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

A clean slate again

[athloi]

This is progress, because it's based more on reality than on the usual spacy navel-gazing that defines our standards.

After Mosaic faded out, Netscape was the dominant browser, but around 1997 it fell behind in implementing new features. Because it was more stable (!) and did allow for newer features that weren't in the "official HTML playbook" but were demanded by consumers, Microsoft IE took over as the dominant browser. This was not least of all because those of us earning a living making web pages needed to implement these new features demanded by our customers, and Netscape tried to thwart us, being every bit as controlling as Microsoft is reputed to be. They would not implement necessary innovations in layout and media presentation, and their browser was flaky, so everyone and their dog shifted to IE.

IE took over and "ad hoc" implemented what it could and what corporate politics allowed. It was far from perfect but it was better than any other option. Some years later, after IE had gained dominance, a small team brought us Firefox. This new browser tried to rewrite history by claiming it was the guardian of the "one true standard," the Word of the W3C, et al. It seems deliberately designed to ignore the changes in the world of designing web pages brought about by six years of IE dominance.

The result is a cross-browser coding disaster, and as a web developer of 15 years' experience, I blame Firefox more than IE. Both sides have their own model, and IE can't change, because it must uphold its backward compatibility. Firefox, on the other hand, is a completely incompatible standard that reflects W3C standards written after IE gained market dominance, in some cases. It is needlessly combative and in my view, destructive to those who make pages and the consumer. (Opera, on the other hand, has a saner view: it views IE 5-6 as a de facto standard and adapts, a striking maturity the FireFox developers should find intriguing).

HTML 5 is a chance for both sides to fix their sites on something productive. We can for once develop the standard before the browser, and make it work cross-platform, saving web developers years of frustrating and most of all BORING xbrowser code fixes. Also, we can finally admit to each other that while CSS is neat, the original HTML model made more sense for developers and is still more stable than CSS.

That's my statement, and I'm sticking by it, after being a Gopher administrator, FTP publisher, early Web site creator/server admin and independently employed Website creator for fifteen years.

Re:hmm.

[quanticle]

Words are cheap. If you look at IE 7 you'll see that its not much more standards compliant than IE 6. In fact, it could be argued that its even less standards compliant, because it breaks with the de facto IE 6 standard.