Joshuaink: No I am not bloody sorry

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No I am not bloody sorry

Thursday July 6, 2006

How many web developers have you known start or end a blog post announcing a project with words to the effect: I am sorry the HTML is a bit of a mess, or the CSS is a little unorganized, time constraints and all.

I am exactly the same, I hate having my portfolio out there in case some jumped up little twat with as much actual real world web development experience as my left testicle decides to email to tell me that an unencoded ampersand is invalidating my HTML. Or, as is often the case, I am not 140% satisfied with how the design ended up after the client has changed their minds 7,000 times during the course of the project.

But I am done apologizing. I am realizing more and more that the real world produces shocking HTML and CSS is inherently very difficult to organize at the best of times, let alone to organize well within a project that is jumping all over the place at an extraordinary pace.

So no, I am not fucking apologizing anymore. For what? For doing the best I can within the scope of any given project? For getting some shitty content management system to at least have a go at web standards? For taking the time to remove the unnecessary break tags a developer has seen fit to add to my code? No I think not, I work hard just to get barely satisfactory HTML and CSS out there and working, so I don’t see why I should say sorry to little Colin Collegeboy with nothing better to do all day than email busy people to point out that they are less than perfect.

When every single person working and publishing content on the web cares about HTML and CSS the way I do, then—and only then—will I start saying sorry again for my sloppy code.

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Steven Woods

1345 days ago

I could not have said it better myself.

Incidentally, you need a PayPal link on your site, as I for one would like to buy you a pint of your favourite loudmouth soup for keeping me entertained over the last months (years?).

Make sure it validates mind. ;)
Martin Smith

1345 days ago

‘ere, ‘ere! ...about the web stuff, not the PayPal link, you can buy your own beer being as loaded as you are ;-)
Kalle

1345 days ago

Well said. It it simply just not worth it if no-one except Colin Collegeboy gives a damn anyway. Even though I don’t really want to accept it – time is money.
George

1345 days ago

Someone is bound to write a book called ‘Beyond Validation’ sooner or later.

Perhaps it could be you?
Naomi

1345 days ago

Finally, someone said it! Thanks for the honesty, it’s so refreshing. I wonder if some of these people who are so critical really work in real world situations. Sometimes when you deal with a cms that outputs bad code, or the client just has to have this thing a certain way or not, you don’t have much choice. That’s not an excuse for at least having acceptable work though too. I’ve had my fair share of nasty code to work through as I’m sure all of you have too.
Carolyn

1345 days ago

What always irked me were the people who’d sit around making comments about the designs at CSS galleries and how they didn’t look so special or even that they looked bad. Then, you’d go to the complainer’s site and think, “I don’t get it. Who do they think they are to evaluate other people’s designs, let alone comment on it in public?” Actually, I wouldn’t really think all those words. I’d just think “WTF?”
Ara Pehlivanian

1345 days ago

My policy is to do the best I can with what I have and once delivered, let it go. I can’t be held responsible for users copying and pasting HTML from MS Word into a CMS that’s going to destroy the page I built. Nor can I be held responsible for a thousand other things conspiring to muddle my work.

I can however control my own pages on my own site. That’s an entirely different story. :-)
Trevor

1345 days ago

Your blog rules. Seriously awesome, rules rules rules! John, YOU RULE! \o/ \o/ \o/

Trevor
Pat

1345 days ago

Amen.

At work for several of our sites (our public site, parent corporation, sister corporations) we use an outdated, slow, hosted CMS so generated markup in things like menus cannot be customized. I end up writing a hundred lines of convoluted, browser-specific CSS and spending hours getting a table with conflicting inline CSS and presentational HTML attributes to look, well, more like a list.

I’ve found that in the real world, time and circumstances don’t always allow for ideal markup or presentation. Sometimes you have to negotiate your standards a bit.

My boss put it quite well – remember that our 75% is their 125%.
Tanc

1345 days ago

I’m a fairly novice web designer/developer who loves to read all the blogs about web standards and ideal ways of going about marking up code etc. Its one thing reading about it and another thing actually managing to pull it off on a really small budget with clients who don’t give a shit about markup and just want a web site, done yesterday.

I still try my best but its good to read the ‘reality check’ of your blog, helps me to feel more human.
lm

1345 days ago

I vote for PayPal link (which validates) too.
Steve Tucker

1345 days ago

Well put
Brian

1345 days ago

here here and well said. It’s people like “Colin” who exactly miss the entire point, round em up and shot* em I say!!

*metaphorically of course…...
Fredrik W?§rnsberg

1345 days ago

I possibly coulnd’t agree more, esp. with client’s chaning their minds. Nice post!
Owen

1345 days ago

There never seems to be comments like ‘Well done on the coding, the site rocks.’ This would make it easier to digest a ‘By the way there is an unencoded ampersand’ comment. Flattery gets you everywhere, wankery gets you nowhere.

Well said John.
Pierce

1345 days ago

Maybe you can compromise and just apologise for using the American spelling for “apologise”. And “unorganized”.

Your trip State-side has changed you… I don’t even know who you are anymore.
John Oxton

1345 days ago

Nope you are wrong about apologize, go and buy a good dictionary from any UK store, it’s in there loud and clear.

Same with unorganized...

So I haven’t changed, you’ve just turned into Colin Collegboy!

;)
Pierce

1345 days ago

Goshdarn it.

apologize (also -ise) according to Concise Oxford.

I apologise for being Colin Collegeboy. See, it’s not that hard….
david

1345 days ago

really well put
karmatosed

1345 days ago

Woot of agreement from this small middle corner of the UK. I still have clients who feed their hamsters in their computers and as such I am generally just happy to do what fits my ethics and makes them happy – it’s enough of a balancing act without some poin dexter coughing up cliches in the corner like standard hair balls.
Matt Robin

1345 days ago

I’d be surprised if you did apologise John. Again – you’ve made a valid point really clear…(hopefully the idiots picking on your code will shut the fu**-up!) :)
Martin

1345 days ago

You just gave me an idea how to deliberately draw the fucktards your way by deliberately invalidate your HTML code.

Textbook ameuters with little knowledge but big on elitism gets them on unwinnable path to know what it’s like to be a web professional.

Whoever goes your way will forever be branded fucktards who are better off sticking to learning to be better lawyers because there are usually good reasons for invalid HTML code.
James John Malcolm (AkaXakA)

1345 days ago

There’s a solution to Colin: Use HTML instead of XHTML (and nuke the useless css-validator).

Then again, maybe just stick to nuking the css-validator.
John Oxton

1345 days ago

There is no solution to Colin. Colin needs to get laid badly… Colin needs to turn off, tune out… go outside and talk to the trees… or something along those lines.
pixeldiva

1345 days ago

A-fucking-men.
Matt

1345 days ago

I’m sure we all have a little bit of Colin in us (ew), if only out of jealousy.
colin college-boy

1344 days ago

Uhh, excuse me mr. Oxton, but “Collegeboy” has a hyphen in it. COLLEGE-BOY! Thank you very much!
james

1344 days ago

one usually considers such contacts as voluntary user testing and feedback. a pinch of salt don’t take it to heart.

if you can learn something new off it great otherwise ignore it like spam.

i guess its up to you to figure from a business perspective whether the criticism is valid or not. After that there is just money in the bank for the work done and gone.
Olly

1344 days ago

Amen brother.
Ross

1344 days ago

Good for you John,

It doesn’t mean we don’t try, it just means we’re human.

Too many cooks spoil the broth and if you want them all to be top chefs, you need to teach them all the right way to do it.

Sometimes content providers are internal staff of a client you never meet (and never want to mind you…). They could be fresh out of school where they learnt frontpage or old style HTML. They could just be morons (plenty of them out there).

I withhold my apologies too…

~R
bruce

1343 days ago

It’s all to do with the breakdown of time spent in a web design project
http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/viewimage?imageID=1525450953507615157
rob cherny

1343 days ago

John, you’re getting it exactly right. It’s nice to see and hear in the face of the purists out there. I think we should all strive to be purists, sure, but it can’t always happen. Maybe one day when the tools and all teams are all on the same page. For now, it’s all about being a bloody good developer.
Doug

1343 days ago

AMEN. You get four hours to take something from design to development, and do you want to spend the last half-hour working on something that affects the user, or something to deflect mindless criticism from code-monkeys? I say the former.
Joram Oudenaarde

1341 days ago

NIce read!

Of course webdevelopers should always try to make the code as valid as you can. But there’s a limit to what one can do when the client is bitching about changes over and over.

But you said it right though. You can’t apologize for doing your best, even when the client is poking his big nose up your ars.
Matt

1341 days ago

To be Devils Advocate for a moment… I associate John Oxton with Web Standards based design – and so do probably quite a subtantial proportion of the UK web design community. Being part of the web standards UK love-in must surely lead to more business (and certainly a higher page rank). However, with this power comes the responsibiltiy of upholding web standards – and surely at the forefront of this is in your own work. As Spiderman said “with power comes responsibiity”.
Raina

1341 days ago

HELL YEAH
Ross Bruniges

1340 days ago

Very nice points indeed – there are somethings which just can’t be done in standards which we just can’t leave out of real world sites (such as google content, I also have a few problems with RSS feeds chucking carrage returns in their hyperlinks – may just be me…..)

I have tried to flip the argument around though and talk about my experiences when dealing with poorly delivered code to me where I work; do the same gripes still apply there???

www.thecssdiv.co.uk/2006/07/10/when-to-stop-complaining/
Dino Baskovic

1340 days ago

Here, here. I cringe when I have to show a potential client how a CMS worked on another client’s site, only to find all kinds of awful typos and bad writing in general. Or, how when I come back to a client site after a year or so, they’ve uploaded some garrish Flash intro—scratch one more damned site off my portfolio. And you know what? How are we supposed to be perfect coders when the powers-that-be can’t even agree what makes “web standards” standard? When Colin Collegefuck gets his first real gig, he too will join the rest of us at the bar, belittling his idiot clients as they so deserve…

Carolyn

Trevor

Tanc

lm

Brian

Martin

james

Doug

Raina

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