It's sometimes sort of boggling about how much the changes in how I code and develop sites have changed my outlook on an entire industry. I find myself feeling indifferent to sites, no matter how good looking, that don't validate correctly, or are written in time consuming, bandwidth wasting HTML. I'm not speaking to HTML in general, I'm talking about sites that have broken code, and write what seems to work in one browser, but may not work in another. This attitude and outlook has come from the new web standards literature I'm reading, and the daily sites I view.
As Patrick points out in his latest post even programs that I used to use all the time, like Frontpage or Internet Explorer have now been trashed in my mind, their only use is to occupy needed space on my computer. Instead of these programs, I now rely on Mozilla Firebird for all my internet browsing needs, and use the latest version of Macromedia Studio for web development and coding, as their support for web standards set out by the WC3.
My entire view of the development of websites has changed, even when it comes to my decision on what school I wanted to attend for my new career choice, it had to teach web standards, and thats what Red River is going to be doing. I don't think there is any way to ignore this 'movement' any further, as it makes too much logical sense to ignore it. Sometimes, when some friends I know who develop sites show me their 'latest' design, I really just want the first thing I ask is, 'does it validate in XHTML?' Maybe I'm a XHTML-elite now, who can't accept any other option, but really, is there another?