I’m gradually going around my site, cleaning each room, applying a template here, fixing a link there. In the process I’m finally getting around to reading Owen’s Validation, a persuasive argument for proper code, which could have been subtitled ‘Markup for the Long Now‘…

My view is validation is very important, and not because I’m a stickler for rules. I actually dislike rules…I don’t think it’s widely understood how unique the code is. This is an attempt to make a code that can go decades and centuries, getting broader in scope without ever shutting out it’s early versions. Because that’s what we need the code to do: this code is for recording what we think.

He also points to the handy Gazingus validation bookmarklets and, of course, the W3C validator.

Aside: A funny image in my head of people 50 years from now initializing their virtual museum to learn about early 21st Century Internet communication. The readable content consists almost entirely of CSS tutorials. The aural connection says, ‘Before the Great XML Convergence of 2023 humans actually used keyboards to type medium-specific display information, or used crude applications to generate non-standard display code…‘