This
was problematic because it made site updates difficult and confusing??”especially to someone
who was jumping into the project for the first time.
The Web Standards Project (WaSP [see www.webstandards.org]), with people such as
Jeffrey Zeldman and Molly Holzschlag at the helm, sought to provide a new approach to web
development that would actually make it easier for people to develop the sites we love. There
are three general facets to using web standards:
??? Use CSS for presentation
??? Write valid HTML
??? Write semantic HTML to add meaning to the content
Of course, you might be wondering about JavaScript at this point, and you might have
heard of the three-tier web development methodology of HTML for structure, CSS for style,
13
C H A P T E R 2
and JavaScript for behavior (meaning dynamic functionality). It is definitely related and is an
important concept to bear in mind when working through this book (and for your general web
development work).
When people talk about web standards, they often discuss the separation between content
(the HTML) and presentation (the CSS). Likewise, you need to ensure that the behavior
(the JavaScript) is separated in much the same way. The separation enables you to add functionality
to your application in a discrete way that can make your application much easier to
update and can reduce overall bandwidth. This separation of JavaScript is called unobtrusive
JavaScript.
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