Concerned with CSS validation?

[sdotbrucato]

I've been using Wordpress for quite some time, but really never dappled into the plugins. I'm starting to implement them into my site, but I've noticed a lot of the CSS for the plugins doesnt validate.

All the CSS/xHTML I coded myself does, and I pride myself on having my sites validate. Should be I concerned with the plugin CSS not validating?

 

[mikeblas]

I can't see why you would be. If it works, why bother fixing it? It's fun to spit-shine things, but the reality is that the return on the investment just isn't there. If you can find some tangible reason that doing the work was a good idea, you wouldn't be asking the question, right?

 

[maw]

I can't see why you would be. If it works, why bother fixing it? It's fun to spit-shine things, but the reality is that the return on the investment just isn't there. If you can find some tangible reason that doing the work was a good idea, you wouldn't be asking the question, right?

If you were buying a new luxury car, but noticed it had a huge dent on the left side and then when you asked about it the answer was, "meh, it still works, doesn't it?, just don't look on the left side" Would you settle for that? Is that the kind of work you'd expect for something you're paying top dollar for?

I often find that not fixing even minor markup bugs has a habit of coming back later to bite you in the butt.. sure, I'll let the occasional unencoded ampersand get by, but things like unclosed or improperly nested container tags or invalid or proprietary markup may render fine in one browser, but cause no end of headaches when viewed in another.

If you want your work to shine, then you pay attention to all the details.

 

[mikeblas]

If you were buying a new luxury car, but noticed it had a huge dent on the left side and then when you asked about it the answer was, "meh, it still works, doesn't it?, just don't look on the left side" Would you settle for that? Is that the kind of work you'd expect for something you're paying top dollar for?

It depends. Am I buying the car new, or used? Am I buying a race car, which is going to get dinged and abused anyway; or a street car? For myself, or for someone else? Either way, I'm not positive your analogy applies. For many people, a car has an aesthetic value. Validation errors in CSS, if the CSS still works, don't have an aesthetic value that the buyer would see.

proprietary markup may render fine in one browser, but cause no end of headaches when viewed in another.

Then I'd argue that they don't work, and that they're beyond the scope of my comment.

If you want your work to shine, then you pay attention to all the details.

One important detail is knowing where to best spend your time. If you spend too much time in the details -- particularly those of little or no consequence -- you end up missing the big picture and other opportunities, too.

 

[phide]

If you were buying a new luxury car, but noticed it had a huge dent on the left side and then when you asked about it the answer was, "meh, it still works, doesn't it?, just don't look on the left side"

The difference here is that the dent of unvalidated CSS isn't noticeable to anyone but those who would go to great lengths to check it.

I don't worry too much about CSS validation, but then I've never once written a style sheet that didn't validate. You have to be doing some bizarre shit to write invalid CSS. XHTML is more difficult to adhere to, but CSS is a total cakewalk.

 

[sdotbrucato]

I think what Im going to end up doing, is fixing and validating the CSS for plugins I'll use more frequently, that way the time vs use doesnt get too retarded.

If I spend 30 minutes fixing a CSS file that Im going to use three times, then hell, its nothing at all.


I havent seen any cross browser issues as of yet with the Plugin CSS, but who knows. My only problem is I advertise xHTML/CSS validation. lol (The again to be technical, MY code is validated.)

 

[ameoba]

A lot of times, invalid CSS is there specifically to make things work in older browsers. Since different browsers handle different sorts of invalid CSS differently, you can sometimes use this to your advantage to encode multiple behaviors into a single CSS file.

 

[Statewide Software]

In response to the previous post, there are tricks that can be done so those invalid css properties only register if the older browser is used.