Web Standards in the Spotlight

Joel Sposky, in his usual highly amusing style, takes on the new IE 8 controversy and points out the enormous gulf between the standards world and the world the rest of us really work in.  I often compare this difference to the difference between open-source and commercial software developers.  There are those who say that it must be done the standard way and there are others that say it should be done to make it easy for the user.  And the rest of us poor suckers live somewhere in between.  My favorite quote from the article:

The web standards camp seems kind of Trotskyist. You’d think they’re the left wing, but if you happened to make a website that claims to conform to web standards but doesn’t, the idealists turn into Joe Arpaio, America’s Toughest Sheriff. “YOU MADE A MISTAKE AND YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BREAK. I don’t care if 80% of your websites stop working. I’ll put you all in jail, where you will wear pink pajamas and eat 15 cent sandwiches and work on a chain gang. And I don’t care if the whole county is in jail. The law is the law.”

Martian Headsets - Joel on Software