First Jason came out with these thoughts on the need to remember that standards compliance and semantical usefulness are not one and the same. Then both Dave and Doug shimed in with their own opinion concerning the original post.
Doug in particular makes the interesting point that yes they are different but by learning standards if you’re paying attention you will end up generating better semantic content by default, I tend to agree but I also think the difference has to be kept in mind when explaining the two to various people, always better to have everything in order when trying to convert/convince someone just so you dont bundle too many things together and “get caught cheating”.
One more thing, I think this is a good example of blogs being used as discussions. Jason posted at 11h42 on the east coast and by 11h42 on the west coast (3 hours) two thoughtful replies were already online and starting a good conversation from a good post.