[WEB4LIB] Re: 99.9% of web sites obsolete?

[Raymond Wood]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 05:12:12AM -0700, Karen Harker remarked:
> To get back to the subject of the email, I think what should
> be taken into consideration is the audience of the site you
> are designing. 

Absolutely.  But does that mean we should not code to W3C
standards?  IMO, no it does not.

> If your audience is set on using v2-3 of Netscape, then you
> should probably code for that. 

I reject that point of view.  Code to the standards i.e. *make
the code as accessible to as many people and browsers as
possible*.  It is both a matter of principle, and a practical
strategy for helping the Web evolve in a sane, democractic, and
pluralistic fashion.

> Where the threshold lies is subjective...5%, 15%, 25%?  

Standards are the threshold.  :)

> As in most of life, balance is the key. 

Balance is maintained by a sincere effort to support W3C
standards.  :)

> Bandwidth of HTML is not as imperative a concern as bandwidth
> of images or audio files.  But we should realize that
> standards are very, very difficult to create and enforce.
> After 100 years of making cars, we still have few
> interchangeable parts.  

Adhering to standards is difficult, but not impossible.  IMO the
W3C have been doing a decent job -- let's support them!

Cheers,
Raymond (have I mentioned standards yet ;)