Magento, Joomla, etc that make it possible to provide web services to many people that they could otherwise not afford.
Good is really a relative term that is be based on a combination of budget, experience but most importantly balancing the negatives and positives of any solutions to deliver something that achieves the set business goals. Yeah… there are things technologically that *shouldn’t be done but when/if those things get in the way it is then that a judgement call needs to made to whether something can be sacrificed (though maybe not ideal) to achieve the goals on a given budget. In some cases technical things can be sacrificed (though maybe not look as good in ones portfolio… so what) and in other cases they simply can’t because of performance or some other other factor. It is all about balance and making the *right sacrifices to deliver a product that achieves *most of the intended business goals on the allocated budget.
Now if your developing sites as a hobby or tinkering in your basement that is another story…
It’s what people can afford. Depending on most people’s budget will have an influence on the market. Drupal, WordPress etc. have made affordable web design possible. I remember the days we used propitiatory CMS’s and websites cost’s hundreds of thousands. Those day’s have pretty much ended. Most companies need websites, but then again most companies can only spend either in the hundreds or couple of thousands at most. Saying this we have to remember that open-source might have it’s draw backs, but overall it’s something I and many other’s could not live without.
That has to do with the amount of Microsoft training centers around the world. We used it back when I was an employee Funny thing now is all those big clients demanded open-source, and some of them even took the plunge in hiring their own fleet of open-source developers, and we’re talking about BIG companies (worth millions).
Yes I realise that but the point I was making was that from the answer you received you could gleam that the coder wasn’t proud of their work otherwise they would have qualified with the reasons why the site wasn’t valid - other than the client didn’t ask
Help me out a little here, how would you make a WordPress or Drupal site valid. Much of the validation errors on a wordpress site have to do with the editor spitting out HTML instead of xHTML. A classic examples is target=“_blank”. It’s more important for clients to maintain their own websites than for a website to be valid. I am a little unsure why WordPress hasn’t clocked onto making it’s pop-ups comply with valid xHTML, or why is even assumes people are still coding in HTML4. puzzled
Maybe you’re trying to fix something that ain’t broken, Michelle? What exactly is your goal here? This is where you have to start, not with the technical choices part. Or rants about this 2 and that 5.
'Cos I can tell you straight I can give a crap about 2.1 or 3 or 4 or 5 or DOCTYPE values. It’s all about how you want it to be, it’s not about the personal choices of the developers you’re hiring, or about the personal choices of people in forums. They have to be able to deliver all, you just have to tell them what!. Because a free advice is always unaccountable.
Some tell you 3 is not yet ready. Others will praise 3. Guess what, 2.1 is actually still not yet ready. It’s just that NOW it has a better “coverage” than 3. While 3 may solve some problems more easy BUT with a performance penalty.
And HTML5 is pretty much HTML4+new concepts. So you can actually be safe using HTML5, it allows for full backward compatibility, if that’s what you want.
<hr>
To summarize.
It’s not about HTML4, HTML5, CSS 2.1, CSS3. It’s not about a DOCTYPE. It all depends on what you’re looking for, your “parameters”. And this here is a long long talk.
But, in the end, a good developer is able to accommodate you and your goals and put all this futile talk about numbers and versions aside. And, in my opinion, a good developer will HAVE to know how to code using HTML5 and CSS3 ALSO, even if you, personally, are not asking for that, on a particular project. It shows that it has a healthy dose of interest in new stuff and it’s still in the game, not on way to retire.
<hr>
So, what do you want, exactly, in your site to change, not in developer’s choices?
I don’t really think clients need to concern themselves with terms like HTML and CSS. Those are implementation details. The most important thing is clearly communicating business goals so that the developer can match them with the appropriate technologies on the allocated budget. All the acronyms are merely tools to deliver a solution that satisfies the business goals.
I think you’ve hit it on the nail.
Clients don’t need to know what CSS or HTML. From experience clients concern themselves with support, security, maintenance, budget and value for money. Client’s never in my experience ask about validation or cross-browser compatibility. If they notice their site works differently in IE than in Chrome they would inform me and I would look bad. In terms of validation they never really care about that, just being truthful.
It tends to be dangerous for clients to start thinking technical. They end up double guessing everything which costs their site dearly. I only really once worked with a hands-on client who decided to take convert themselves into a designer / coder etc. This hands on approach cost them, as they questioned all kinds of things. In the end they dropped my support, which is probably one of the most valued things and tried to do it themselves. Their hands on approach made them feel they could DO WHAT I DO!
At that point they messed things up and came back asking for support.
Things that crop up are budget, whether they want tailor made or are happy with a template, if they demand support, POP3 emails, whether they have a domain, their goal and what they want to achieve from this. I found companies to be happy to pay 1 - 5% of their estimated net income (I estimated this :P). So a company which makes 100K is likely spend 1 - 5K on a site. A company which makes 50K, would prob. by looking in the hundreds. Some companies would even skimp out on the 1% mark, and go even lower. I always try to explain that if you’re an international company with big goals and hopes, you’d need a better solution than let’s say a barbers. A barber might pay 100EU, but considering you want a tailor made solution with custom code, you’d have to pay more as it takes more time.
I hate to say it but price is everything, and what people can afford depends on how big they are and how much they are willing to let go. I am confident most businesses want their own little eBays making the millions.
@itmitică;
For some reason I cannot reference your name 
I think it’s because of the character. Anyhow, you made a valid point too.
Off Topic:
Yeah, I noticed that too, about the reference. Well, I just have to be more vigil than others, don’t I?
Some did, they almost all claimed they aren’t responsible for what the client did after they gave them the site & insinuated the client did something to the site. My logic is, “you mean to tell me the client went in & played around with the CSS file?” I sure as hell don’t know how to do that. I NEVER touch the CSS file. If I knew how to code CSS I wouldn’t hire someone to do it for me.
Others blamed it on plugins (WP sites) & how am I supposed to know whether a plugin is making CSS code not valid?
I have a question. One kid still in University told me that if the CSS file doesn’t validate, then they aren’t good coders b/c there should never be a reason for the CSS file not to validate. So when I was checking their sites, I didn’t bother with the html, only the CSS. I figured that maybe it’s ok if the html doesn’t validate b/c there one can see that maybe the CMS screwed up the code, maybe the owner went in & added/deleted text, etc.
What do you guys think? Should the CSS be the only thing I check & should it be 100%, or is under 30 errors ok?
And if the CSS file is 100%, should I then give them a break if the html code isn’t 100%?
Michelle
That’s really too bad you guys nixed it. I don’t think it’s that difficult to say “this is how it’s being done now by the top coders” & then when something changes, then one has to pass a test showing they are up-to-date.
I can’t believe after all these years people are still doing whatever they want with no parameters in place.
Maybe people didn’t want it b/c they were scared their code would be called into question.
Sounds like you guys are honest, but you know that’s not the rule right? Only a few coders have ever told me, “I don’t know how to do AB&C” LOL the rest just say they know how to do everything. That alone is a warning to me, but I also know that maybe 1-5% of this industry has very skilled coders who can also design properly. It’s rare, but I’m sure they are out there.
Yes well… LOL I don’t have a mechanic friend & even if someone helped me now, what about months from now.
One person on SP helped me about 1.5 years ago & when I PMed him again he was gone.
It’s just very stressful for me trying to find someone who knows what they are doing & are in my price range & NO, just b/c someone charges a lot doesn’t mean they know what they are doing. I’ve experienced high end rip offs just as much as low end.
Thanks
Michelle
It is actually more likely that HTML validates before CSS. The thing is many browsers have their own custom CSS rules to achieve things that might otherwise not be possible or would be but would mean additional code. I don’t really want to get into specifics but the statement of “CSS file doesn’t validate, then they aren’t good coders b/c there should never be a reason for the CSS file not to validate” is complete bull sh*t and off course it comes from schmucks mouth who lacks experience in school… of course. Even HTML though might not validate and that is fine given the most important aspects have been covered. Again I’m not going to go into details but invalid HTML or CSS is in no way an absolute for the skills of a provider. There are many reasons that CSS and HTML may not validate which can be acceptable based on business goals, budget and time available. I understand you would like a quality product but cutting off people based on such strict criteria which is not an absolute by any means is not the way to it. Especially for a smaller budget. Given your looking for students to do work for you it seems like your budget is probably low in the first place. So I wouldn’t go cutting down everyone who has invalid pages. If anything validation is a development tool help isolate problems. It isn’t an end all your HTML and CSS sucks if doesn’t validate – not at all.
I thought that if the code wasn’t valid it wouldn’t display properly on all 5 browsers.
Nope, I’m a very very small company, no funds to do any of what you suggested. Plus right now until I have the money to move all the sites over to WP, I just need fixes done, not coding from a PSD.
Thanks
Michelle
The fact that your using WP immediately brings up issues regarding performance to clean HTML. However, the advantage of using such a system is that to have something like developed from scratch for you would cost tens of thousands of dollars. So it is a trade-off. Flexibility for client-side imperfections. Probably an appropriate solution given the budget your working with though not ideal but ideal cost tens of thousands of dollars an investment that probably isn’t worth it for you nor can you afford.
I agree. I realized a long time ago I have to stop being so anal about valid code as it’s driving me insane, BUT when I’m checking the potential website coder’s sites he’s given me “claiming” he knows what he’s doing, I want to know that these are 100% valid b/c I want someone who knows what they are doing.
Even if we agree to cut some corners here or there, I want someone who’s intelligent & gives me all the facts about what corners we are going to cut & why & most of all, I want to know that when the next comes along, they can READ THE BLOODY CODE. And I don’t look like a fool b/c I hired terrible coders
I would love everything to be perfect, but I need to make money now, not months from now.
I’m having the same issue finding a PHP programmer. I need a small script done (for now) & I need to know his code is semantic, commented, up-to-date AND SECURE. How do I know that before hiring? I don’t
Michelle
Ok, now I’m confused. I didn’t realize the entire WP CMS was invalid. I thought it was just the plugins.
So I’ll repeat my previous question… Does this mean I should only check the CSS file b/c that should be valid no matter which CMS one is using?
Most of the sites they are giving me now are from WP.
Michelle
[QUOTE=itmitică;5105693]Maybe you’re trying to fix something that ain’t broken, Michelle? What exactly is your goal here? This is where you have to start, not with the technical choices part. Or rants about this 2 and that 5.
'Cos I can tell you straight I can give a crap about 2.1 or 3 or 4 or 5 or DOCTYPE values. It’s all about how you want it to be, it’s not about the personal choices of the developers you’re hiring, or about the personal choices of people in forums. They have to be able to deliver all, you just have to tell them what!. Because a free advice is always unaccountable.
Some tell you 3 is not yet ready. Others will praise 3. Guess what, 2.1 is actually still not yet ready. It’s just that NOW it has a better “coverage” than 3. While 3 may solve some problems more easy BUT with a performance penalty.
And HTML5 is pretty much HTML4+new concepts. So you can actually be safe using HTML5, it allows for full backward compatibility, if that’s what you want.
<hr>
To summarize.
It’s not about HTML4, HTML5, CSS 2.1, CSS3. It’s not about a DOCTYPE. It all depends on what you’re looking for, your “parameters”. And this here is a long long talk.
But, in the end, a good developer is able to accommodate you and your goals and put all this futile talk about numbers and versions aside. And, in my opinion, a good developer will HAVE to know how to code using HTML5 and CSS3 ALSO, even if you, personally, are not asking for that, on a particular project. It shows that it has a healthy dose of interest in new stuff and it’s still in the game, not on way to retire.
<hr>
So, what do you want, exactly, in your site to change, not in developer’s choices? :)[/QUOTE]
This is why I came to the forum, to find out if CSS 3 was out b/c someone used that as his reason for the site not validating.
And YES, I do feel it’s my responsibility to know what is going on out there, otherwise how can I hire or know if someone is lying to me if I don’t know what they are talking about.
I have no clue what I want b/c I don’t keep up on versions. One thing I don’t want is old code.
Every time someone looks at my AdminDB, they say the PHP code is from years ago. How was I supposed to know he was coding from years ago b/c he’s too lazy to learn new stuff?
I guess the more important question I should ask is what version are you coding in & why & see what he says.
After reading the responses on here, I have a general idea of what’s going on with CSS 2 & 3.
Michelle
P.S. Why do you have all those <hr> tags in the middle of your post?
We’ll just have to agree to disagree then.
My proof that company owners (or the person hiring) needs to know a bit about this, is b/c now when I needed someone to go in & change something on the site, 2 people told me the code was soooo terrible, they couldn’t do anything quickly.
Now I have to pay someone to REDO everything the other schmucks did b/c they didn’t know what they were doing.
Or even if I don’t get them to redo it, it will take them 2-3 times longer to find the area to tweak b/c everything is a mess.
I am the one paying the bills, so YES, it matters to me that I hire the right person, not that they just “claim” they are great & try to deflect my questions.
Michelle
My explanation is just above & you misunderstood, I don’t want to EVER touch the code. I’m NOT a coder, I’m an entrepreneur. I just want to be able to go in & tweak text without that one thing causing havoc with the entire page.
A couple of weeks ago I accidentally deleted div tags b/c when I tried to add the text via the text editor, it wouldn’t go where it was supposed to & it moved everything all over the place, so I went into the code & tried to add it there.
Then my hosting company changed something on the server & things have started breaking on not just that site, but other sites as well.
Talk about stress
I have to assume (I don’t know enough about the layout to be sure) that if the page was coded properly, when I went to add more text in even though it was near images, it wouldn’t have caused such a problem.
Michelle