I definitely see your point, and, in most aspects, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yes, it's frustrating, that support for standards is not yet where we would like it to be. Yes, it's ironic, that sometimes it takes a hack to make things work as they are supposed to, and it's just infuriating, that nobody, but a little group of enthusiasts, seems to realize the importance of standard-based web design.
Yes, they are enthusiasts, may be hobbyists, purists, sometimes even called zealots and diehards, but look at what they actually do: they create, and explore, take things apart, and put them back together, share their ideas and experience, and feed on each other techniques, tricks, and hacks. All that for what? For the sake of the obscure idea of making the web a better place. And guess what? It's happening, may be, slower, than desired, but it's happening.
There will always be web designers, whose tool of choice is FrontPage. There will always be graphic artists, who don't know, how to draw a human figure.
They are not important, regardless of how successful or productive they are. They do not set the bar. These enthusiasts do.
People will go to their sites to challenge, entertain, or puzzle themselves; often - to steal ideas, scripts, and hacks.
And this is how the web evolves; and not only web - everything works in a very similar way in our world.
Where would the whole huge pop music world, if they would not be able to feed on the strange, exotic and disturbingly weird legacy of avant-garde jazz, alternative rock, folk, and neoclassical experiments of the beginning of the last century? Chances are, nowhere.
Those are the rules of evolution...
Yes, they are enthusiasts, may be hobbyists, purists, sometimes even called zealots and diehards, but look at what they actually do: they create, and explore, take things apart, and put them back together, share their ideas and experience, and feed on each other techniques, tricks, and hacks. All that for what? For the sake of the obscure idea of making the web a better place. And guess what? It's happening, may be, slower, than desired, but it's happening.
There will always be web designers, whose tool of choice is FrontPage. There will always be graphic artists, who don't know, how to draw a human figure.
They are not important, regardless of how successful or productive they are. They do not set the bar. These enthusiasts do.
People will go to their sites to challenge, entertain, or puzzle themselves; often - to steal ideas, scripts, and hacks.
And this is how the web evolves; and not only web - everything works in a very similar way in our world.
Where would the whole huge pop music world, if they would not be able to feed on the strange, exotic and disturbingly weird legacy of avant-garde jazz, alternative rock, folk, and neoclassical experiments of the beginning of the last century? Chances are, nowhere.
Those are the rules of evolution...