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

Not Impressed

[AKAImBatman]

You can read his proposal in full over here: http://www.crockford.com/html/

Make sure you have about 2 minutes to spare. You're going to need about that long to read it from beginning to end. What you'll probably find is that he hasn't really solved any of the major issues plaguing HTML or even thought through many of the problems and use-cases that HTML 5 is trying to solve. In fact, his entire "design" can be summed up with the following sentence: "Let's get rid of HTML features that I believe cause problems."

Meanwhile, he still leaves the problems of consistent parsing, semantic meaning, multimedia presentation, and a whole host of other issues unaddressed. Which means that his "design" fails to compete with the intended purpose of HTML 5 at even the most basic level.

I have the highest respect for Mr. Crockford, but my opinion is that he should study the reasons behind HTML 5 a bit more carefully, as well as solicit a bit more feedback from the community before attempting to push a non-solution to their problems. Best of luck to him. :-)

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

[AKAImBatman]

Seeing as you seem to be involved with the HTML 5 proposal

If you count arguing on the mailing list a few times and coming up with a new Canvas adapter (still WIP) for IE, then I suppose. :-)

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.

Reading that FAQ entry in its entirety helps clarify the issue; at least for me. The WHATWG is being pragmatic about how long it will take them to both get a 100% complete standard (it has continued to evolve, even after being submitted to the W3C) and get everyone on board with it. People don't realize quite how long it took to get the variations of CSS, DOM, and HTML4 standardized and implemented. They've been available for over a decade, but we're only reaping the benefits of these standards now.

That being said, the W3C does expect parts of the specification to be implemented sooner rather than later:

The details are still being worked out, but the plan is to indicate the maturity level on a per-section basis. Sections like the Link Types, which is relatively simple, isn't going to take long to become interoperably implemented. In fact, Mozilla is already implementing the new autodiscovery features for Firefox 3.0, and it shouldn't take long for places like Technorati, Bloglines, etc. to implement follow.

In result, it really doesn't matter when the HTML 5 standard is fully realized. We will be (and already are) reaping the benefits of it long before it's 100% complete.

Of course, they did get it submitted to the W3C ahead of schedule. And the W3C is taking it more seriously than originally expected. So don't be surprised if they're ahead of schedule on completion. ;-)

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

Re:Kinder? Gentler?

[F1re]

No way! Those are aerodynamic and make the html travel faster through the pipes!!