14 July 06
Set in a 1960s lecture theatre – complete with uncomfortable chairs – Britain’s first Web Standards Group meeting tonight was a surprising success.
Walking up the shaky stairs up to the second floor lecture theatre at north London’s City University was similar to stepping into a time machine. Mahogany coloured pews with seats that could numb a bum in at most five seconds. I was half-expecting a lecturer in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches to walk in to begin a mathematical biology lesson.
Luckily I got there before most meaning that I could get a place with a good view, considering I was anticipating the room to be full of devotees sitting tight for the start.
Whilst the room was filling, I got the stench. The smell of geek, like someone who still had not heard of Lynx Africa. The smell of sitting in front of a computer for far far too long. Once I got familarised with it, I patiently waited for the start.
Before the event, I was forecasting (to myself) that I wouldn’t enjoy this. I thought it might turn into a dull standards sermon with devoted standardistas nodding in agreement.
Thankfully Andy Budd’s talk was not preaching to the already converted. His talk ‘Who cares about standards?’ was thought-provoking and interesting once the slightly waffling introduction was out of the way.
I was once in the same room as Andy for a seminar in which he asked question after question, so I was presumed he would be arrogant and almost aggressive for this talk. He soon changed my opinion. He came across as calm, intelligent and was a very good speaker with an interesting topic to discuss.
The second speech was by Christian Heilmann whose name didn’t initially ring any bells until I had seen what sites he’d produced. Physically, he looked like an unusual cross between a lion, Chris Evans and someone who would sit at the front of a Computer Science lecture.
His talk ‘Maintainable JavaScript’ seemed to already talk to the believers, but it was done in such an entertaining and almost-comedic way that it didn’t matter that most of the room already knew what he was lecturing on. This guy is the teaching profession’s loss.
After my initial hesistations, I had an enjoyable night. I just wish I had some company so I could have gone to the after-event drinks without looking like a total loser. I certainly hope there is more, and larger, meetings in the future – there was certainly scope for having three speakers.
The bar now has been set.
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Hey Rik, glad you liked it! A shame you didn’t come to the “pub”, as despite being too noisy and full of scantily dressed ladies and young men trying to impress them it was a rather good place to chat some more. And you wouldn’t have looked bad as – amazingly enough – hardly anybody knew each other.
If you are based in London, check out the pubstandards meetings, too: http://www.pubstandards.co.uk/
@Andy: Yeah, it was the Joe Clark seminar, I think it was maybe because I was quite tired that day, meaning I was overly grumpy and got a bad impression of everyone that day. I wouldn’t worry about it though! It’s me being stroppy rather than you giving a bad impression!
@Chris: Damn! Knew I missed out on some sexy ladies! I’ll try and drag some people along next time too. Pub Standards looks veeeeery interesting too (and yes, I am in London, in fact I walked home in ten minutes last night!)
I have to say, as much as I like and respect Andy, I found his talk quite disheartening. I’d normally write-up seminar notes to add to our internal work blog , but if I convey Andy’s message to my colleagues next week, it will be like holding a red rag to a bull. “Yahooooo! We didn’t give a toss in the first place – it’s all too time-consumig – and our clients just want useful apps and pretty things, and we only tried to meet standards because You told us too!”.
At my company, at least, the standards battle is not won one. When you’re under pressure to get a job out, developers WILL cut corners if they think they can get away with it. For this reason, and until the wheat really is sorted from the chaff, me and the 3 pals I attended the meet on Friday with, will battle on, cracking that standards whip next week and the week after that and the week after that …
And hey – the smell of geek was not coming from my area – I was part of a merry group of girls and we ALL smelt of roses. ;-)
I have to say I agree with Andy on this. Web standards aren’t ‘proper’ standards – there’s no line where sites become standard complient, it’s all quite relative. More of an art than an exact science. Of course there is the validator, but as Andy said, will an unencoded ampersand really matter?
There’s always going to people not as interested in web standards as we are, so the only way to make people follow our example is by setting a good example rather than forcing it on them. But as with any art (which is what web standards are), there’s always going to be bad developers and good ones.
The typical web standards site to non-standards people are boring government/accessible sites. Rather than worrying, let’s make some ‘cool’ looking sites that use standards. People would rather dissect nice looking sites and would be more like to follow our lead.
Rik, my comments above were referring to standards in terms of professionalism rather than in terms of the validator. However, that said, having a couple of days to think – and listening back to the Podcast – I do see where you and Andy are coming from now. I think my initial shock at the presentation being entitled “Who cares about web standards” made me temporarily delirious on Friday. ;-)
Comment by Andy Budd on 15 July 2006, 00:38
Hey Rik,
Glad you enjoyed the talk, despite the initial waffling :-) However I’m intrigued about the seminar we were apparently both in. The only thing I can think of is Joe Clark’s workshop, where I guess I may have asked a few too many questions, but only because I was interested in what he had to say, and you don’t often get the chance to grill Joe for information.
btw, really liked your .net article. Great work.