Web Standards

Web Standards will help us fulfill the WWW dream.

Web Standards make Web Development easier.

Why Web Standards?

Web developers are often struggling with time-consuming double-coding to solve problems with different browsers versions. This situation will get much worse when new hardware (like mobile telephones and other handheld devices) and new software (like micro-browsers) start browsing the Web.

To make the Web a better place, for both developers and end-users, it is of paramount importance that both browser vendors and site developers follow standards when they develop new applications.

With its tremendous growth, the Web needs standards to realize its full potential. Web standards ensure that everyone has access to the same information. Future use of the Web, including applications that we only dream of today, will not be possible without world wide standards. 

Web standards also make site development faster and more enjoyable. Future Web sites will have to be coded according to standards to shorten both development and maintenance time. Developers should not have to struggle with several versions of code to accomplish the same result.

Other Considerations

When Web developers follow Web standards, web development teamwork is simplified, since it is easier for the developers to understand each other's coding.

Some developers think that standards are the same as restrictions, and that taking advantage of nice browser-specific features will add credit to their work. But future adjustments to these Web pages will become more and more difficult as the variety of access methods increases. Following standards is your first step to solve this problem. Using only Web standards will help you to ensure that all browsers, old and new, will display your site properly, without frequent and time-consuming rewrites.

Standardization can increase the access to your site. Does it make sense to limit your audience to only those with a particular browser?

Standard Web documents are easier for search engines to access, and easier to index more accurately.

Standard Web documents are easier to convert to other formats.

Standard Web documents are easier to access with program code (like JavaScript and the DOM).

Want to save yourself a lot of time? Make a habit of  validating your pages with a validation service. Validation keeps your documents up to the standards and free of nasty errors.

Accessibility

Accessibility is an important part of the HTML standard.

Standards make it easier for people with disabilities to use the Web. Blind people can use computers that read Web pages for them. People with poor sight can rearrange and magnify standard Web pages. Simple Web standards like HTML 4 and CSS, will make your Web pages much easier to understand by special devices like voice browsers, or other unusual output devices.

The World Wide Web Consortium

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), founded in 1994, is an international consortium dedicated to "lead the Web to its full potential". 

As developers, especially when creating educational Web sites, we can help them turn this dream into reality.

You can read more about W3C in the next chapter.

ECMA

The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) , based in Switzerland, was founded in 1961 in order to meet the need for standardizing computer languages and input/output codes.

ECMA is not an official standardization institute, but an association of companies that collaborate with other official institutes like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

To Web developers, the most important standard is ECMAScript, the standardization of JavaScript.

ECMAScript is a standardized scripting language to manipulate Web page objects specified by the W3C Document Object Model (DOM). With ECMAScript, DOM objects can then be added, deleted, or changed. 

The ECMAScript standard is based on Netscape's JavaScript and Microsoft's JScript.

The latest ECMAScript specification is ECMA-262:

ECMAScript Language Specification, 3rd edition.

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