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How would this Web Forms be different from the already-standardized, but not implemented by Mozilla or Opera, XForms? (Note: not the GUI toolkit for X by the same name.) After all, the W3C page says XForms is "the next generation of Web Forms"...

The "Web Forms" name is so generic that Googling it is basically useless.

Garg

HTML, CSS, then PHP.

This path provides the immediate gratification and a doorway to wizardry if she chooses to pursue it.

• in my experience the most difficult concept involved is that of "files"; make sure she has a good understanding of what a text file is, and has a good text editor
• I like w3.org and w3schools.com as starting points; lots less to unlearn that way
• start with the most recent version of the HTML standard; the industry will not be going backwards with this stuff
• Avoid javascript; some ECMA scripting might be useful, but javascript is too platform dependant (bad habits)

I wish that this article was hysterical. It is dead on. There is no value to having the best standards based browser when the content you want or need requires IE. Let us not be so slashnocentric here.

Want to know what the biggest threat to Linux in the schools is? It is the administrators who purchase web-based software to address the NCLB mandate or other school tasks. With increasing frequency these applications require some hook that Windows provides. It is presumably innocent enough. The product meets the school's needs - The price is right. ~"Yes it does require IE, but we all use IE so no big deal." In Hawaii we witness this decision being made even while many schools still use Macs with an unsupported and underdeveloped version of IE.

We have put nearly 200 computers into schools and non-profits here. We are running into a lot of these applications in ourk12ltsp labs. A concerted effort has been made to let the vendors know that multi-platform support can result in more sales. We are letting the DOE administration know that standards compliance is of utmost importance to our schools. It is a difficult thing to communicate. The Americans with Disabilities Act may be our friend. It is in trenches like this that OSS will win or die in the marketplace.

It is not hysterical to be alarmed that the most attractive feature of any computer's OS (to the *average* user), it's browser/web access, stands to be limited by the content providers. We can rest assure that the future of China and other developing nations will not be based on using such "standards." This was most recently confirmed at the IIPI conference in Hawaii If you find a commerce site that is not W3C compliant, remind them of the potential market loss. The decision to develop these browser limiting applications are not always intentional.

Note that the original WorldWideWeb browser and all early clones displayed multimedia in separate windows. It was Mosaic's (and later Netscape's) ability to display images and other multimedia inline that led to the rise of the Internet. Inline interpretation of sound, video, and other applets are just a generalization of that idea.

The web is much more than HTML these days

Today, the web is HTML and images. Tomorrow, standars like SMIL, SVG and X3D might take multimedia to the web.

Flash is focused on presentation, not on content nor navigation, it cannot replace HTML, and it's breaking navigation, usability and accesibility.

Flash must complement HTML like JPG/GIF did.

The web is much more than HTML these days

Today, the web is HTML and images. Tomorrow, standars like SMIL, SVG and X3D might take multimedia to the web.

Flash is focused on presentation, not on content nor navigation, it cannot replace HTML, and it's breaking navigation, usability and accesibility.

Flash must complement HTML like JPG/GIF did.

You know, there is an actual standards body for the web: the W3C. That's where the real standards come from.

There are lots of ways even the world's most popular site can produce skewed statistics. It's always interesting to note that Google is far from being valid HTML. This can cause smaller, lighter browsers to choke, as anyone who has ever tried to write an HTML parser knows. The hard part is working around silly bugs in peoples' web pages. If all sites used valid HTML, the browser landscape could be far more diverse.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG viewer cannot even render the examples from the W3 specification pages correctly. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Second, two more points.

1. The W3C has revised this policy
2. While this technology uses W3Cs XML, the patent has to do with XML use within DNS combined with SMTP, and neither is a W3C controlled standard.

I use Safari for developing, and I'm not sure what to do about the missing unicode character. I just looked through the SVG recommendation, but I can't find anything about character entity references like in HTML. I suppose I could create an alpha using alternate glyphs. I'll have to think it over. That was one of my disappointments when I started using my Mac for SVG.

I haven't ever used an SVG build of Mozilla, but Adobe's SVG viewer slows Firefox to a crawl on OS X. (I have a G3 with 128 MB RAM.) Safari is still quick when viewing SVG, so I use it instead.

I use Safari for developing, and I'm not sure what to do about the missing unicode character. I just looked through the SVG recommendation, but I can't find anything about character entity references like in HTML. I suppose I could create an alpha using alternate glyphs. I'll have to think it over. That was one of my disappointments when I started using my Mac for SVG.

I haven't ever used an SVG build of Mozilla, but Adobe's SVG viewer slows Firefox to a crawl on OS X. (I have a G3 with 128 MB RAM.) Safari is still quick when viewing SVG, so I use it instead.

Yeah, I've noticed that problem. I bought a 12" iBook a few months ago and started doing my animations on it. That was one of the first things I noticed.

There are big inconsistencies between the different versions of Adobe's SVG viewer. Version 3 for win32 doesn't support the end-marker attribute that I use for making arrowheads, but version 3 for Mac does. Version 6 (win32 only) is the only one that didn't crash Mozilla Firebird.

Before I got my Mac I was using win32 for development, and version 6 supports a lot of CSS tricks that version 3 doesn't. Most importantly, I made a common defs.svg file for all of the patterns, gradients, filters etc that I reused on every animation. Version 6 allows you to reference definitions in a separate file (ex: filter:defs.svg#shadow), but version 3 won't let you do that. When I saw that my CSS tricks were failing on the Mac, I had to include the definitions in each file individually.

Yes, I'm hard-coding in a text editor. My favorite one to use is SciTE, but there's not a version for Mac. I've been using jEdit on Mac. I always have the SVG Recommendation open in a browser tab.

> XML, AFAIK, was never intended to be human-writable.

According to its specification, some of its design goals were to be "human-legible and reasonably clear" and "easy to create".

• prefer non-IE web browsers
• prefer non-Intel computers
• use operating systems even less mainstream than Linux
• use a low-graphics environment like a text console or a PDA
• object on principle to installation of proprietary software
• object on principle to violation of W3C standards
• block certain media types that are used primarily for advertising

The link you gave is bad. There is a DNS lookup failure. Maybe you meant to link here instead.

... being the tech-avantgarde community it says it is, doesn't upgrade to modern standards, I don't know how can I expect other people to do it.

Check Slashdot's HTML code. It's been said before, and I think it's important to underline it again. Why is Slashdot's HTML code not modernized?

I may be wrong, but I think it shouldn't be so difficult to CSS-ize the code. I'm sure it would be leaner, more elegant and it would save a lot of bandwith to the ./'s servers too. It would also transform gracefully.

To the article poster: I'm sorry, did you just mention how IE is tied with the release of Longhorn, and therefore there won't be any innovation in CSS, XHTML, or any other web standard?

May I remind you that IE does not adhere to CSS or XHTML specifications. You also make it sound as if Internet Explorer defines web standards. Wrong again. The World Wide Web Consortium defines XHTML, CSS, SVG, and many more. W3C is the leader of web innovation and standards production (yes I know that makes me sound like a W3C fanatic).

There is still work going on to further web standards. SVG 1.2 is coming along and, according to Dean Jackson here at WWW2004, a working draft for XBL should be forthcoming (after being separated out from SVG 1.2).

Another interesting thing is the upcoming workshop on web applications and compound document which will be addressing the issues of mixed namespace documents and also the things needed for the development of sophisticated web applications using SVG, XHTML, etc.

There is still work going on to further web standards. SVG 1.2 is coming along and, according to Dean Jackson here at WWW2004, a working draft for XBL should be forthcoming (after being separated out from SVG 1.2).

Another interesting thing is the upcoming workshop on web applications and compound document which will be addressing the issues of mixed namespace documents and also the things needed for the development of sophisticated web applications using SVG, XHTML, etc.

There is still work going on to further web standards. SVG 1.2 is coming along and, according to Dean Jackson here at WWW2004, a working draft for XBL should be forthcoming (after being separated out from SVG 1.2).

Another interesting thing is the upcoming workshop on web applications and compound document which will be addressing the issues of mixed namespace documents and also the things needed for the development of sophisticated web applications using SVG, XHTML, etc.

There is still work going on to further web standards. SVG 1.2 is coming along and, according to Dean Jackson here at WWW2004, a working draft for XBL should be forthcoming (after being separated out from SVG 1.2).

Another interesting thing is the upcoming workshop on web applications and compound document which will be addressing the issues of mixed namespace documents and also the things needed for the development of sophisticated web applications using SVG, XHTML, etc.

Ian Hickson: About ten years from now, the de facto Web application standard will be Microsoft's Avalon and the .NET framework. (See Microsoft's position paper if you doubt that this is what Microsoft has planned for us.)

*shivers

Part of the problem, though, is that the "web standards" movement isn't just about improving things; it's also about abandoning things.

I don't think this is entirely true. You can still validate HTML 2.0 using the W3C validator. Any page that validates to that standard is web compliant--the push is for web developers to identify what standard they've used (even if it is old) and to use it properly. IE doesn't give a flying rip of you implement Standards properly.

.xxx is once again one of the new TLDs being considered by ICANN, but everybody with a brain knows it won't work. Among other things, you'll never get a world-wide definition of "XXX content", let alone a world-wide law for keeping XXX content in a .xxx TLD. (The nations of the world still can't agree on the what's a "good war" and what's a "bad war"; there's no way they'll agree on the difference between "good nudity" and "bad nudity".)

In fact, the TimBL paper we're supposed to be talking about includes a link to one explanation of why .xxx won't work as advertised. There's also RFC 3675.

If you look at the recently closed public comment period on .xxx, you'll notice a frightening progression: .xxx supporters say ".xxx will protect children." Saner people point out how it won't. Lusers respond with increasinly draconian suggestions for regulating the Internet, like blocking all connections between the United States and countries that don't abide by U.S. laws about adult content.

Support for .xxx is support for Internet censorship. Please don't encourage those people.

Or should we just play it safe due to the likelyhood of potential legal wranglings with large commercial interests and start calling it The Symantec Web before the boys in charge decide to open up a keg on your hippy ass!!! I'm sure El Capitan would be none too pleased, but hey! You certainly can't please everybody! These are the times we're living in!

Amazing how easy it is to feell like a gray haired grumpy old man at 35 when it comes to the web! eeehhh...when I was a kid, we had 4 KAAAAY of CORE MEMORY...1 MHz and NO SHOES! and we LIKED IT!!!

This is very interesting. I have read Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World by Bruce Schneier and now I am reading New Top Level Domains Considered Harmful by Timothy John Berners-Lee and the later seems to be quite interestingly related to the former. According to Berners-Lee, "The Internet is a net, and the WWW is a Web, but WWW and email use DNS which is a tree, which has a single root." But according to Schneier I also know that security product is a process layered like an onion which is a chain only as secure as the weakest link. Now, I am starting to wonder what would be the weakest link in the chain of onion layers which are the branches of a tree in the web of our network and how could it be related to the "single root" compromise universal vulnerability and if my conclusions are correct then securing the Interweb network is impossible.

It's that the standards are positively byzantine, and so complicated to implement that it's simply not worth the effort.

No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.

It's that the standards are positively byzantine, and so complicated to implement that it's simply not worth the effort.

No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.

It's that the standards are positively byzantine, and so complicated to implement that it's simply not worth the effort.

No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.

Actually, accroding to Bernes-Lee, a Bush had more to do with inventing the internet then Gore.

Why can't they make a simple HTML page that is standards compliant and not littered with mark-up errors? It's not like their search page is even remotely complex, either. I just can't understand why a company as big as Google, whose name is virtually synonymous with the web, can not be able or bothered to make a basic HTML page that is correct?

I feel for you.

RDF is a way to make webs of information. Think "web" as in "world wide web"- one thing points to another thing points to another thing, and it can all point back to the original thing. (In Computer Science, this is a "graph.")

OWL is a way to help computers reason over these graphs. You can give hints like, "If you hear people talking about POBOX's over in this one system, that's the same thing as people talking about PO-BOX's over in this other system. Note that OWL isn't AI technology; It's just an assistant to programmers working on making smarter programs.

As for all the jargon coming out of the W3C: Yes; It is a problem. I don't know if they are working on it or not, but I hope they are..!

The semantic web was discussed at some length in Weaving the Web - The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. I picked up that book for something like $5 at my university's bookstore in the discounted rack. That's one of the more interesting books I've read about computer history, and it got me thinking a lot about web standards. I have since learned CSS and XHTML and I've vowed to never go back to proprietary "HTML" hacks. The new way is better, anyway.

The semantic web doesn't make a lot of sense to people who were introduced to the web through commercial means in the mid-to-late 90's (which is most people). But it makes perfect sense in light of what Berners-Lee was originally trying to do with the web. It has gone a long way to degenerating into Just Another Way to Market Stuff to Millions of People®.

Two points were most interesting to me in Weaving the Web:

• The original web server and browser written by Berners-Lee was a read/write interface. The browser was an HTML editor, and you could edit pages that you viewed from the server. This makes absolutely no sense to us now, because we've been trained to think of the web as a publishing medium instead of a collaborative medium. The early popular browsers, most notably Mosaic, didn't support editing. This bothered Berners-Lee and he continually requested that they add this feature. He was still thinking of a collaborative web, moving in the direction of the semantic web. The Mosaic (and later Netscape) developers were thinking more about commercialization.
• Tim Berners-Lee at one time was suggesting to CERN (who owned the intellectual property rights to his browser and server, as well as the http protocol) that they relase it all under the GPL. His main goal was to "get it out there" so that more people could work on it, use it, and improve it. It was explained to him that businesses would be reluctant to develop web technologies because of the viral nature of the GPL, so it was released under a BSD-style license that CERN approved.

For those wondering what the Semantic Web is behind all the computer babble:

The Semantic Web Cereal Box analogy

Plain Talk.

Q. What does the acronym "OWL" stand for?

A. Actually, OWL is not a real acronym. The language started out as the "Web Ontology Language" but the Working Group disliked the acronym "WOL." We decided to call it OWL. The Working Group became more comfortable with this decision when one of the members pointed out the following justification for this decision from the noted ontologist A.A. Milne who, in his influential book "Winnie the Pooh" stated of the wise character OWL:

"He could spell his own name WOL, and he could spell Tuesday so that you knew it wasn't Wednesday..."

What about the subtle science of proper link naming? (With links like those in the article, the box of "related links" isn't really helpful...)

...low technical barriers to entry...

I had to laugh. Web services are so ludicrously complex that unless you use loads of existing (complex and platform-specific) software, the technical barriers to entry are remarkably high! I've implemented some web services stuff from scratch, and it's really not easy at all. The WSDL standard drags in many other standards.

Just for a laugh, I started to try to enumerate the standards referred to, directly and indirectly, from the WSDL. I ran out of time after getting two levels deep, but already the referred-to standards totalled 4.8MB (approx. 103000 lines)! And this is a "low technical barrier to entry"?!

This enormous complexity is simply not necessary to make a decent, general-purpose framework for program accessibility and interoperability. As an example, the Styx protocol is general purpose protocol that actually does considerably more than web services, but it is completely documented in under 42K (just over 1000 lines). It references only one other standard (UTF-8), (one that I didn't include in the above count for WSDL, even though it was referred to there). You can knock up a client or a server from scratch in a couple of days. It's light-weight enough that it can be implemented on tiny devices, such as the Lego brick.

Hence my initial question. What is it with all the web services stuff?

I'd be crying if I wasn't busy being sick.

• Ogg Theora + SMIL 2.0 support. Sure, there are other players out there that support Ogg Theora, and support SMIL 2.0, but I'm not aware of any that support both.
• Highly modular architecture that scales down to fit on cell phones and other portable devices. We post numbers for the Symbian build, but the Linux numbers aren't far off.
• Array of industry partnerships. Why does this matter? Because we're getting more commerical licensees all of the time, and even for commercial licensees, we're making sure that the work that they do gets contributed back into the codebase, even if they are a commercial licensee (see section 2.2) and are otherwise terrified of this whole open source thang.
• Platform support - we support Win32, MacOS, Linux, Symbian very well, and a range of other operating systems to the point that those third parties can make it work on their platforms.
• A stable company with lots of money in the bank and growing revenues. Our last earnings announcement has more on this.

Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks

Moreover, the Helix DNA Producer (also open source) has the sort of pipelining functionality you are talking about.

Rob Lanphier
Developer Support Manager
RealNetworks

Checked it in 7.23 and 7.5. It had problems in version 6. Given that the CTO of Opera Software invented CSS during his previous job at W3C it is also eminently possible that ESPN is not valid HTML/CSS. Opera been making more efforts with non-compliant pages recently and even support *both* the aberrations that are BLINK and MARQUEE.

Checked it in 7.23 and 7.5. It had problems in version 6. Given that the CTO of Opera Software invented CSS during his previous job at W3C it is also eminently possible that ESPN is not valid HTML/CSS. Opera been making more efforts with non-compliant pages recently and even support *both* the aberrations that are BLINK and MARQUEE.

I understand your point of view but by doing thas way, we'll run into troubles because the internet will become more and more a disgusting soup of ugly code and flash animations.

We are far away from the concept of Semantic Web!

> the project page has screen shots of os-x installing.
> http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html