The more I think about it, the more I see striking similarities between English grammar and web standards. Regarding both grammar and web standards there seem to be three groups of people:
Group #1: The Nazi
This group of people are the “standards Nazis.” They know that there are certain guidelines out there and insist that everyone be as hard-core about upholding them as they are. Grammar Nazis will interrupt you when you say, “Can I go to the bathroom?” Pointing out that it’s, “MAY I go to the bathroom.” Web standards Nazis will point out to you that even though your site looks OK if Firefox, IE6, Opera, ET AL. your code doesn’t validate; it has 5 errors.
Group #2: The Butcher
This group of people is the polar opposite group #1. They don’t give a rip about the guidelines and will speak/code however they darn well please. An’ ah ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. Grammar folks in this group speak so poorly they are literally unintelligible. You can talk to them for five minutes and never understand a word that comes out of their mouth. In that way, they’re not dissimilar from Chris Tucker. Web folks in this group refuse to learn CSS because it’s just a fad or exclusively use CSS in line.
Group #3: The Moderate
This group of people falls somewhere in between a Nazi and a Butcher. They realize that there are standards and do their best to stick to them. They strive to educate themselves as much as possible but realize that occasionally they will use non-standard language/code and are OK with that. This is the group I fall into, both with English grammar as well as web standards. I know there are lots of rules and stuff, but the way I see it 90% of the population doesn’t care that I end most of my sentences with a preposition; “Where’s the bathroom at?” Similarly, 90% of my readers don’t care that my site has at least 2 XHTML errors per page. What matters is that most people can easily understand me when I speak and that my site works in their browser. I think it’s good and well if you’re 1337 enough to get your super fancy site to validate, but for the rest of us regular Joes we’re doing good to have a blog at all.
Disclaimer: I’ve actually never had anyone approach me and tell me that my site doesn’t validate, but I’ve seen it done to others, and that’s stinkin’ thinkin’.
