

HTML 5 gets forked up - teh_klev
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/23/html_5_fork/

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gioele
«All of which leaves just one question: what has the W3C ever done for us?»

It has given us good specs fixed in stone you could develop against and be
sure that your code could still work in the next decade, thing XML or XSLT.
Stable specs are also good for legislators and regulators, for they have the
ability to pinpoint names and versions like "The minimum accessibility level
for public websites is WCAG 2.0 level AA" instead of "all public websites must
have a minimum level of accessibility".

We can debate whether the W3C model is good for a spec like HTML that is
subject to so many business interests, but what standardisation model has been
good for many other specs.

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Alex3917
"It has given us good specs fixed in stone you could develop against and be
sure that your code could still work in the next decade"

A lot of the W3C specs are actually so poorly specified that none of the
browsers can even figure out how to implement them. E.g. in CSS the width of a
pixel is defined relative to the length of each user's arm.

~~~
stingraycharles
> CSS the width of a pixel is defined relative to the length of each user's
> arm.

I had to see this for myself to believe it.

"The reference pixel is the visual angle of one pixel on a device with a pixel
density of 96dpi and a distance from the reader of an arm's length. For a
nominal arm's length of 28 inches, the visual angle is therefore about 0.0213
degrees. For reading at arm's length, 1px thus corresponds to about 0.26 mm
(1/96 inch)."

Source: <http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-values/>

~~~
Alex3917
Seriously, it's pretty messed up. Maybe IE6 didn't actually have a float drop
error, it's just that my arms were too fucking long.

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olalonde
The actual mailing list post is much more informative in my opinion:
[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-
archive/20...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-
archive/2012Jul/0119.html)

The "living standard" model is explained here:
[https://plus.google.com/107429617152575897589/posts/NZBJe6Jj...](https://plus.google.com/107429617152575897589/posts/NZBJe6Jjt1f)

~~~
rjtavares
It lacks the great Monty Python references, though...

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untog
To be sure, this isn't a perfect result. Having specifications that can change
is A Bad Thing. But having a standards body that is utterly unable to keep up
with the times is arguably worse, as they end up being totally irrelevant.
Look at HTML5- no-one is going to wait until 2014, when the standard is
finally ratified. "The Standard" is what we're all using.

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Kilimanjaro
As long as chrome, safari, firefox and opera stick together, the web will move
foreward.

~~~
chimeracoder
Webkit is already a dominant rendering engine (36% plurality share) used on
multiple platforms. Ignoring IE, which has historical problems of its own,
Firefox is the only popular browser that doesn't rely on Webkit.

Take a look at this graph, and mentally add Chrome, Safari, and 'Mobile':
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usage_share_of_web_browser...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usage_share_of_web_browsers_\(Source_StatCounter\).svg)

While Webkit has advantages, and while I happily use Chrome for most purposes,
I dislike the idea that a single implementation can become the _de facto_
standard for proper rendering, perhaps even more so than the official spec.

1995 was almost twenty years ago. Not ten minutes ago, I tried to use a
website which told me it required IE 6.0+ or Firefox. Do we really want to
move to the days where websites will boast a 'Best viewed with Webkit' button?

~~~
ricardobeat
Why would you ignore IE in this context? There are four engines in use, each
with millions of users. WebKit is only way ahead in mobile, but it's only
going to lose share from now on.

~~~
sbuk
Gonna have to bite; why?

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daledavies
Interesting to see Google described as a "text ad giant".

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KaoruAoiShiho
This is more like a branch than a fork.

