justifying a code upgrade

[urfriend]

I was wondering if any web programmers here have had to justify spending company time upgrading code to w3c standards.

I've been trying to spend more time upgrading my old html code to xhtml, or at least html4.01. But I am not too sure how to respond when someone looks at me and says, "we paid you for eight hours today, and all you did was convert some tables into divs?"

I get the feeling that they want tangible results. Has anyone else handled this awkward conversation? I find that many people who aren't programmers don't care too much about standardization. All they want are new features, new graphical updates... It's hard to explain the importance to them.

How would you explain to an end user the importance of spending company time converting to css, table-less designs, xhtml standards...? Especially if the end users doesn't see the difference?

[Marshall]

On point would be mobile devices. Generally, table-less layouts are more frinedly to hand helds/smaller sreens because it is easier to configure multiple style sheets. Then again, that would depend if your site is one people would commonly use a mobile device for. Just my humble opinion.

Marshall

[buckworks]

Explain that whatever time you spend on this now will pay off in easier maintenance later. It's an investment in future-proofing.

Try calculating the value of the bandwidth saved if your tweaks make the pages leaner.

[mylungsarempty]

You could try equating it to the way you don't see the guts of a tv, just the casing and what's on the screen... you could tell them that you're extending the life of the appliance by modernizing the internal components... it never hurts to blame it on the guy who held your position in the company before you either! :X i'm just kidding!

My advice to you is to select a few pages a day and work on them... set aside an hour a day maybe ... and then, in a reasonable period of time, you'll have completed your task while also generating visible results for your superiors.

It is a good idea to keep your supervisor up to date on what you are working on, too, and explaining in ADVANCE, "hey, it might look like i'm not getting anything done to a user of the website, but what i'm working on is the internal mechanisms of the operation of the website, and bringing it 'up to code' so it will be easier to maintain in the future, saving the company time and money down the line"

I always go to my supervisor at the end of the day and give a real brief rundown of what i'll be spending the next day doing, which is a relief to supervisors because that's less work for them to do. It shows self-sufficiency and initiative taking on your part.

Good luck!