W3C Considering An HTML 5

An anonymous reader writes "When the decision was initially made to move in the direction of XHTML, instead of a new version of HTML proper, it seemed like a good idea. Years later and the widespread adoption of CSS (among other things) has proven that things don't always develop the way we expect. As a result, HTML 5 has been revived by the W3C. After some lobbying and continued work by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, the old web markup language is getting an official face-lift. A post to the Webforefront blog explains the history behind the initial decision to move to XHTML, and why things are so different in the here and now."

Comments

Absolutely right

[jimicus]

Because what the world really needs right now is another version of a web standard which has had hardly any full, correct implementations in any version that's ever existed.

Or are the W3C just trying to justify their existence?

Re:Absolutely right

[WED Fan]

Actually HTML5 is largely a result of work by the main browser makers, except Microsoft I believe. Hixie from Opera is the project lead of the WhatWG which was created to extend HTML to make it more applicable for web applications. It fixes a lot of the problems with both HTML 4 and XHTML, and its backwards compatible with *both*.

Excuse me, but it must be pointed out.

When you start talking standards and you gather a group of browser/client makers to discuss new standards, you really do need to have the giant on the block represented. Otherwise, you get a set of standards that run the real possibility of being ignored, or worse, supplanted by the giant's idea.

When the combined numbers of the "others" don't even come close to trumping the giant's numbers, you are heading to failure. In this case MS, like it or not, is the giant. The easiest way to stop this crazy, "IE only partially implements html x.0/css x.1/xhtml x.x" crap is to involve them.

Of course, this is just crazy talk, right. Oh heavens, we might actually run into the problem of MS taking over the standard. You know what, when you have a formation marching down the street, and 70% are on one heel beat, and the other 30% are out of step with the 70% and aren't even in step with themselves, its the 30% that need to get with the beat.

Failure to accept this is only going to widen the gulf, unless MS, through largesse or coincidence follows the new standard.

Re:Absolutely right

[Excors]

If no browser accepts it, the developer will have to fix it or get fired.

More likely, the developer will stop using technology that makes their life harder, and will stick with invalid HTML4 and Flash and Silverlight and all the other possibilities, which defeats the aim of improving interoperability on the web.

Also, browsers have bugs. What happens when a user tests in one browser which accidentally accepts their invalid code, without noticing that other browsers don't? (Possible answer: other browsers will have to start accepting that invalid code too, else their users will stop using that browser and start using the one that can actually display the web. And since the specification would only say how to handle valid code, the other browsers will have to reverse-engineer each other to get mostly-compatible behaviour for invalid code, which results in a mess of incompatibilities - that is what has happened for HTML4, and is what HTML5 is trying to fix by defining how all invalid content must be handled in a way that is sufficiently compatible with the existing behaviour (and existing bugs) of browsers.)

Also, most content is generated dynamically, so you can't simply test the page before you upload it. Server-side code has bugs, and draconian error handling does not make things easy to fix.

Re:Absolutely right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very troubled by the implication that HTML5 will focus on the assumption that people will code poorly and the proper solution is to provide better failure modes for browsers. This is more likely to have the effect of lowering the standard than improving it as humans will simply take the easy road.

I would plead for a higher standard that would require strict compliance to well-formed rules that would lead to better overall web governance, security, and standards that benefit the authors and readers. I'm really fed up with not being able to use my favorite browser for everything because the code is broken on one browser brand or version, or because one browser vendor simply wants to make their own rules.

Let's do this generation of standards right. Make the coders comply with strict, well-formed rules or make them pay the price.

Re:Absolutely right

[CoughDropAddict]

Imagine if C++ compilers could take the same liberties that web browsers could with the input!

Imagine if web browsers were anal retentive and refused to display anything with the slightest syntax error. Imagine if your blog suddenly became undisplayable because commenter number 32 input some broken HTML, and your not-quite-perfect blog software didn't quite know how to launder it. Imagine that the slightest syntax error from Google Analytics, Google AdWords, or anything else you embed into your site could make your site completely unavailable.

I know it's not satisfying, but being permissive on the web really is the best policy, as long as the results of the permissiveness are well-defined (which is what HTML5 does).

Re:Absolutely right

[Allador]

Did you read the proposal, or anything around WHAT-WG's HTML5?

It's actually incredibly sensible, and is a very practical and natural extension of what we're doing with HTML now.

It has very little to do with browser bugs, or even web sites per-se. It's more about adding features to more naturally support web 'apps'.

Read up on it, it actually makes a lot of sense.

I just hope it can make some progress, but given that it was started by Mozilla, Apple and Opera, the people making the best browsers out there, it may actually have a chance of being supported.

Regress is the New Standard for Progress

[ronadams]

TFA makes several great points about how this seeming sentiment of "we'll stick with the HTML we know and love" is more an unwillingness to change than it is to update a standard. The whole idea of XHTML was to provide a segueway into an altogether new way of distributing content. This really seems a regression more than anything. What does XHTML fail to deliver that would cause WC3 to shy away from the previously hardline (and appropriate, IMHO) stance of "this is the new HTML, get used to it"?

Re:Regress is the New Standard for Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Ill tell you why web developers do not adopt XHTML, its not because of reluctance to change, its because XHTML OFFERS NO BENEFITS TO HTML 4.

Why would anyone in their right mind spend time updating from HTML 4 to XHTML 1.1 when there is no visible benefit and a LOT of pain.

HTML 5 FINALLY introduces features that web developers NEED. Things like native client side validation, canvas and menu elements. These are things that we have been crying out for years but W3C disappeared up their own self-validating a**es. If they had introduced these features into XHTML then I am sure it would have been adopted by browsers and developers alike.

The lack of support from a certain vendor would not have mattered because they would have been pressurized into supporting the standard by the >10% share of browsers that would support it.

P.S. Posting in good 'ol plain text :)