
Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others launch webplatform.org - feronull
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/08/apple-facebook-google-microsoft-and-others-join-forces-to-launch-new-web-standards-resource
======
kwamenum86
My favorite part is the tongue in cheek title for Tim Berner-Lee: "Web
Developer". That's an understatement (as well as a perfectly accurate one).

~~~
_pferreir_
"Tim Berners-Lee - Mammal"

No seriously, TimBL should need no further title, given their audience ;)

~~~
NegativeK
"Tim Berners-Lee - Tim Berners-Lee"

~~~
ralfd
Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

------
AshleysBrain
This all looks very cosy with all these companies supporting it, but I wonder
how this site will deal with the more political aspects of web technologies.
For example, it's still totally ridiculous that there is not one audio or
video format that plays everywhere. You have to dual-encode to two formats. So
if you make a game with sound effects, you have to find both a Vorbis and AAC
encoder, and if you want to host a video you'll need Theora and H.264 or
whatever the deal is there, and so on. So what will WebPlatform.org recommend,
given how obvious it is that one format would be far simpler and make for a
better platform? Will it side one way or another? Will this upset their
"stewards"?

~~~
graue
For audio at least, things are looking up. Opus, a new royalty-free codec
backed by both Mozilla Foundation and Skype (Microsoft), has been standardized
as an RFC[1], and will likely be mandatory in WebRTC[2]. So we should be
seeing that across all major browsers in a year or two.

Opus beats almost all other codecs (MP3, AAC and HE-AAC, Vorbis) in subjective
quality[3], so it's a good standard to have.

[1] <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716>

[2] <http://jmspeex.livejournal.com/11042.html>

[3] <http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/15/opus-codec>, also
<http://people.xiph.org/~greg/opus/ha2011/>

~~~
voltagex_
Isn't Opus for speech?

~~~
graue
Not solely. Opus is a hybrid of the SILK codec, which is more for speech, and
CELT, which is more aimed at music. It can seamlessly switch between the two
methods and use them simultaneously:
[https://wiki.xiph.org/OpusFAQ#Why_not_keep_the_SILK_and_CELT...](https://wiki.xiph.org/OpusFAQ#Why_not_keep_the_SILK_and_CELT_codecs_separate.3F)

The main goal was streaming (of both music and speech), and hence, low
latency. Matching or bettering high-latency codecs (like Vorbis) on quality
was just a bonus, and I believe somewhat of a surprise to the developers when
listening test results came out.

------
Jare
Checked the "No Tears HTML5 Game Development Tutorial" at
[http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/tutorials/canvas_notearsgam...](http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/tutorials/canvas_notearsgame)
and:

\- "Because this is a No Tears guide, we'll use jQuery"

\- Use setInterval() rather than requestAnimationFrame().

\- Questionable class-like implementation.

Granted the original HTML5rocks! post is over a year and a half old, but bad
code and bad practices are NOT helping the cause.

~~~
Cushman
It's a wiki. Why not fix it?

~~~
tedunangst
Unless the linked article is incorrect, only authorized employees are able to
edit it. So like, it's an article, why not read it?

[my bad, it looks like maybe anybody can edit it after registering.]

~~~
Cushman
I don't see how the red text "Web Platform Docs is an open wiki that anyone
can help improve. See the getting started guide[0] to learn more." in the
alert box at the top of the page could be more clear.

[0]<http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/WPD:Getting_Started> First sentence:
"Anyone can contribute to WPD."

~~~
tedunangst
I only read the article (which implies only employees will be editing the
wiki), then went to the wiki itself later.

------
gulbrandr
Surprisingly the content of robots.txt is:

    
    
      User-agent: *
      Disallow: /
    

<http://webplatform.org/robots.txt>

~~~
wwwtyro
I can't begin to fathom a motivation for that. Can anyone think of a reason,
or is this likely simply a mistake?

~~~
criswell
The site doesn't even seem close to being useful or complete yet. I think it's
intentional.

------
Breakthrough
Wonderful, just wonderful. I'm glad to have woken up today to find the first
item on Hacker News to be several big-name companies _collaborating_ to bring
several technologies forwards and more standardized, instead of _fighting_
against each-other for the proprietary implementations of trivial things.

------
randomfool
I'd really like to see a 'Web 2012' standard, and 'Web 2013' standard, etc.
It's basically the set of APIs which is implemented across all browsers at
that date (say July 1st of that year).

So as an app developer, you could just design to 'Web 2011' which is the set
of APIs fully supported (or polyfilled) across all browsers as of July 1st,
2011.

~~~
dave5104
What's the definition of "all browsers" though? Are we counting IE6? Only the
newest version of each major browser? Would you be expecting web users to be
using a minimum browser version?

Although a cool idea, I don't see how this would mitigate any issues currently
surrounding standards.

~~~
randomfool
Latest release version of major browsers (Chrome, IE, FF, Opera, Safari).

Have a mobile version which tracks mobile browsers.

Once the HTML5 term was dropped (because it's a living spec), it's impossible
to refer to any meaningful feature set. Of course it's all HTML, but there's
so much variance in what's supported and what is not. If I can then say 'HTML
2011', that means HTML which was supported by RTM versions in 2011.

A variation on this would be to say that rather than referring to the latest
RTM version of browsers, 'HTML 2011' would refer to the subset of HTML which
can target 80% (or something) of worldwide users.

~~~
netcan
I like it. Something users can intuitively understand. Even if they need to be
directed to it to find out.

"You need a browser that supports Web 2010 or higher to use this app."

On the other side, it would help users pressure webapp developers that aren't
supporting their specific device / OS version.

"My browser is 2014. Why isn't this working." would be hard for customer
service to BS around.

THe downside is that even if most of the browsers being used support some 2015
feature now, it would be hard to justify using it in 2013.

------
dt7
So if Mozilla is involved, how does MDN factor into this? Are both expected to
co-exist?

Edit: addressed here [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/10/welcoming-the-new-kid-
web-...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/10/welcoming-the-new-kid-web-platform-
docs/)

~~~
desbest
So if Google is involved, how does HTML5 Rocks factor into this? Are both
expected to co-exist?

~~~
dj2stein9
In all likelihood all three will co-exist, but w3schools will continue to get
most of the traffic.

------
grandalf
This would be a good time for the HN editors to change the story to link
directly to the webplatform.org site.

~~~
Trufa
I'm truly asking, why is that? If the OP found it through TNW (or any other!),
I see no reason why not to give credit and traffic to the news provider?

You're just a click away, the link is at the beginning of the article and it
is not an add covered site or link bait.

~~~
grandalf
For one thing that's what I'd expect based on the title (since the site
already launched). If the site hadn't launched, then a link to a relatively
contentless news story would be fine.

------
jc4p
Actual link: <http://webplatform.org/>

~~~
deanpcmad
And... the site is down!

~~~
nkoren
"This webpage is not available"

If _that_ isn't a universal standard, then I don't know what is.

------
jere
Awesome. I hope this turns into something really great.

I know it's in alpha, but my first impression was a bit-off putting:

-Look at Hot Topics, figuring this is a good starting point

-Click on INDEXEDDB (I don't use it, have only a vague idea what it is)

-No introduction. No description of what it is or how to get started.

-Instead, a reference with 50 subpages

-8 flagged issues: Missing Relevant Sections, Needs Topics, Data Not Semantic, Unreviewed Import, Incomplete, Not Neutral, Cleanup, Compatibility Incomplete

------
pooriaazimi
I don't want to be an asshole who just criticizes, but really? It's the best
W3C, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Facebook, HP, Adobe, Nokia and Opera
could come up with?

Just look at these screenshots:

<http://d.pr/i/EbSt>

<http://d.pr/i/zmk9>

<http://d.pr/i/i9y>

And it took me 5 minutes to load the site - it was down when I first tried it
(and on subsequent tries).

So, I personally don't think this is the w3schools killer we were waiting for.
At least not yet.

~~~
desbest
Actually a "2 + 3" captcha is much more effective than a typical one with an
image. You'd be surprised.

When I ran a phpBB forum that spammers would join to get some of my PageRank 2
juice, putting up a special question on the registration form (by modifying
the php code), was much more effective than phpBB3's captcha function with
maximum difficulty applied.

Spamming software doesn't have support for capctha questions, only captcha
images.

~~~
pooriaazimi
The problem is, it's always in the form of "x + y = ?", which makes it
_ridiculously_ easy to bypass with an script.

At least that's what I initially thought. But after some more digging it seems
that x and y are hard-coded to be 2 and 3, respectively.

I opened the registration page in 4 different browsers with different IP
addresses (my own, my VPS, and a couple borrowed from Tor) and in _all_ cases
the "security" question was "What is 2 + 3?"

Unbelievable.

~~~
sjwright
Ten minutes to implement, stops nearly all automated attacks that aren't
specific to this site, much less user hostile, and far fewer accessibility
issues.

Believable.

~~~
dmorgan
Not to mention a placeholder for a more advanced captcha to eventually be
deployed.

Extremely believable.

------
gulbrandr
Please do not post links with utm junk in the URL.

~~~
pooriaazimi
What the hell does it mean, anyway?

~~~
desbest
utm links are tracking links for Google Analytics. If the link was clicked
from inside a mailing list's email (which it most likely was), and they have
Analytics setup with their Email Marketing Provider, it'll put that utm junk
on the end.

------
tar
I wonder why are they not using Mozilla Persona for their authentication
system.

~~~
dreamdu5t
Because that would require real work and collaboration and actually move the
web forward.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Haven't rofled so hard in a long time. Thanks for that.

------
ezequiel-garzon
With the exception of W3C, all participants are listed in a fair alphabetical
order. These egos are way too big to mess with!

~~~
kibwen
...With the further exception of Nokia, who was willing to be behind Microsoft
but _absolutely not_ behind Mozilla.

However, the full "web steward" page is more egalitarian:

<http://webplatform.org/stewards/>

~~~
ezequiel-garzon
I completely missed that! Huh... I guess Microsoft-Nokia is indeed becoming an
inseparable tandem.

------
kmfrk
Why is it that The Next Web submissions constantly gets more points than the
origin link?

------
iaskwhy
Just curious but if Apple is on this why is its logo not there along the
others?

~~~
georgespencer
Apple is a steward but puts a lot of thought and care into how its brand is
presented on its own pages, let alone on those of a third party.

In a best case scenario they'd push back the launch of the site to make sure
that everything is up to their standards (which logos they appear next to,
amongst, etc; what their blurb says), but their second choice is to forbid
anything about them on the site whilst they think about how they want it to
look.

------
davidw
I'm impressed that they'd settle on IRC on Freenode for direct chat. Seems
like the sort of thing that would not be improved by corporate lawyers for
whatever reason.

~~~
mibbitier
Don't worry, I'm sure if it gets popular, the lawyers will soon stamp that
out.

------
spazmaster
Why is this site not responsive? Here's how the website looks on a iPhone
[https://twitter.com/lukew/status/255327150863941632/photo/1/...](https://twitter.com/lukew/status/255327150863941632/photo/1/large)

------
leeoniya
please let this be the end of w3schools

~~~
benlower
i second that. however webplatform.org will need some serious SEO to displace
w3schools. also, webplatform needs some serious work on their docs to make
them readable and easy to search.

~~~
bbrizzi
Maybe if webplatform.org is mentioned in enough places, webplatform will have
a better Google ranking and webplatform might displace w3schools.

The promotion of webplatform would really help webplatform gain popularity. Do
not hesitate to send the link to webplatform ( <http://www.webplatform.org> )
to as many people as possible.

Share webplatform's site ( <http://www.webplatform.org> ) on Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, etc...

webplatform webplatform webplatform webplatform webplatform webplatform
webplatform

~~~
freehunter
Does SEO work in HN comments? I know it doesn't on reddit, so I wouldn't be
surprised.

~~~
dbaupp
User submitted links are rel="nofollow"'d, so no, HN comments and submissions
don't help.

------
latchkey
Is there a community on Stack Overflow that is already offering the same
functionality as the WebPlatform forums?

Some thoughts...

The Q/A format in general seems like a great solution to the problem of
sharing the best way to do things because it requires the person asking the
question to ask a 'good' question and the person answering the question to
provide a 'good' answer. Voting up the 'best' answer gives the closest
approximation to the 'right' answer. The WP forum is devoid of any real
content. It'll be years before it has anything approximating what SO offers.

I can see the wiki format being good as a replacement for something like
w3schools, but that isn't really what this appears to be. Plus, we all know
that wiki's get out of date pretty quickly with the ever changing
technology... unless of course enough people are paid to work on this
content... and who says they are the 'experts'. You can already see in the
comments here that people disagree with the coding examples. Who is going to
moderate all of this?

~~~
paulirish
> Who is going to moderate all of this?

Google, Microsoft, Adobe and other stewards have fulltime technical writers
working on new content and reviewing incoming contributed content.

------
EGF
I was immediately reminded of the xkcd standards comic <http://xkcd.com/927/>

------
Apocryphon
Is this the Bretton Woods Conference for the web as we know it?

------
avar
Is there no way to sign up for this without connecting it to a Facebook,
Linkedin, Twitter or Google account? The signup form indicates that you can
sign in with a site-specific account, but I can't find out how to _create_
one.

~~~
charlieok
[http://docs.webplatform.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLo...](http://docs.webplatform.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup&returnto=Main+Page)

------
dyeje
This awesome, I remember being really frustrated when I started out at my
Rails internship because there wasn't any comprehensive documentation for HTML
stuff like I was used to with Java, C++, etc.

------
ezequiel-garzon
If a webmaster is looking: "Your first look at JavaScript" [1] is duplicated
from [2]. However, what should be internal links in [1] take you to [2]. For
example, search "where to put javascript" in the first document.

[1]
[http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/tutorials/your_first_look_a...](http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/tutorials/your_first_look_at_javascript)

[2]
[http://www.w3.org/wiki/Your_first_look_at_JavaScript#Where_t...](http://www.w3.org/wiki/Your_first_look_at_JavaScript#Where_to_put_JavaScript)

------
dreamdu5t
I'd rather they come together to do something important, like implementing
browserid/Persona. I don't think this will even come close to the usefulness
of StackEchange.

~~~
pestaa
This is supposed to look like a reference documentation as opposed to a
collection of specific questions and answers.

------
ashish04
It's a really nice initiative by all these giants..Now we'll not have to
search multiple sites for learning HTML 5 and CSS 3 at least!

------
dgesang
Nice to see that someone is actually trying to bring some order to the current
HTML5 chaos:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SteveFulton/20120926/178364/N...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SteveFulton/20120926/178364/Not_Flash_The_Still_Angsty_Zeitgeist_Of_HTML5_Technology_Burnout.php)

------
dfischer
Since this is related I'd love to share a similar project I am working on:
<http://www.betterfrontend.com> \- think of it as curated best-practices for
Front-End Development.

~~~
squidsoup
Some good content here, but the rails specific stuff feels out of place on a
site that purports to be focusing on the frontend. I'd consider either making
it backend agnostic, or rebrand the site as Better Frontend for Rails
developers.

~~~
dfischer
Valid points. My vision is most that popular frameworks have their own best-
practices. Initially starting with rails is just easier to target and be used
for. Thoughts?

------
dhx
There is no licensing information at the bottom of each page within
<http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/*>

Can someone clarify what the licensing situation is?

------
waynesutton
This is great, although I wish it would have started few years earlier.

------
AVTizzle
So happy to see Microsoft on this list. There's hope for IE yet.

~~~
mariuz
Microsoft and WebGL - Never in IE

[http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-
microsoft-...](http://games.greggman.com/game/webgl-security-and-microsoft-
bullshit/)

------
SkyMarshal
Definitely still alpha (as they disclaim). Login doesn't always work, and when
it does it sometimes forgets I'm logged in when moving from page to page..

~~~
creativityhurts
I find it quite sad that these elementary things don't work even for an alpha
give the big names that are involved in the project.

------
x3sphere
I'm really not feeling this design. It's not bad, by any means, but it seems a
little too flashy for what's supposed to be a knowledge base.

------
parfamz
Was it so difficult to list the members? I work at 'others' and don't like
that you omitted my employer from the title. Thanks.

------
leeoniya
one thing that would be of huge help, but also a huge undertaking is to allow
for selection of targeted browsers, with the least common denominator
dictating which code examples you see. for example if IE < 9 is selected, a
jQuery fallback would be an acceptable compromise.

------
rooshdi
Thought these Goliaths were colluding on something else for a second, heh.

------
BrianPetro
Less than 1000 users thus far. Great time to reserve your name.

------
10098
Hell yes, w3schools can go weep in the corner!

------
ojr
this site runs on php, that is pretty cool! Then again php is good for wiki
pages

~~~
dgesang
... and then again php isn't good for anything anymore
[http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-
de...](http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/)

------
tlow
The skeuomorphic logo is such a terrible choice or did I accidentally miss all
of the web's 4-bar linkages?

~~~
yottabyte47
The logo is not skeuomorphic.

~~~
tlow
Indeed it is. It is representative of bar-linkage mechanical systems.

Do you have any evidence to substantiate your claim?

