Re: Amazon Associates provided code doesn't validate

Hi Barry,

On Jul 9, 2007, at 09:40 , Barry Harmon wrote:
> I emailed Amazon and they said that "validation is tough" and that  
> I had placed the code properly.

IMHO, "validation is tough" is a rather poor excuse. More below.


> My question is:  Since Amazon isn't going to change their code, and  
> since *my* code passed validation, what is the status of my use of  
> the W3C validation icon?  I guess it comes down to a question of  
> should I be penalized because of Amazon?

I fail to see the point of adding the icon if you know that what is  
claims is untrue. You are quite likely to get people messaging you  
that your icon usage is a lie.

Maybe you should keep asking the developers of that web service  
exactly why they can't fix their code? I had a look at your web  
page's markup, and all I see are simple mistakes, trivial to fix:

* presentational attributes (width, height, border) on the iframe  
element.
   width and height would be OK if your page was using XHTML 1.0  
Transitional.
   border (as well as width and height) would be best removed, and  
replaced with CSS

* the iframe src has an URI, where the ampersands have to be escaped.  
Replacing the & with & will do the job.

If you can fix these yourself, you're done - your page should  
validate. If you can't and have to rely on some external service to  
provide you with that broken markup, tell them that, no, validation  
is not tough, and that the markup can be changed very easily.

Regards,
-- 
olivier

Received on Monday, 9 July 2007 05:21:16 UTC