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W3C Launches Technical Architecture Group

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the making-the-web-work-better dept.

jdaly writes " In an effort to build shared understanding of Web Architecture principles, W3C has chartered and assembled a Technical Architecture Group - the TAG for short. The TAG will document cross-technology Web architecture principles, and resolve architectural issues. The TAG will conduct its work on a public mailing list. Chair Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Cotton, Roy Fielding, David Orchard, Norman Walsh, and Stuart Williams join appointees Tim Bray, Dan Connolly, and Chris Lilley as the first TAG participants. Of note to Slashdot readers (perhaps): Neither Tim Bray nor Roy Fielding are connected with W3C Member organizations. Instead, they were chosen for their knowledge and achievements - as well as the importance they have in technical communities. Here is the general press release and the TAG homepage. "

4 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. It's good to see this by InterruptDescriptorT · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's good to see this simply because cross-Web architectures will no longer be left to companies like Microsoft, who will then try to push DCOM and other incompatible technologies on software companies and, ultimately, consumers. While you may like or dislike DCOM and similar technologies, these closed standards make interoperability difficult and the lack of an open steering group can only harm future developments in this area.

    Also, I'm heartened to see big names with good cred involved in the process. This is not a group of no-names we're talking about here; these are knowledgeable people with a solid background in the matter, and this can only be good for the future direction of these technologies.

    --
    Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
    1. Re:It's good to see this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Of course, in theory, DCOM was supposed to be an open standard based on dce-rpc. And, of course, given that MS controlled the only major implementation of that standard, it all went pear-shaped. I confidently predict the same will happen to the ECMA-standardised C# and .net bits + pieces.

      Which would you prefer? A de-facto standard with several independent proprietary and open source implementations (e.g. Java/J2EE), or an "official" standard with 1 (one) fully functional implementation? (e.g. C#/.net)

  2. Re:Serious question from semi newbie by RazzleFrog · · Score: 2, Informative

    It depends on what you are doing. If you are making a hobby site then go ahead and focus on IE. If you are building an e-commerce site you should make it work on as many browsers as possible (all the way back at least to 3.0's) and make it standards compliant for future compatibility.

    You should also realize that if you go on job interviews and say you can only write for IE you won't get very far. Some companies still use Netscape as their supported browser.

  3. TAG charter by dorchard · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seems to be a fair bit of misunderstanding about the TAG and it's charter. It's not going to make browsers implement the same version of xhtml, it's not going to stop innovation or solve world hunger. At least what it can do is actually document what the current web architecture is, maybe prevent messes like absolute/relative URI xml namespace names, arbitrate on overlaps between W3C working groups, and liase better with non-W3C working groups. Cheers, Dave Orchard