Since scoble noticed who my employer is, it’s a good time to remind folks that this is my personal place where I’m not talking on behalf of my employer. I guess my point is that hailstorm as I understood it has zero to do with html generation. I’m reading his response to me over and over, and I’m wondering if scoble is mixing up asp.net and the .net framework with .net myservices/hailstorm. His arguments make a lot more sense if he is talking about asp.net and .net frameworks. In which case I’d say that ASP is pretty neutral platform in respect to web standards, and asp.net tends to encourage you to create better html in respect to web standards. As for the different microsoft sites, I actually couldn’t find a main microsoft web site with an .aspx in sight. Sorta sad really. While I’d like to see standards compliance through all the sites, I can understand why it doesn’t happen. Often it is expensive to get right, and it doesn’t have any tanagible rewards. Which do I prefer, a fast loading site that is full of functionality, and bug free, or one that will pass a validator? Does that mean that web standards aren’t important? No. I believe standards has made the web a lot better and more usable across browsers, and as a developer (I don’t do much web programming in my job) I like the idea of having a standard to code to.