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A controversial question no doubt, based on a controlversial (to some) article over on Modern Life is Rubbish.

Stuart Brown makes a pretty good point though. I find myself at times obsessing over semantically correct markup, even though the site may appear fine across browsers. I hate seeing errors or warnings when I go to validate a site. As Stuart points out, Google doesn’t validate at all. Does this serve as an example of web standards not mattering as much as some would like?

Many visitors may never notice that your site doesn’t validate unless they have Firebug or a Validator extension. In my case, I would rather my sites stick to valid code and sticking within web standards.

Like the old saying goes, “Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” I think that’s pretty much what I feel like. As soon as you slack off in some ways with valid code other portions might slip. Of course, I’ve always got to get it right because that’s in my nature. I just can’t live with a red “x” in my status bar telling me how many errors are on a site.

In my case I conform to the standards for my own peace of mind, even if the users needs don’t require it. What about you? Do you let some things slide because it shows up fine in browsers or are you like me and have to get it right?