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Building according to web standards: What is meant by web standards?
The term 'web standards' is the collection of W3C guidelines for the publication of web documents. With regard to web standards, this manual restricts itself to HTML, XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript, DOM and XML.
What is W3C?
The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is an international consortium devoted to the favourable development of the Web. W3C was founded in 1994 and headed by the founder of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee. By now, more than 450 organisations are affiliated to W3C: MicroSoft, Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, Sun Microsystems and many others in the area of software and hardware, information technology, academic research and telecommunications.
W3C develops open specifications (de facto standards) that increase the compatibility of web-related products. These open specifications (or guidelines) are drawn up by work groups consisting of members of W3C, in cooperation with external experts. W3C working parties achieve consensus among companies and other organisations involved in the development of and for the Web.
It takes a considerable time before a proposal (working draft) achieves the status of a recommendation. During this period, a great many amendments will generally be made to the original proposal. For this reason, it is not advisable to see a W3C working draft as a (de facto) standard, even if browsers already support some of the proposals on an experimental basis.
