Web Primer

Web Standards

Web standards make web development easier.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) creates the web standards.

Why Web Standards?

To make internet a better place, for both developers and visitors, it is important that both browsers and Web developers follow the Web standards.

When developers follow the Web standards, the development is simplified, since it is easier for a developer to understand another's coding.

Using Web standards will ensure that all browsers will display your Web site properly, without time-consuming rewrites.

Web pages that conforms to the standard are easier for search engines to access and index, easier to convert to other formats, and easier to access with program code (like JavaScript and the DOM).

Tip: Always validate your pages with a validation service. Validation keeps your documents up to the standards, and free of errors.

Accessibility

Accessibility is an important part of the HTML standard.

Web standards make it easier for people with disabilities to use the Web.

Blind people can use programs to read Web pages for them. People with poor eye sight can rearrange and magnify standard Web pages.

W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium

W3C creates and maintains the Web standards.

From Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, director and founder of the World Wide Web consortium:

"The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information."

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), founded in 1994, is an international consortium dedicated to "lead the web to its full potential", which it does by developing specifications, guidelines, software, and tools.

• W3C Stands for the World Wide Web Consortium
• W3C was created in October 1994
• W3C was created by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web
• W3C is organized as a Member Organization
• W3C is working to Standardize the Web
• W3C creates and maintains WWW Standards
• W3C Standards are called W3C Recommendations

As developers, especially when creating educational Web sites, we can help turn this dream into reality. The most important W3C standards are:

• HTML
• CSS
• XML
• XSL
• DOM

The Official W3C Home Page

ECMA - European Computer Manufacturers Association

ECMA, founded in 1961, in order to meet the need for standardizing computer languages and input/output codes.

ECMA is not an official standardization institute, but an association of companies that collaborate with other official institutes like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

For Web developers, the most important standard is ECMAScript, the standardization of JavaScript.

With JavaScript, DOM objects can be added, deleted, or changed.

The latest ECMAScript specification is ECMA-262:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm