

time element dropped from HTML5 spec - akdetrick
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2011/goodbye-html5-time-hello-data/

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untog
I agree with the article- replacing <time> with <data> seems particularly
unwise, given that the HTML5 improvements are supposed to allow content
providers to provide semantic sense to their documents. <data> might just as
well be <stuff and things> for all the specificity it brings.

All that aside, I'm baffled that people are still amending and discussing the
HTML5 spec. Criticise browser manufacturers all you want for implementing
their own standards, but they don't really have a lot of choice when the
standards bodies spend all their time dithering about and arguing over tiny
semantics.

The HTML5 spec isn't going to be finalised until 2014. Insanity. It'll be out
of date before it's even finished. HTML5 and CSS3 should have been finished
long ago, and we should be talking about the next iteration of these standards
by now.

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pantaloons
Bureaucracy is the price we pay for standardization. You imply that there is
an easier way that could have standardized these technologies "long ago", I'd
like to hear it.

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untog
Bureaucracies don't _have_ to be slow. Why not publish the draft and say
you're going to finalize six months after that? Right now the idea of a W3C
certified HTML5 standard is useless- browsers are already implementing what we
have now, and people are writing code against it.

If that doesn't work for you, how about the idea of splitting this stuff up?
Web browsers are now rapidly iterating through versions, why not do the same
with web standards? Small changes each time. Uncouple stuff like the <canvas>
tag from HTML5 as a whole. I'm not saying that it's the ideal solution, but it
might make the web standards practise at least slightly relevant.

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adamjernst
I have to agree with the article author. Sure, dates and times are really hard
to get right. But to say "you know, times are really a kind of data" is a cop-
out. Relevant:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html>

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tomelders
What happens if we, as developers, just keep on using it?

I personally think the time element is important, and very very useful. How
likely is it that the browser vendors will drop support for a new element
that's already being used?

My point being, can we simply keep on using it in order to force it back into
the spec?

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wlievens
> What happens if we, as developers, just keep on using it?

IE6 happens, I guess

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lusis
This is a horrible idea. Detecting things like publish date is incredibly
difficult. I can totally understand the aversion to wanting to generalize tags
but this one is, IMHO, appropriate.

