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HTML5 Splits Into Two Standards
mikejuk writes "Until now the two standards bodies working on HTML5 (WHATWG and W3C) have cooperated. An announcement by WHATWG makes it clear that this is no longer true. WHATWG is going to work on a living standard for HTML which will continue to evolve as more technologies are added. W3C is going the traditional and much more time consuming route of creating a traditional standard which WHATWG refers to as a 'snapshot' of their living standard. Of course now being free of W3C's slower methods WHATWG can accelerate the pace of introducing new technologies to HTML5. Whatever happens, the future has just become more complicated — now you have to ask yourself 'Which HTML5?'"
There's so many to choose from.
So when browsers claim to be fully HTML5 compliant, will that even have any meaning anymore?
"Living standard"? Perpetually unfinished with no accountability for stability, is more like it. Didn't Google patent that?
What a monumentally bad idea ...
The one supported by by Webkit and Gecko?
and I wanted to moderate this story down for its appalling failure to call W3C "W3C" two times out of three.
"Living standard" is kind of an oxymoron. The whole point of having a standard is so that authors have something to target, and developers know what is necessary to be standards compliant. A constantly evolving standard creates a moving target, which I believe is actually counter-productive.
The whole world should slow down. Stick with a stable standard for a while. And relax.
... was likely wrong. I saw "WHATWG" and what "who the heck is that?" - I figured the W3C version would really be the only one anybody would care about.
Turns out I was just ignorant regarding WHATWG.
Now I know that WHATWG is, in part, driven by Apple, and its head is now working for Google. That means WebKit will probably follow the WHATWG version, which in turn means the web interface on the vast majority of mobile devices will follow that standard. And that's not even considering Mozilla, who's also part of the WHATWG group.
Really the only major player not involved is Microsoft - but they've been a follower rather than a leader for the past several years, at least when it comes to web standards.
#DeleteChrome
W3C slowed down because Microsoft refused to play along for so long and they are part of the committee. With the about face of IE 9/10 that problem should go away as all browsers rapidly race towards incorporating CSS 3 and HTML 5 features first including simply proposals that are not even draft yet!
I favor cutting off HTML 5 proposals now to finalize it faster. THen put the newer features in webkit and Gecko in HMTL 6. If people are getting giddy about HTML 6 accelerated SVG and ajax stuff it will put pressure to retire IE 8. It will be perceived as very obsolete much quicker and non compliant otherwise the corps wont leave which will mean CSS 2.1 and HTML 4 until 2019.
That thing is a thorn in our side and it will become the new IE 6 of this decade because it comes with Windows 7.
Also doing this will prevent Chrome from becoming the next non standard browser as well.
http://saveie6.com/
A snapshot of a broken, inconsistent "standard" is not an improvement. Scrap it all and start over with a sane person in charge.
I will stick with XHTML 1.0, because XHTML2 was sacrificed to appease the loonies, until a reasonable successor is devised.
A standard is a standard. It is not a moving target. That is its whole point.
Other things that are mandatory for a standard:
- simple (or as simple as possible)
- clear
- easy to implement
I think this just killed HTML5, because now it will become a complex monster that basically is never ever compatible with anything. Funny how history repeats itelf because people are too stupid to learn its lessons.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And with HTML 5 it is bad enough already. The standard is so amazingly complex that none of the browsers seem to have the same idea of how to support it. Things that will work in one don't in another, or they work less well and so on.
My favourite example is the HTML 5 Angry Birds game. In Chrome, it's "recommended browser" (something that shouldn't ever be necessary) it runs fast, and full featured, but Chrome seems to 'asplode on it randomly. Firefox is stable with it, but no sound/music, just visuals. IE is stable and has sound, but runs a bit slower than the others, it can't maintain 60 fps. This is even given that they've done work to make it work on all platforms.
So how about let's fuck off with new HTML standards until we have non-fucked up 5 implementations in at least most of the browsers. Then maybe we can worry about something new.
This was mentioned over a year ago that this was happening? (January 2011 ! )
http://blog.whatwg.org/html-is-the-new-html5
Domination through improvement? BTW, the WHATWG is run by people from Mozilla, Apple, and Opera.
"Today we have phones like my Andriod as well as IPhones that give a much better browsing experience than my desktop?!"
Are you having a laugh? The browsing "experience" on a smartphone doesn't come anywhere close the what I have on my dual 22 inch desktop monitors. If you seriously think that can be replicated on some rinky dink 3 inch screen then you must have problems with your eyesight..
"On my computer it flickers unless I use IE 9"
Then your computer is a piece of junk. Go and buy one built in the 21st century.
"Why should the best experiences be only for phone based applets?"
Errm , you do realise that applets are programs, not web pages?
Amaya can't possibly be a reference for HTML5, it only supports XHTML 1.1 or tharabouts.
"HTML5" is a marketing buzzword, just like "Web 2.0". HTML 5 is a loose coupling of emergent technologies which is in a constant state of flux as new shiny stuff is added by the competing browsers (Internet Explorer is not one of these). 'Twas ever thus that new things appeared hoping to be part of the standard - either by saturation or by conscious decision - before the standard is declared. This is nothing new.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
I agree with you, but that is not what everyone seems to want. They all talk about local storage, and web cam access and this that and the other thing that they get access to from the OS.
To me, it just seems like they want the browser to be an application, not just a way to display information. This is just going to create a number of new viruses as we give the web more and more access to our actual OSs.
This is just stupid, and a terrible idea.
Fun fact: modern graphics cards don't support pre-emptive multitasking. This is why Bitcoin miners have a setting which controls how long the app holds the card before yielding. Set it too high and your desktop basically hangs. Now imagine every web "designer" out there being able to do the same thing.
Also... why would web apps need 3D? Very few desktop apps have any use for 3D. Almost all applications deal with things that simply don't map to spatial relationships at all, much less to 3D space specifically. Add the increased resource consumption per page (which makes it harder to do heavy multi-tab browsing) and harder navigation (because 45 degree field of view to 3D space is simply inferior to a flat page that scrolls down in almost all situations), and I for one hope that 3D stays out of HTML for years to come.
But, even in the case that someone could come up with a compelling case for 3D, why would the web pages need direct access to the underlaying API when even game developers use middleware engines nowadays?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
This should have been the method from the beginning.
I'm sick of you people moaning that a "moving standard" is backwards.
You should be detecting working features before you even use the damn things in the first place. It is standard practice to prevent any damn errors from happening.
Anyone against this is showing their true colors as a developer. (and I don't even do it all the time myself! So, yes, I am a hypocrite at times!)
Every browser is different. It is the fault of the W3C and their terrible system of MUSTs and MAYs or whatever the hell they use now.
They weren't strict enough and now that has left us with every single browser working differently with CSS rules for JavaScript, it has given us HORRIBLE input management, it has given us quite inconsistent DOMs across every browser at the lowest levels, and many others.
Don't even mention library or your monitor will become a fist.
Libraries to cover up W3Cs mistakes should never have been tolerated! EVER!
So don't even dare sit there and say "we need solid standards!", I don't think there is a single browser out there that is 100% complete and actually accurate with every standard. Not even Opera.
WHATWG are giving people who actually give a damn about web development what we want.
W3C are old farts sitting on their rocking chair listening to a radio and shouting out the window at the kids.
They are the ones who use the scroll bar to scroll things instead of using a scrollwheel.
They are the ones who take about half a century to read the damn start menu.
Everybody already doesn't care about the limited crap setup by W3C. Well, those of any worth.
W3C ruined the web tech front. Absolutely ruined it.
They can keep their limited crap. No other industry in computing does this. It is either feature versions or a free-for-all. HTML, JS and even CSS are improperly labeled in one group all the time.
Speaking of that, where are the CSS versions? Why is nobody complaining at that? Eh? Where are your words now?
CSS already is this. It is literally a cascading standard, to use its own name. Its use, the use of attributes, they grow and die as the web evolves.
This works well, there are no problems with this. (except IE as always)
So why the complaints now? You can't select your CSS version. I don't think any browser even supports selecting JS versions anymore since nobody cares about it.
Why does a bloody markup language have to be any different? Why do features that have pretty much no relation to each other have to be slapped in with each other under some global header as "HTML5"?
You mean WebGL that has been stable for a year and a half? Turn in your geek badge please! :) OpenGL r0x0r!
A trivial Google search would have found the information before you posted (sorry to point this out, but damn, I had to revert mod points to make this post).
Have a look at WebGL. 3D on the web using OpenGL has been possible for a year and a half.
In Soviet Russia, here's you.
In HTML23 you'll have tags for elective genital origami or macrame! Oh, the unadulterated power!
How can one misspell W3C twice in so few words?
God, root, what is difference ?
And this will sink them into irrelevancy; they're not much more than an obstacle these days. I'm sure there'll be some warts (cf. "blink") but overall it's to see things get done without the icann of the web standards world.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I remember seeing VRML on an SGI box back in, ... so bloody far back I can't even remember when it was. When VRML was "the future of the internet".
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
On a side note - with both Google and Mozilla involved, I'm worried they'll start an "HTML rapid release" program. It may be HTML5 today; but in six weeks they'll be on HTLM6, then HTML7... we'll be at HTML20 by the end of the year.
#DeleteChrome
Ian Hickson is the editor of both docs (he's actually the editor of the main HTML standard, the WHATWG one; the draft hosted by the W3C is really nothing more that an old and incomplete copy that nobody among browser vendors takes seriously).
He explained very clearly the past and current situation: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2012Jul/0119.html
And, yes, the WHATWG has done an excellent job so far, bringing much needed features to the web and creating an era of faster and more interoperable browsers. If they had just waited for the W3C we would still be stuck with HTML 4.01, IE6, Flash and other plugins.
Also this is not a new development, HTML (from WHATWG) has started gradually leaving the HTML5 (from W3C) behind a long time ago. Where the two differ, all major browsers (including IE) either already follow HTML or plan to. See this post from more than a year ago: http://blog.whatwg.org/html-is-the-new-html5
When people talk about HTML5 features in browsers and websites, they actually refer to the HTML standard. The HTML5 "working draft" on the W3C website doesn't even support the old 2D canvas API, which is implemented by all browsers!
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Sory to post this here, but it seems that SLASHCODE'S CSS HAS CHANGED IN A WAY THAT IT NO LONGER OBEYS CHROMIUM'S MAGNIFICATION COMMAND.
I am sight impaired and CANNOT READ unles with high magnification.
Please fix this!
You should probably email feedback at slashdot.org (see the footer of this page) instead of posting this in a random thread; maybe they can fix it for you.
WHATWG split off from the W3C work because they couldn't organize additions and clarifications to the HTML 4 spec under the W3C. It is mostly a group of browser-makers (everyone except Microsoft).
The W3C then asked if they could standardize the WHATWG's work as HTML5
What happened a year ago (and is just being put on slashdot today?) was that the WHATWG announced that they weren't going to stop producing additional work. The version under the W3C would eventually be released as version 5.0, but WHATWG would effectively be the HEAD/master version of work on extending HTML.
Which HTML5 is an easy question to answer - there will only be one HTML5. People will put pressure on the browser manufacturers to support the W3C's standardization of HTML as version 5.0. But browser manufacturers will also continue to cram new crap and functionality in ahead of W3C standardization, and attempt to define interoperability of that under the flag "HTML" in WHATWG, a "specification" that grows as the members gain consensus on how new functionality should work (or in some cases, how to advertise the functionality is not offered).
In reality, this is how HTML has _always_ operated.
I don't understand why people think this is such a bad idea. This is the similar to any source tree having a "development branch" and a "stable branch". WHATWG will be responsible for evolving the fast-paced devlopment branch of HTML while W3C will take occasional snapshots and stabilize the features of the development branch into "full standards". I assume that most of the complaints here are related to either bad marketing - WHATWG should just start calling their version HTML6 or "future HTML" or something - or the fact that these bodies (especially the W3C) move slowly and we are in the middle of a new stable branch getting pulled.
By the way, HTML5 isn't, according to the W3C a standard yet. The current HTML standard is 4.0.1. HTML5 is planned to be a "full standard" in 2014. In that time, WHATWG will introduce dozens of new major features into what will probably be called either HTML6 or HTML5.1 when the W3C gets around to pulling another snapshot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML#Version_history_of_the_standard
In soviet Russia, the standard chooses you!
In soviet Russia, the standard forks you!
What part of `yes no` don't you understand?
Agree. "Living standards" reflect the reality of the software industry much more accurately, as long as they stay backwardly compatible with previous generations of the standard the I don't see the problem. If you need to break backward compatibility* then you need to fork the standard. Snapshot standards are ok for technologies that have more or less stopped evolving.
* - Backward compatibility is what users need, forward compatibiliy is what users want, and they will get it when the first software dev gets his hands on a time machine.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yeah, VRML was much ballyhooed. I think the situation may have changed somewhat these days though. For one, consumer devices almost always have devices capable of supporting OpenGL/OpenGL ES (all computers do, even those with integrated graphics; all smartphones do since OpenGL ES is the graphics library for those devices; even the PS/3 can. The exception is the Xbox 360 that has the hardware, but I'm not sure about libraries [someone might be able to confirm whether there is an OpenGL ES library for the Xbox 360]). The other thing is that bandwidth is much higher these days. So sending the mesh, shaders and textures for a scene is much easier. Complex 3D (eg big games and flight simulators) probably will always be run outside web browsers though.
Part of the reason we've had a good level of interop on the web in the last ten years is because HTML4 didn't evolve. We need to do the same with HTML5, have a document that can remain unchanged for ten years at least, so that the web as a whole can sync up to the same document.
A web app should have direct access to an OpenGL.
No it shouldn't. I don't want to go to a web site and have all sorts of flying 3D shite on my screen. Flash is bad enough in this department.
HTML5 can play audio (usually poorly) but there is no API for recording it.
No there shouldn't be. I don't want to go to a web site and worry if it is recording me or not. Hello FBI, CIA, NSA, Facebook, Google, etc. - sod you with a stiff wire brush.
There should be a way to interface with cameras, etc.
No there shouldn't. I don't want to go to a web site and have the fumbducktards at the other end spying on me - see above.
He would... if he could see where he was..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's how the human mind & language work... Just sayin'.
A few years back, it looked like XHTML was the future. The basic idea of XHTML is "the syntax has to be right". XHTML parsers are not required to parse anything that isn't valid XML. HTML5 parsers have explicitly defined semantics for common errors in HTML, like malformed comments. With XHTML, there was no question what the tree representation of the document was.
But people wanted the freedom to copy and paste broken ad code into HTML documents, so we ended up with HTML5. Personally, I'd like to have strict XHTML and require that everything be UTF-8. It's time to retire that "upper code page" crap.
YES! Non-text media should be handled by the system's media software. I would LOVE it if youtube would just have a link that I can click on that opens in VLC, your website's contact page would have a link that I click on that opens in Google Earth or Marble. The only exception I can think of would be images as *thumbnails* only. I'm sick and tired of being trapped in my browser shitty excuse for a video player (be it flash or HTML5) when I have a VERY capable fully-featured video player with frame-by-frame playback, rewind, subtitle support and tracking controls.
PLEASE take everything media related OUT of my browser. Text, links, thumbnails and CSS for basic layout management is ALL we really need. In fact, I'd like to go even 1 step further and take layout management away from webmasters as well. Why should THEY get to decide how the menus work and the site navigation is layed out. This is one of the reasons why RSS readers are so nice, every website's feed uses the EXACT same interface and you NEVER have to try to figure out where they hid the menu or the contact page.
Webmasters should compile the data into a basic heirarchy of XML with some predefined fields for contact information, navigation menus and search features. Leave the layout management to the user because THEY know what they want, you don't.
The web browser interoperability in the last few years (after IE6) is a product of the WHATWG standard, that started in 2004 (it wasn't called HTML back then). Just an example: HTML 4.01 doesn't specify a way to parse HTML that actually works and doesn't specify at all how to handle errors. The result is that every browser had a slightly different and incompatible parsing algorithm. Let me make this clear: no browser ever implemented HTML 4.01. Not a single one of them. Because HTML 4.01 was extremely buggy and unmaintained. It caused the IE6 era. The HTML5 draft on W3C is less buggy but still severely incomplete, stopping making major changes just means that all browsers vendors are completely ignoring the HTML5 from W3C and going instead for the HTML standard that's actively maintained and updated.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()