September 28, 2007

Death of a Standardista

I've never liked the term standardista. It's the "ista" part that bothers me, as it makes one sound like a zealot, someone whose passion is potentially blinding. It's true I'm passionate about web standards, but that's is only because standards support the production of quailty websites. If spit and chicken wire worked as well, I'd be passionate about spit and chicken wire. If I'm any kind of "ista," I'm a qualityista.

The moment I realized this was an epiphany. For one thing, it helped me understand the depth of my frustration with the poor writing on certain client sites. I have no interest in building kick-ass containers for crappy content. If you've ever worked with me, you know what I mean.

For some developers, the only thing that matters is a happy client. When you think this way, your job is to determine what would make your client happy and deliver it, no matter how ridiculous or ill-conceived.

I'd like to believe that few developers are really so lacking in, well, standards. Instead, most failed sites are made by people who want to make good websites but lack the requisite skills or understanding.

But back to my epiphany. What I saw in that moment is that my allegiance is not to any particular approach or methodology, but to a result which for lack of a better term I'm calling "quality." I'm obsessed by it. I want to see it, understand it, and most of all, create it. I really am a qualityista. If you've ever worked with me, you know what I mean.

Published in WWW, Web Standards