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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."
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*.
Actually, it was originally from Apple Safari. Apple invented it for their desktop widget thingys. Opera and Mozilla have both embraced it with open arms.
I agree. I absolutely love this feature! Unfortunately, it's only implemented by Firefox at the moment. I was hoping that it would show up in Safari 3.0 so that richer iPhone applications could be written, but it was not to be. The feature request is still sitting out there with no assigned implementer. I'm tempted to dive into Webkit and maybe see if I can add it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I have suggested this before and always got shouted down for it... but as a web developer, I really wish they had simply implemented tags like 'date', which the browser would automatically know about as a date field and have its own built-in popup calendar for browsing dates, rather than having to either rely on plain text, lame dropdown menus, or else implementing yet another date popup javascript library (or including yet another javascript library which slows down the user experience even more).
There are so many things that could be included in the html language if it weren't for the purists - dates, columns, real collapsable tree controls, counters, AJAXified controls that work without all the crap you have to do today to detect browsers... but no, the purists say "you can do it in this (incredible convoluted) css" or "you can implement this in javascript" (cue long convoluted "obvious" solution).
Geeks are notorious for generalising and making everything nice and orthogonal, but they often forget that sometimes it's worth having something that makes life easier 90% of the time, even if it's technically possible to reduce it to a set of other constructs that already exist.
Remember lisp, nobody uses it for real-world programming even though it's incredibly powerful. No, we use other languages that have lots of useless and redundant and inflexible syntax that makes the act of everyday programming easier and more straightforward most of the time. Are these inferior languages as powerful, expressive and all-encompassing as lisp? No. Are they easier for 99% of mere mortals to comprehend and use? Yes. If we had tags for controls that reflected the more dynamic nature of the Web today, even if many of those tags could be implemented in javascript, it would make pages smaller and faster 90% of the time (you could still implement it yourself if you really needed additional functionality).
But, as usual, the purists are in control. We're not supposed to use tables for arranging pages; no, we have to use CSS to do that. So now we have a bunch of pages that don't render properly. But do they admit that it was a bad idea? No, it's the browsers' faults for crappy implementations. I don't get it, this religious mindset that says "You must do it one way, our way is the only way". "The TABLE tag is for tabular data only, don't use it for arranging the page". What crap. The table tag is amazingly useful, it works in all browsers, and no I don't mind in the least typing TR and TD everywhere. It's simple and it works. Yes, it's more verbose perhaps than the CSS version but at least it works in all browsers and doesn't end up with overlapping crappy text all over the place.
Yes there is, the browsers would be checking to ensure it's valid. If no browser accepts it, the developer will have to fix it or get fired.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.