Is It Time for a 'Kinder, Gentler HTML'?

jg21 writes "Via the Web 2.0 Journal, a worthy link to Yahoo! Architect and JSON inventor Douglas Crockford's latest ideas to fix HTML. He's categorically not a fan of HTML 5, which is still just an Editor's Draft and not endorsed by W3C yet. Crock puts forward ten ideas that in his view would provide extensibility without complexity, adding that the simplification of HTML he is proposing would reduce the cost of training of web developers and incorporates the best practices of AJAX development. From the article: 'The problems with HTML will not be solved by making it bigger and more complicated. I think instead we should generalize what it does well, while excising features that are problematic. HTML can be made into a general application delivery format without disrupting its original role as a document format.'"

Comments

XML has some benefits.

[ThinkingInBinary]

This sounds great, but I feel that by turning HTML into a more well-formed document (i.e., XML instead of SGML), the W3C did browser writers and developers a service. Please, let's not go back to the "guess if there's a closing tag" game. I don't mind the script, frame, module, CSS, encoding, and entity changes, but the custom tags/attributes and looser format limits (quoting, ending tags) seem bad.

Re:Not Impressed

[phoebusQ]

I think you may be mistaking a page of conceptual ideas for a complete design. Even if the submitted article tries to pass it off as such, these are just a set of proposals that Crockford has been discussing. This particular page is more of a list than anything; it does not contain his entire concept or justification. He does a great job of discussing some of these things in person.

Re:Not Impressed

[hansamurai]

Seeing as you seem to be involved with the HTML 5 proposal, could you explain this line from the FAQ to me:

When will HTML 5 be finished?
It is estimated that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later. This will be approximately 18-20 years of development, since beginning in mid-2004.

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML_5_be_finished.3F

That seems like a really long time for something like this to go through, even for something as massive as the web standard.

Why not just...

[itsdapead]

Without breaking Slashdot tradition and reading TFA, why not:

1. Freeze HTML at V4 and regard as a can of worms to be used for legacy purposes only;
2. freeze XHTML as a handy kludge that is parseable by XML tools while still rendering as HTML4 (and learn to love "tag soup" as long as it parses);
3. For new projects, dump the poorly-implemented legacy crap and use "pure" XML + a suitable stylesheet/formatting system.
4. Develop a diverse, extensible range of DTD/Schema + stylesheet "templates" tailored for various purposes (eBooks; blogs; news; reports etc..) but ensure that new browsers can work with any valid Schema/Stylesheet.

Re:Not Impressed

[Fozzyuw]

he hasn't really solved any of the major issues plaguing HTML

Actually, he's proposing MORE problems. Here's my take...

No more doctypes

Why? Adding a "version" attribute it just going to break compatibility. The "web" has enough problems with compatibility, lets not inject MORE. Doctypes work fine. Sure, it's long and doesn't appear to make much sense reading it, but... if it's not broke, don't 'fix' it.

There is only one scripting language allowed on a page. This is to simplify the addition of new languages to the browser. It also paves the way for replacing JavaScript with a secure programming language.

I'm sorry but the auther hasn't presented any compelling reason why this is a 'good idea'(tm) and I can think of several reasons this is a 'bad idea'(tm). Do have I have to mention active X, proprietary languages, and 'broken' sites because of it? Then the need for Web.Devs. job skills increase significantly and become much more cumbersome.

No more framesets, frames, or iframes. The security properties of these were problematic. Instead we'll have modules.

Hmmm... I don't like frames per say. I don't use them. Though, I don't see how modules are going to make things better or easier but more complex. A frame was simple. A window in a window. That's simple. If Developers abused them, it's the developers fault, not the language for having it. With "AJAX" and Flash video, I'm game to just remove frames all together.

The default CSS content needs to be standardized.

It already can be done and this is not the responsibility of HTML. This is as annoying as forcing ones religion on someone else. I'm not going to tell Microsoft they have to use Mozilla's default CSS. Or Apple to stop using their pretty buttons in Safari. Forget it. It's a non-issue. CSS RESET already exists, and developers need to just be educated. Design topics don't have a place in HTML.

The only character encoding permitted in HTML 5 is UTF-8

While I want to say "I agree with that" because that's what I do, I think, again, "only" is not the right choice. Can we predict the future? Will UTF-8 be suitable 'forever'? Funny, computers original "only" supported latin characters. That wasn't a good idea. "only" supporting UTF-8 is also a bad idea, but I would like to see it used a default.

Browsers should not perform heroics to try to make bad content displayable

I agree with this.

The tag form is allowed, but not required for
or .

I 100% disagree. Standards are standards. If we don't want browsers to "perform heroics" on correcting 'bad code' then lets not give people confusing "standards" of "it's ok to it like this... or like this... or this is 'ok' too!". No.
and . Tags are tags and they have a function. There are no "special" children. But I do think [script] needs empty tag support.

CSS can be used to style custom tags.

Agree.

mymenubar {display: div; width: 100%;}

What's wrong with "display:block"? If you want a [div] tag use one. If you want to make your own tag name, then don't try to make it a [div]. Div's are "block" elements. If you want a block element then "display:block".

Custom Attributes

I agree. But are we talking about HTML or JavaScript now? And why are you talking about JavaScript when you already said you don't want to support JavaScript? I'm confused as to your intentions.

That's It

Kudos for trying, but I think you missed the target.

Cheers,
Fozzy