Would it be worth...

[David Harrison]

Would it be worth the $59 (around £40 inc. exchanging the money) it costs to apply to take an exam for "The HTML Developer Certificate" which tests knowledge of HTML 4, XHTML 1 and CSS2.

The page can be found here (http://www.w3schools.com/cert/cert_html.asp). It recommends taking the various quizzes for the them first so I did and got these scores:

HTML - 20/20
XHTML - 18/20 (Two stupid mistakes)
CSS - 17/20 (No excuses here)

Total - 55/60 - 92%

So this makes me pretty certain that I'll pass, but would the certificate gained have any credibilty.
For instance I'm going to apply to some universities next year so if I say I've got this, would they care?

[Jeff Mott]

The creditability of the certificate depends wholly on the creditability of where it's from. For instance, I could sign a little piece of paper saying you're a Mott Certificated HTML Coder, but that really doesn't mean jack. In the case of W3Schools, they are not a part of any organization and are really just another WebDev tutorial site. If you want a certification with any kind of meaning I would see if the W3C offers one. It would be much more influential if the people who invented and wrote the specifications for these technologies affirm that you are qualified.

As for if universitieis would care, I really can't say. You could put it down just like any other award, but I'm not sure how much weight it would carry. My guess would be not much unless you are applying to an almost completely technical school.

[David Harrison]

I thought that W3Schools was part of the W3C.

[Khalid Ali]

Nope W3Schools is not related to W3C at all

Hey BTW the link you have for your webpage or something
http://www.geocities.com/prejudiced_against_everyone
..it has message on it that your page is shut down...was wondering if you are aware of that..

[David Harrison]

Yeah I know, I shut it down due to severe lack of interest. If you're that desperate you can type in /index2.html to view it. I left it there in case I wanted to put it back up, but I don't think I ever will.
To tell you the truth it's a bit of a lost cause.

I'll put up a new link to another (even worse) site that I made for someone, but at least it's still there.

[fla5hba5h]

The test wasn't that hard.
My results:
HTML: 20/20
CSS: 17/20
I didn't take the XHTML test because I don't know XHTML.
Total (w/XHTML factored in) 37/60
Total (w/out XHTML factored in) 37/40

[David Harrison]

Thie thing about XHTML is that it isn't much different to HTML, it's just that all attribute values must be in quotation marks (which I do any way), and all tags must be closed, even images and br's:

<br />
<img src="xxx.jpg" />

That's about it.

[fla5hba5h]

Originally posted by lavalamp
Thie thing about XHTML is that it isn't much different to HTML, it's just that all attribute values must be in quotation marks (which I do any way), and all tags must be closed, even images and br's:

<br />
<img src="xxx.jpg" />

That's about it.
You mean it's more strict?

If I'm understanding you correctly, you have to do this?

<p />Hi my name is blah and I would like to blah. Here's some links:</p>
<p />blah.com<br />stuff.com</br><br />haha.com</br>

[David Harrison]

No, not like that. What I mean is that any elements that aren't closed (img, br, embed, li etc.) have to be closed, whereas all of the others are just like normal HTML.

eg.

<p>

Some Content<br />

<!-- Comments don't need to be closed -->

<a href="xxx.html">
<img src="xxx.jpg" />
</a>

</p>

<p>

A List<br /><br />

<ul>
<li />Something
<li />Something Else
</ul>

</p>

Oh and everything has to be closed in the right order so:

<b><i>Content</b></i>

should be:

<b><i>Content</i></b>


Take a look at the link in my sig., don't be put off by the content, it's valid XHTML 1.1 and valid CSS 2 (except for all of that geocities crap).

[Jeff Mott]

<li />Something
<li />Something ElseActually LI is not an empty element.<li>Something</li>
<li>Something Else</li>

[David Harrison]

Oh yeah, sorry about that, I just checked the page (caulolli (http://www.geocities.com/caulolli)) and I put <li></li> on there. It must have just slipped my mind when I wrote that post.:(:o

[fla5hba5h]

Oh okay. Thanks. I only got 15/20. Something about transitionals that I didn't understand and other stuff.

[Robert Wellock]

It's not really worth the paper and the XHTML W3Schools Quiz was inaccurate with a question relating to XHTML replacing HTML.

You'd be better off doing a City and Guilds on Web Design since you live in the UK, if you want an easy piece of paper what UK employers and Universities understand.

[David Harrison]

Don't think of it as only 15/20, think of it as 75% which is pretty good.

And Robert, what is this City and Guilds of which you speak, do they have a web-site? :) :) :)

Edit:

Transitional is one of the three different types of (X)HTML, the others are Strict and Frameset.

* With Frameset, almost everything is valid code (within reason).

* With Transitional, everything except frameset (for use with frames), is allowed, this means that iframes are still valid.

* With Strict all of your code must be virtually perfect, and you are not allowed to use any depreciated tags such as:
<center>
<iframe>
<u>
<font>

also you're not supposed to use depreciated attributes either:
target=""
border=""
bgcolor=""

[Robert Wellock]

http://www.city-and-guilds.com/

Most FE Colleges run City and Guilds evening courses within the UK; ask your careers service about such courses.

[David Harrison]

Thanks for the info, but I'll have to wait until I go back to school before I can ask my careers advisor.