I think the reason that people today don't care about validation is that perfectly valid code can render differently in the three different rendering engines.
This is exactly true and the reason is that web standards aren't real standards by the textbook definition of the word, mainly because they lack what's called a "reference implementation".
I forget where I read it first but the overall gist is that in other fields, say industrial design, a standard typically isn't ratified as finished until the governing body creates an example for everyone else to refer to, the reference implementation, rather than just relying on the written descriptions of how the thing should work. For example, Firewire has a reference implementation that's certified by the IEEE and that hardware makers would refer to when building out the first versions of it. You could grab the example version, plug it in the way it's supposed to, test out the data that's flowing through it, measure what speeds its capable of, etc.
Since web standards don't have that reference implementation by the W3C, browser makers are left to their own devices to parse the insanely complicated technical language on their own. And it's only getting worse - the html5 spec is something like 10x the amount of writing as the last version of html. This is one of the biggest reasons why rendering engines have effectively stagnated in the last few years - things are "good enough" that they can wait around until the spec makes sense and there's working examples in the real world, and/or they are spending a gazillion hours trying to figure out what the new specs actually mean.
This is the problem with functional specs that 37signals rails against when they say that "Functional specs only lead to an illusion of agreement":
This is a super sad state of affairs, and not just in the theoretical sense of how fast the pace of development could be for browser makers today if things were more streamlined, it's also a huge hindrance for developers in the trenches like me. I haven't thought about this for years but I used to relish reading the CSS spec and exploring new ways of pushing my work forward. Trying to read the W3C docs now is like speed reading pig latin - you know there's some cool stuff in there but it hurts your head just to even try hunting for it.
This is exactly true and the reason is that web standards aren't real standards by the textbook definition of the word, mainly because they lack what's called a "reference implementation".
I forget where I read it first but the overall gist is that in other fields, say industrial design, a standard typically isn't ratified as finished until the governing body creates an example for everyone else to refer to, the reference implementation, rather than just relying on the written descriptions of how the thing should work. For example, Firewire has a reference implementation that's certified by the IEEE and that hardware makers would refer to when building out the first versions of it. You could grab the example version, plug it in the way it's supposed to, test out the data that's flowing through it, measure what speeds its capable of, etc.
Since web standards don't have that reference implementation by the W3C, browser makers are left to their own devices to parse the insanely complicated technical language on their own. And it's only getting worse - the html5 spec is something like 10x the amount of writing as the last version of html. This is one of the biggest reasons why rendering engines have effectively stagnated in the last few years - things are "good enough" that they can wait around until the spec makes sense and there's working examples in the real world, and/or they are spending a gazillion hours trying to figure out what the new specs actually mean.
This is the problem with functional specs that 37signals rails against when they say that "Functional specs only lead to an illusion of agreement":
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch11_Theres_Nothing_Functio...
This is a super sad state of affairs, and not just in the theoretical sense of how fast the pace of development could be for browser makers today if things were more streamlined, it's also a huge hindrance for developers in the trenches like me. I haven't thought about this for years but I used to relish reading the CSS spec and exploring new ways of pushing my work forward. Trying to read the W3C docs now is like speed reading pig latin - you know there's some cool stuff in there but it hurts your head just to even try hunting for it.