The Venn diagram seen in Figure 2-1 demonstrates that separation, with the intersection
representing the sweet spot of potential experience.
Figure 2-1. The three elements of modern web development
CSS for Presentation
As sites such as CSS Zen Garden (http://csszengarden.com) have demonstrated, CSS is perfectly
capable of handling even the most complex design. Some approaches to using CSS
effectively for web application development will be discussed later on in this chapter and
throughout the book.
Valid HTML
The fault tolerance built into browsers meant that many people (including me) would rely on
the way browsers displayed a particular piece of code instead of ensuring that the HTML itself
was correct. Over time, as new browsers were released, differences in how browsers rendered
invalid code made developing sites a hit-or-miss endeavor. Writing valid HTML helps to
ensure that browsers now and in the future will render your page exactly as you intended.
Valid HTML means writing to any one of the HTML or XHTML specifications set out by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, found at http://w3.org).
CHAPTER 2 n HTML, CSS, AND JAVASCRIPT 14
QUIRKS MODE VS. STRICT MODE
This is tangentially related to writing valid HTML. When some browsers encounter invalid HTML, they??™re
thrown into Quirks mode, which is a special way to render pages and is designed to be more compatible with
older browsers.
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