[wp-hackers] Wordpress and Web Standards

Sat Oct 7 00:27:47 GMT 2006

Yellow,

Thanks for your replies. Keep cool, take it easy, and please don't argue 
about what I didn't say. I'm not criticizing Wordpress. To my mind 
Wordpress already supports primary web standards features. And of course 
Wordpress is not responsible if a third party makes a theme that isn't 
valid.

To resume I just wrote to tell you Wordpress could be more standard and 
web standards (I mean a higher level) regards to the code. So I 
motivated myself to contact you and take part in the wordpress politics.

First we should agree about the definition.

I define the Web standards as a way to apply truly and realistly the 
specifications from the W3C. The Web Standards Project (WaSP) fights for 
standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while 
increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site 
published on the Web. (From http://www.webstandards.org/about/) WASP and 
other communities are helping to use those web standards.

I define standard(s) (not standards as the shortcut for web standards) 
languages or technologies that are using the approach to define the 
basics every developer should follow. Following this way, developers 
agree and unify themself to use those resources. There are not 
especially and automatically references to the web world.

===============================================

About the RSS Feed which is not a web standard topic, if you 
think/shure/need multiple formats, considering the current blog platform 
you should still not excess two versions and to use the latest - RSS 2.0 
and ATOM 1.0 - for each feed (Posts and comments). Anyway the ideal for 
users and hardware is to support a unique format for each feed. Here is 
a wiki link to compare RSS 2.0 and ATOM 1.0 :
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Rss20AndAtom10Compared.

As I am working from my side for the eight oclock project, I thought it 
would be better to talk together about the subjects I'm going to work 
for. To reply to petit with IMOH, using multiple format is just using 
more bandwidth and is giving you many hours to maintain them to the 
right formats. From a general point of view, using a unique format per 
feed :

* Easier to maintain
You can dedicate a specific person from your web development team to 
update the rss technology to the latest stable specifications. This 
person or the group can spend more time to be up to date to his specific 
technology and your platform is not groochy with multiple usual problems 
or bugs, even little, to fix.

* Reduce the amount of bandwidth
Just take your multiple formats and for example calculate the bandwidth 
for a single user who is using a rss reader which default verifies or is 
voluntary configured to verify the new entries every 30 minutes. Use the 
statistics from your host to get an approximative result. Your structure 
and site is growing ? It's time to start slowly optimizing. Rss seems to 
be forgotten. It's worth doing.

* usability : third party can easily access and manipulate your 
informations.
PHP - one of the most popular open source web technology :) - can be 
used in the version 5 with its powerful xml parser which is respectful 
regards to the DOM (a standard). His brother number 4.0 is using the API 
SAX, which is not really the best method as a standard to manipulate xml 
data, but offers possibilities to play with them.
While using a unique format, you are influencing others communities to 
follow the way, to develop tools appropriate to the original needs, and 
to guarantee the easiest access to share informations.

* New interface and marketing strategy
Now you can take time to define new strategies. Instead of giving 
multiple formats links for each feed, you could turn back to a 
completely new offer. Ex: http://www.time.com/time/rss/ (Other examples 
are welcome)

===============================================

The Kubrik design is ok for me. There are various resources on the web 
to get valid xhtml / css templates, and in the web standards state of 
mind. Anyway a better way to promote WS for example could be the use of 
tools from the famous alistapart.com website for the basic template 
xhtml / css.

I suppose xhtml 1.1 is not the best doctype for Wordpress. I would try 
to implement script to serve xhtml 1.0 doctype documents with the right 
mime-type such as 
http://www.htmldog.com/guides/htmladvanced/declarations/. In this case, 
we are working in a "dangerous" environment and an effort of 
arguementing in a polite way should be made before starting any discuss. 
I know this is a hot topic, sometimes even for professionals, and "I 
prefer to warn you and avoid a mailing list panic" ;)

Later I would like to talk about the way of implementing / using 
accessibility with wordpress, default templates and admin panel too.

===============================================

I need to sleep hehe. Regards and good night,

Peter
_________________________________________________

Pierre-Henri Lavigne
Cell Phone: +33618753267
http://www.getphuture.com

Some exist through what they do...
We exist through what we are