Re: validator being a reference Re: DogFood, take 2

Karl Dubost wrote:
> 
> Le 7 déc. 2007 à 05:10, Sam Ruby a écrit :
>> I succeeded in modifying my html5 template in a way that *almost* 
>> appeases the html5.validator.nu conformance checker.
> 
> This is a common statement we often see on the www-validator 
> mailing-list as well. People usually don't go to specs (or do not 
> understand them) and look at the results of the ZLORB validator. 
> (Replace ZLORB by the language of choice.) It has an interesting side 
> effect is that some people tend to think that the validator is the law.

I agree here.

> http://validator.nu/
> Maybe the Validator should carry a message under the gamma to say that 
> it is highly experimental. When things which were validating in the past 
> becomes non valid anymore, some people have a tendency to react with… 
> strong angry comments :)

While I agree that this validator will eventually draw strong angry 
comments, I don't believe that any disclaimer will prevent that.  I 
wouldn't worry too much here.  It comes with the territory.

The fact that this validator flags things that it doesn't yet understand 
(e.g. use of svg in xhtml) is a good sign, as this indicates that there 
are more likely to be false positives (which, when fixed, make everybody 
happy) than false negatives (which, when fixed, provoke certain types of 
people to anger).

- Sam Ruby

Received on Friday, 7 December 2007 11:14:39 UTC