Ian Hickson (emphasis added):
Someone whom I can’t identify publicly, since he posted only on one of the secret W3C member lists, contributed to the following thread […]
Net result: the latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public […]
Secret W3C member lists? Anonymous holds? What is this, the Senate?
Some might say this is Adobe’s fault.
Bullshit: what possible purpose could secret lists and anonymous holds offer except to allow — no, to condone — this behavior. The process allows this kind of action; I blame the process.
YT, about a year ago:
[I]t’s become obvious to me that the W3C is increasingly irrelevant. Though I think the W3C has done wonders for the web development community, these days I simply don’t think about the W3C in my daily work. Nor do any of the web professionals I know.
[…]
The W3C is off in lalaland building this supposed next generation of web standards, and we’re told to just wait until these specs are finished. […] And because these new standards are so pie-in-the-sky, browsers themselves are getting less standardized.
A year ago, I was hoping to be proven wrong. Today, I know I was right.
W3C, I owe you my career. Your work made the web a better place. I can’t possible express the depth of my gratitude.
Today, though, you’re irrelevant. I just don’t care anymore. I’m done with validation, done with changing doctypes every year to follow the latest fads, done with trying to keep track of which parts of CSS3 and HTML5 I can actually use.
To hell with web standards.
Comments:
Hear, hear.
And then the W3C said, "Let them eat cake..." All we can do is target the features (aka standards) that are consistent across multiple browsers. The rest is a wash.
Absolutely agree. WE (developers, designers) must change the scenario.
Yep, if they produce nothing then they are indeed irrelevant.
However we do want to be able to develop for a consistent environment, so we need some convening authority to tell the browser developers what that consistent environment is.
It would be nice if we had some progress on the next generation, and I'm not holding my breath waiting either anymore, but I'd hate to see the bad 'ol days back again with so much variation between the browsers it was next to impossible to develop a single version.
It's my fault. A few years ago I wished for a return to the browser wars just to break the stagnation. I got my wish.
I agree though. I still make some attempt to more-or-less validate, just out of pride and because it makes debugging a bit easier, but beyond that, I just don't care. I'll use whatever is common enough to be used and let them figure it out later.
Which really, is how the W3C once worked, when it did work: browser vendors tried to outdo one another with killer features, and then the W3C codified what was already out in the wild.
Now, everyone on the ground wants a pony and everyone at the ranch wants to circle the wagons.
Ugh I hate watching the drama around HTML5 unfold.
I hear you man. Recently I can't help but entertain an idea that has always been more of a facetious threat than a viable possibility... What if we just design for the up-to-date browsers, and then run emulators to show the content on the rest of the browsers. If the market doesn't kill crappy browsers by itself, could it be possible to just give those users a cheap "remote desktop sharing" style pixel-map flash video / mouse event listener? Yeah I know, I can't see this actually being an acceptable solution. But it's worth throwing in the brainstorm pool.
Uhm... you sort of need web standards, otherwise a company like Google, or Adobe will do whatever they want and put you out of business. Jmo...
I can't agree with you more. Just have you site work on as much browser as possible.
As grammar came after natural language, don't let the standard get in the way of innovation!
It's Friday, you may have had a long week, I get it, but that doesn't excuse complete ignorance for how far web standards & browser compliance has come in the past 10 years.
We actually have Microsoft, Adobe, Mozilla, Google, Apple, and more all *talking*. Even if some of it is in secret, that's huge. Even if they can't agree on everything and HTML5 is technically never finished, that hasn't stopped browsers from starting to implement it.
100% standards compliance rarely happens whether in a web browser, office suite, or compiler. And that's ok. That doesn't mean the standards are worthless or damaging. It means the real world is always messier than any standards body could ever guess, but the standards produce an excellent baseline.
Standards are always going to suck, but they're almost always going to be better than not having standards at all.
I understand general frustration with the W3C - I had similar problems around the XML process. In this case, though, it seems like the W3C is actually doing the right thing, if belatedly.
Specs aren't ever supposed to be one-editor shows. Nor are browser vendors supposed to be in charge of the standards process. That's the whole reason there is a process.
I'm still excited about HTML5, but I really hope that the W3C can bring the conversation back into line. Otherwise the WHATWG folks will wander off into their own strange irrelevance.
Amen, Mr. Schurter.
Bureaucracy is by definition slow-moving, difficult to change and often unresponsive. The beauty of it is that you are very rarely completely subjected to it (government employees, aside).
To my thinking, what the W3C has done with respect to HTML5 and CSS3 was backward from the beginning. They do not innovate, they adopt best practices from true innovators. And that is what is going on now. The standarizers have an opportunity to see how people use the HTML5/CSS3 in the real world. It's ugly, but it is how we iterate.
To pretend that there has not always been a fring-majority-follower relationship in all things computers (and potentially everything human) is perilous to your health and your productivity. Try your best to adhere to standards. But we are not building houses here. Break the building code when you disagree and your website visitors will probably not mind, so long as you document where you departed from spec.
Unlike a house, no one's life is on the line when you rewire your RESTful urls...
Just last Friday I read Mark Pilgrim's "A Quite Biased History of HTML5" (http://diveintohtml5.org/pa...). I think it's interesting (read: sad) that some of history's mistakes might possibly be repeated.
At the end of the day, though, you're right; Working software trumps standards.
Babies, bathwater, etc.
We need standards, just not the W3C. The IETF has a much more open process. Anyone can participate, it doesn't take an expensive membership. By and large they don't try to invent whole new technologies on their own. They don't declare anything a standard until it has at least two independent implementations. They're run by hackers, not big companies, and consequently their specs are a lot simpler. Big companies like complicated specs because they're the only ones who can implement them.
Long ago I looked into joining the W3C as an individual. I discovered that one of their webpages said their memberships weren't really designed for individuals. If they don't want me, heck with 'em.
Let's go anarchy, gently caress the government.
The title is a bit misleading here. We still need web standards. If the W3C can't provide them, it'll be necessary (and easy) to resurrect WHATWG.
Amen brother.
It's about time people realized the companies building out and supporting the browsers are the one's who are setting the standards, not the W3C.
What good are standards if NONE or SOME of the browsers adhere to them? As a developer it would be nice to see the day when you can code something and not have to worry about a hundred different glitches in 10 different browsers. If there were actual standards, these problems wouldn't exist.
R.I.P. W3C
1994-2007
"It was a good run."
2 years ago I joined W3 in hopes of making the web better. Turned out, it was another pseudo business/government/immensely bureaucratic shop where lots of people are supposed to write sheet piles of nonsense so that their supervisor gets a chance to pad his resume, while major decisions are made outside of the frame.
There was no sensible dialogue. There was no creative work. It was like Wikipedia. I left it 1 year and 11 months ago.
W3, if you go sort of Second Triumvirate on web standards, there is no need to invite mere mortals. Solve your standards quietly behind the curtains and let us know when you are done.
Isn't it a bit early to throw away 10 years of work after a couple of days of arguing amongst the W3C crowd? The objections are available here: http://ajaxian.com/archives...
Ah yes, let's throw out all government and procedure, benevolent dictatorship is where it's at.
If you look at what's happening in detail, to me it seems that you completely fell for a well placed political manipulation by Google and the WHATWG.
For example, you can believe the evil "Adobe" put a hold on the process. Or you can look at Larry Masinter's web page (http://larry.masinter.net/) and realize this isn't some corporate shill trying to defend Flash's honor. This is someone who has a long history building the open web.
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