• Wordpress produces XHTML
• Therefore, this site has a lot of XHTML in it that I can’t control (my php skills are not up to editing anything server-side)
• del.icio.us automatically posts my link entries as HTML (minus the eX)
• Therefore, this site also has a lot of HTML in it that I can’t control
• Some of the XHTML won’t validate as HTML and some of the HTML won;t validate as XHTML
• Therefore, my site doesn’t validate.

So, I guess my problem is

• How much does it matter?
• How much do I care?
• Can I do anything about it either way?

“Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight.”

That is to say, good architecture

1. must be strong and durable (firmness)
2. must fulfill a purpose (commodity)
3. must be beautiful (delight)

According to Vitruvius, any structure that does not meet these basic criteria isn’t architecture - it might be sculpture (if it is beautiful but not useful), it might be some form of utilitarian construction (if it is useful but not beautiful), it might be many other things, but it is not architecture.

Of course, in the past 2000 years many building styles and techniques have come and gone and what constitutes “architecture” may look very different, but these three principles stand regardless of the technology.

Web Design hasn’t been around as long as Architecture, and although the technology is moving fast, we often don’t have the critical distance for any kind of historical/theoretical analysis. But, in this case there’s no need to reinvent. Web Design can also make use of these three conditions.

Regardless of the technology that you use to deliver your websites, if it isn’t stable and future proof then it is lacking ‘firmness’. If a website fulfills no purpose then it is essentially just sculpture. And if your website doesn’t have some positive aesthetic qualities, perhaps, as in architecture, we should say that it is not Web Design.

I’ve kept quite a bit of the branding - the daisy and the shade of orange are the same, but I’ve gone for something much bolder and cleaner - mostly in the look-and-feel but I’ve tidied up ‘under-the-hood’ too.

I also finally got around to adding myself an hCard, which I’ve been meaning to do for at least a year.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure everything’s working the way it should, but if not shout out in the comments.

To all those people who wonder if the constant stream of other-people’s-consciousness is distracting, the answer is - not really, until it goes away.

I’ve become used to the notifier in the bottom corner of my screen popping up from time to time, but increasingly TwitterIM is down and I find I have to go and manually check if everyone is still around.

Anyone else find this?