How to Uncover Pseudo-Standardistas

Published on Nov 20, 2008 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

There’s a growing group of developers that doesn’t help our attempts for faster, more accessible, more maintainable, and generally quality-oriented web development: pseudo-standardistas. There are several ways to identify pseudos (apart from the hints Henri shared), the easiest being:

Pseudo-standardistas report to be member of standard bodies and organizations like e.g. W3C. However, a non-paper member participating in W3C work will usually have at least one results page of entries when reviewing their work, so try searching Google for contributions on W3C mailing lists. (Searching does work for verifying contributions to other initiatives, too.)
Pseudo-standardistas like to point out how great valid HTML is (it is, even though validation isn’t everything). Try validating their site to see if they act accordingly (keep the HTML 5 doctype in mind—<!DOCTYPE html>—, which isn’t recognized by the WDG and a few other validators).
Pseudo-standardistas make maintainability mistakes like working with presentational ID and class names, and using (maybe even recommending) Conditional Comments or multiple style sheet references in the markup. This is a tough call (not everyone will appreciate this) and surely an advanced requirement (many peers don’t find it problematic to link to several style sheets out of their pages’ markup), but still a red flag when it comes to maintainability.

There are more telltales of pseudo-advocates of modern web development (I feel reminded of “valid this or that” badges), but at least in German-speaking countries there’s an awkward tendency to rest on laurels not deserved yet. I don’t mind decisive self-promotion and marketing (heck, it’s Europe’s small answer to Barack Obama writing this post), but we need to ask ourselves if that’s in the best interest of our industry.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)