Building to code

By Robert Mohns – Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 / 3:10pm View more articles

If website renders just fine in all the major browsers, that's good enough, right?

Seriously, what is the business benefit to a site that happens to comply with web standards? Sure, us developers love it, but why does anyone else?

Answer: It's like building to the building code. You don't have to do it, and your house will probably stand just fine. But building to code helps ensure that your roof can stand the load of a heavy snowfall.... that the wiring won't catch fire from improper grounding if a kitchen appliance fails... that the air conditioning can handle a super-hot summer week and the heating handle the occasional deep freeze... that you can put an addition onto it without a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money... that you won't be spending a ton of money to fix problems you discover at the change of each season.

Probably doesn't validate:

the worst phone wiring in Scotland

Neat doesn't mean safe:

code violations

Doing it right

You can ignore web standards and build something that works okay. But that's not the same as building it right the first time. Build a good, standards-compliant website, and it will take you less work to maintain and will be easier to add on to.

Do it right the first time, and you won't have to pay to fix it over and over.

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Robert Mohns

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