Site validation tool swamped by demand
Published: 15 Aug 2005 18:20 BST
Users of the W3C Markup Validation Service, also known as the HTML Validator, have complained that the web-based tool has virtually ground to a halt after an upgrade last week. Version 0.7.0 was made live on 8 August, and since then the validator mailing list has seen numerous reports of pages taking many minutes to process.
The new version of the validator supports a wider range of document types, has an improved user interface and fixes some bugs in the system. It also needs more processing power, and this has been the cause of the problems seen over the past seven days.
In a message to the mailing list, Olivier Thereaux of the W3C said that everything possible was being done to restore the performance of the Validator, but that users should be patient. "We have been working very intensively around the clock to improve the situation," he said.
A new version of the software with better performance is being developed, but in the mean time Thereaux asked users to help with the problem by running batch submission scripts at quiet times, and to make sure scripts leave a delay between successive requests. He also advised heavy users of the service to consider installing it on their own servers. As well as the online version hosted by the W3C, the Validator software is available for download.
The Validator is used by Web developers to ensure that the HTML they produce follows the standards exactly. It's an open source project, maintained by a team of volunteer developers, and was last updated in July 2004. Version 0.7.0 had been in beta for around a month before release. Some other markup validation services are available on the web, but the W3C service is the most popular, and held by many to be the most accurate.
Many authoring tools don't produce standard HTML by default, and some are incapable of doing so. Using non-standard HTML means pages are less likely to render consistently across different platforms, browsers and even different versions of the same browser, since the HTML standards don't define behaviour for non-conforming markup.
Did you find this article useful?
58 out of 94 people found this useful
Digg
Slashdot
Del.ici.ous
Stumble
Reddit
