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New ALA article—Evangelizing Outside the Box: Web Standards and Large Companies

While writing my Changes entry I re-discovered the fact that I seem to be one of the very few well-known standardistas whose natural habitat is the world of large website creation companies instead of the freelance/small business/institutions world that powers most of the standards movement.

I noticed this fact immediately when I entered the standards-aware web world back in 1998. I vaguely worried about it back then, but I was so caught up in my day job and my extensive publications that I didn't do anything about it. When I went freelance in 2002 I submerged myself in the mainstream of the standards movement, I forgot about this problem.

In recent weeks, however, I spoke to a lot of lead front-end programmers who work for large companies, and I quickly re-discovered my roots, as well as the fact that they differ from the roots of the average standardista. I was also able to pinpoint the problem more accurately.

I feel there is a rift between large website creation companies and the standards movement, and a week ago I decided to write a more detailed entry about this problem. When the first draft was ready it was clear that it had become a new major article and was more suited to A List Apart than to QuirksBlog.

Therefore I submitted it, and after a brief editing round it was accepted and published as Evangelizing Outside the Box: Web Standards and Large Companies. Enjoy!