We’ve all heard it many times before: “This website has valid CSS and HTML“. My response? Who cares if it’s valid or not?!
The issue
Too many times people confuse having invalid code with having a broken or sub par website. This simply is not true. The W3C markup validation service should only be used to make sure nothing was missed or overlooked. However, if you have INTENTIONALLY used code that doesn’t validate (i.e. currently all CSS3 techniques), your site will not validate. This is fine. You should only be concerned if it doesn’t validate for reasons such as missed closing tags, misspelling of tag names, etc.
Why does this bother me?
100% of the sites I make DO NOT validate… on purpose! There are so many amazing tools at our disposal today, such as CSS3 features like border radius, box shadow, and text shadow to name just a few. These features add so much to the look of a website that it’s almost a sin not to use them to some extent.
Conclusion
Don’t kill yourself if your site doesn’t validate. Just because CSS3 isn’t available on all major browsers (hence why it doesn’t validate) doesn’t mean we should be afraid of using it. As long as what we use “downgrades gracefully” (as they say), anything is fair game.