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4/1/2004 4:51:00 PM
Yes, the W3C makes "recommendations." Since these recommendations are based on the work of "several hundred dedicated researchers and engineers working for Member organizations, from the W3C Team (led by Tim Berners-Lee, the Web's inventor), and from the entire Web community" I would consider them extremely important in planning the direction of a website. What impresses me the most about the W3C recommendations is that they were designed to build on each other by taking into account current Web technologies and at the same time they plan for the future. So far I am happy with the results of the W3C's work because of this foresight.
I have NOT found that the result of coding to W3C standards has been an "exercise in futility". In fact, most of the browsers are becoming more standards compliant and so they do display my pages more consistently. No, things are not perfect yet, but that is why I look forward to the future of web design when designing to standards is out of its infancy. And when that happens, my standards compliant sites will be ready because they will not become obsolete as the web evolves