In creating my personal website, I'm looking to incorporate many of the amazing new features introduced with HTML5 and CSS3 and really try to embrace these new technologies and put them to use in whatever way I can.
Note that I'm not trying to particularly sell myself with this website, it's more of a personal project and exploration.
I'll be trying to master the art of creating a fluid, responsive, accessible design while closely following the standards from w3.org. That's one level of 'properness' I'd like to maintain in my adventures.
Unfortunately, as many people know, even the most modern browsers are not completely up to date with the standards.
Considering my intentions with this website, should I even bother with compatibility, or just run directly off the w3.org standards (since eventually the major browsers will have to catch up)?
The way I see it, I'm trying to indulge in the newer and soon future technologies available to us. Dealing with compatibility is the complete opposite - having to get frustrated and hack your way around the past.
Should I even consider compatibility for this website? Would you?
If you want to get a job in the web industry, your personal site should support what your potential employer would expect it to support. If you want to get a job in any industry based on your personal website, you should support whatever browser they use at work.
Otherwise, yeah, just support the "modern" ones. But, at the very least, figure out which ones work and which ones don't and display a nice little message on the ones that don't. Bonus points if you just redirect to a text-only thing that at least lets unsupported browsers access important content.