

To hell with web standards - zacharyvoase
http://jacobian.org/writing/tohell/

======
dkimball
For what it's worth, the W3C has always reminded me of the United Nations. It
doesn't really have a power base or coercive abilities of its own, and its
authority is dependent on the willingness of its member organizations to
sacrifice their objectives and their resources for its sake -- with the result
that it's more a theater for proxy wars (Sun versus Microsoft historically,
Microsoft versus the open-source movement today) than than an organization
with a purpose and a goal.

Like the United Nations, though, the W3C has accomplished some of its
purposes, and done a certain amount of good; but I think the author of this is
expecting too much out of the W3C in a very Westphalian Web.

I hope no one turns this into an argument about the United Nations. My
position on them is the same as Emperor Otto von Habsburg's on them and on the
European Union: imperfect, but better than nothing. In particular, I hope no
one wants to talk about which or how many countries (I count at least ten
major powers plus any number of minor ones) have attempted or achieved real-
world counterparts to Internet Explorer 6.

I know that using a political analogy for software is risky business, but the
UN's dynamics and the W3C's are almost identical; so I hope that the insight
we might gain from the analogy is worth the risk.

~~~
danielrhodes
There is a saying about international law: Half the countries follow half the
rules half the time.

I think the same can be said for web standards: Half of web developers follow
half the standards half the time.

------
jeff18
This is pretty meaningless. I hate seeing flamebait like this on HN. It would
be one thing to intelligently argue that the WHATWG should make everything
public and explain how this would benefit the community. However, this guy is
simply saying "fuck you guys, I'm out." In other words, he is advocating the
alternative to web standards, which is proprietary solutions where EVERYTHING
is behind the curtain.

No thanks.

Let's advocate for more transparency instead of throwing the baby out with the
bath water.

~~~
wvenable
The most important versions of the HTML standard have merely codified the
state of browsers at the time. The other W3C standards remain partially (or
incorrectly) unimplemented so they're effectively not standards anyway.

The innovation on the web has always begun with the code -- and always with
proprietary solutions. The best of these solutions are eventually implemented
by everyone and that becomes the standard. Netscape added images, tables, and
plugins. IE added events on all DOM elements, xmlHttpRequest, and so on.
Different browsers are now beginning to implement "HTML5" features. When all
the browsers reach some level of common usefulness then W3C or WHATWG will fit
their standard around what's in common usage and call it HTML5.

Having big committees make big plans has never worked for the web.

~~~
gleb
Agreed. I like how JWZ put it:

<http://jwz.livejournal.com/147024.html?thread=760144#t760144>

    
    
      What's a "de facto standard?" It's what we call a standard.
      What's a de jure standard?" It's what we call a wish.

------
kilian
I honestly doubt this will have much effect. The entire point of the WHATWG
was to counter this sort of stuff. HTML5 development will continue in WHATWG,
the pressure on the W3C goes up, up up, and in a while they'll just copy the
WHATWG spec again, change the color and everything will be fine.

~~~
cdibona
Exactly. Anyone who knows Hixie knows that he's going to continue and that the
W3c has to keep up or enjoy irrelevancy vis a vis html5.

------
dotBen
The OP doesn't mean "to hell with web standards", he means "to hell with web
standards bodies like the W3C".

I think it's a shame the title is incorrect and/or flamebait as the points are
otherwise valid/interesting

~~~
eplanit
Yes, I first give the author the same slack in assuming he _meant_ your
alternative title.

However, the lack of any substance whatsoever to the argument makes me pull
back on that slack.

Just what points are valid and interesting?

------
necubi
For all of the complaints about the W3C and browser vendors and HTML5, there
is something indisputable: this is the best time ever to be a web developer.
Things are hardly perfect, but for the first time in many years the web is
moving forward, and quickly. Browser vendors are adding exciting features, but
even more exciting is that javascript frameworks have come forward to mask all
the little problems and incompatibilities between browsers, leaving me to just
develop.

I'm using HTML5 and CSS3 today, and it doesn't matter that the vendors can't
agree on everything or that Microsoft refuses to implement features. We
shouldn't stop trying to push forward, but we shouldn't forget how bad things
were even just a few years ago. Modern web development is here, and it's
awesome.

------
showerst
"Web Standards" are whatever my target audience's browsers all support.

~~~
artagnon
That's the whole point of web standards. To document this `whatever` minus the
extra features offered by some browsers plus the features the IE team were too
incompetent to write.

~~~
showerst
The problem is that the real world differs so markedly from the standard that
really they're just an "in theory..." reference, or a "hey that will be cool
in 5 years if it gets built" reference.

HTML5 features are a wonderful example. If I'm targeting the iPhone, the new
location API is a goldmine, but otherwise it's meaningless (for now) because
50%+ of my audience (IE/Opera) doesn't support it. I know I need to build in a
good fallback anyway, but the point is that the standard only matters insomuch
as it's actually implemented.

One look at the different local storage/web storage implementations bears this
out.

I don't really care if W3C argues itself into oblivion if the browsers
leapfrog them and implement something useful (see: canvas/iecanvas).

If the browsers are outrunning the standards by a significant margin,
rendering the standards irrelevant, then the process is broken.

</rant>

~~~
artagnon
Agreed. My point is simple- throwing web standards out of the window is no
solution. It serves as a guideline (or "documentation") for both programmers
writing browsers, and authors writing web pages. I'm not asking for strict
adherence, just a guideline. If you try to implement a TCP/IP stack strictly
as per the RFC, you'll find that it can't communicate with any real-world
operating system- that doesn't mean that you throw RFCs out of the window.
Things have always been, and will always be, engineered to "work".

------
aw3c2
It sure might be that I simply do not have the desired one installed but that
site is a pain to read: <http://i.imgur.com/oULpj.png>

Light thin grey serif font on white background.

~~~
mcav
This is what it looks like on OS X: <http://drp.ly/oopfk>

~~~
kaddar
Looks like the author should be developing his site with web standards ha hah
ha ha!!

~~~
peterbraden
He is, he's using @font-face. Some browsers don't support custom font
rendering very well yet.

------
jdietrich
Getting a bunch of people with divergent aims to agree on anything is really
fucking hard. Introduce cutting-edge technology, vast sums of money and
hardheaded geeks into the equation and it's a miracle we've got this far.

Open standards are good for all of us. Proprietary systems only ever benefit
those who own and control them. The W3C is a fallible, flawed organisation
performing an utterly sisyphean task and I think we should give credit where
credit is due.

In an ideal world, the perfect standards for everything would just magic
themselves out of thin air. Unfortunately, we live in a world where big
organisations have commercial interests in manipulating and controlling
technology to their own ends. We should celebrate that we still have a mostly
open web and thank the W3C for getting things done against all odds.

I'm all for a freer, more open approach to web standards, but I understand
that realpolitik is a necessary evil. I'm just really happy that I can't
remember the last time I saw the words "best viewed on browser x". Those of us
who remember using early versions of Firefox are well aware of just how much
progress has been made in standards-compliance. If the W3C is becoming unfit
for purpose then that's a damned shame, but we shouldn't throw the baby out of
the bathwater. Web standards matter, they are the essence of what the web is.
I shudder at the thought of returning to the bad old days of <multicol>,
<marquee> and ActiveX controls.

~~~
DennisP
The IETF does a nice job with a much more open process.

~~~
kinetik
The IETF has its own set of problems:
[http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/2009/07/royalty-free-
codecs...](http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/2009/07/royalty-free-codecs-at-
the-ietf/comment-page-1/#comment-206483)

~~~
DennisP
So it's not friction-free. Nothing's perfect, but it's still a much more open
process, and much more hacker-friendly. IETF produces simpler standards, and
the specs are a lot more understandable than the abominations written by the
W3C. There's a reason for that.

------
proexploit
A "hold" by Adobe at the same time Adobe is embroiled in a battle with Apple
over Flash support for iPad (etc.)? Sounds to me like Adobe is going for the
"commercial filibuster" to delay the release of HTML5 (as if anything was
necessary).

------
synnik
We were discussing HTML5 last week in an architecture meeting, in regards to
how we want to develop richer web apps within our organization. One guy asked,
"When exactly will the HTML5 spec be done?" The rest of the room laughed.

------
dbz
I love how he provided a solution =]

------
petercooper
Crash warning! I've tried to go to that page three times now (just to make
sure..) and it's totally killed Safari (4 on Snow Leopard) every time. I had
to switch to Chrome to read it.. I guess this guy really is against Web
standards if a single blog post can consistently kill a browser ;-)

------
gkelly
This is the blog of a Django co-founder. What does this mean for the future
direction of Django as far as conforming to standards?

~~~
kingkilr
Nothing. Django provides no HTML for you out of the box (excepting the admin's
own HTML, and some of the auto generated HTML for forms).

~~~
gkelly
So, in other words, Django provides some HTML for you out of the box.

