
Proposed new HTML tag: IMG (1993) - wamatt
http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.html
======
gioele
I think the crux of that conversion is:

«Marc Andreessen (marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu)

Fri, 26 Feb 93 13:32:09 -0800

Tim Berners-Lee writes:

> I don't want to change HTML now if I can help it, until it has gone to RFC
> track

I absolutely agree in all cases -- my purpose in suggesting IMG is that things
are reaching the point where some browsers are going to be implementing this
feature somehow, even if it's not standard, just because it's the logical next
step, and it would be great to have consistency from the beginning -- so that
when HTML2 comes along, we're all still in lockstep.....

Cheers, Marc»

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0197.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0197.html)

The HTML 5 designers/implementers fight has always been there, with
implementers usually having the last word.

Mark Pilgrim on how much the WHATWG resembles the HTML 2 working group
activity:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110710091457/http://diveintomar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110710091457/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/11/02/why-
do-we-have-an-img-element)

~~~
seanalltogether
And because of this, people were already predicting what would end up
happening as a result of implementers rushing out features

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0198.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0198.html)

 _Wait a minute -- let's temporarily forget about MIME, if it clouds the
issue. My objection was to the discussion of "how are we going to support
embedded images" rather than "how are we going to support embedded objections
in various media". Otherwise, next week someone is going to suggest 'lets put
in a new tag <AUD SRC="file://foobar.com/foo/bar/blargh.snd">' for audio.
There shouldn't be much cost in going with something that generalizes._

~~~
gioele
That thread also predicted the weird and unrealistic "let's-stay-inside-the-
existing-boundaries" responses:

> SGML does provide an official way of doing this folks and even if Dan C
> ain't here to round us up we maybe ought to stick to the track. > > <!ENTITY
> ICON6 SYSTEM "[http://blah..>&ICON6](http://blah..>&ICON6);

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0202.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0202.html)

------
richbradshaw
Yeah, that looks good, but it would be nice if it had a way to specify
different resolution copies of the same image for the future when we have
varying screen sizes and varying ppi.

Good proposal though, and hope that this takes off.

~~~
ashishb4u
"Good proposal though, and hope that this takes off." it was a proposal made
19 years back?

~~~
jofo25
I can feel the breeze of it going over your head from my desk.

------
tlrobinson
_"Otherwise, next week someone is going to suggest 'lets put in a new tag <AUD
SRC="file://foobar.com/foo/bar/blargh.snd">' for audio. There shouldn't be
much cost in going with something that generalizes."_

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0198.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0198.html)

Well, maybe not next week, but certainly 15+ years later.

~~~
icebraining
Both <embed> and <bgsound> (the latter not standard, but certainly "proposed")
have been around for a long time.

------
molmalo
Jim Davis: 1) why have SRC instead of HREF?

Marc Andreessen: Because I wanted to avoid overloading HREF -- doesn't really
make sense in this context, I don't think.

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0196.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0196.html)

So... that's the reason!

~~~
pestaa
Well, you want to _embed_ the image from a source identified by URL, not
_refer_ to it. In fact, I wonder why we need to use href when invoking
stylesheets.

------
sbierwagen
Mark Pilgrim's _Dive Into HTML5_ has a chapter about this very conversation,
providing some usful context: <http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>

~~~
roryokane
A link to the exact section: [http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html#history-of-
the-img-eleme...](http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html#history-of-the-img-
element)

------
billpg
Great idea Marc. Just wondering what should happen with images stored on
different web servers should someone in the future ever come up with a way for
servers to identify individual clients.

Best sort something out now, before people get used to things working in a
certain way.

~~~
pmarca
Thanks for the feedback -- I'll see if I can work that in before I release the
first implementation!

~~~
rexreed
Was this the slippery slope that lead to the <blink> tag? (just to be fair,
Microsoft introduced the equally horrendous <marquee>)

~~~
wanderr
It was a joke: <http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag>

------
Axsuul
No way! It's _that_ Marc Andreessen. What great humble beginnings!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen>

~~~
oceanic
This was the same year that NCSA Mosaic, the first ever web browser, was co-
created by Marc Andreessen. He was probably working on Mosaic when he wrote
this email.

~~~
vdm
> the first ever web browser

Fact check: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)>

> While often described as the first graphical web browser, Mosaic was
> preceded by WorldWideWeb and the lesser-known Erwise[5] and ViolaWWW.

------
2bit
The reply was especially amusing:

 _"I was proposing to use the file extension (.xbm above) to tag what format
the image was in, but with the intention that in future, when HTTP2 comes
along, the same format negotiation technique would be used to access images."_

Almost twenty years later and still no HTTP2!

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0183.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0183.html)

~~~
mseebach2
Yes we do, it's just called HTTP 1.1 instead - and that exact functionality
luckily made it in.

<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec12.html>

------
eckyptang
I'm old enough to remember reading this reposted on usenet (or was it gopher)
at the time. Cue discussion about how gopher was much better as it already did
images.

Little did we know back then...

~~~
pmarca
There was also serious backlash from certain people (cough TIM BERNERS LEE
cough) that adding images to the web would degrade the user experience,
encourage bad use cases, and encourage the riffraff to use it.

Why yes, I still remember that, why do you ask?

~~~
nostrademons
But it did degrade the user experience, encourage bad use cases, and encourage
the riffraff to use it. The easiest way to eliminate those problems is to not
have users.

Why'd you have to go making things popular? I could still be using Lynx on a
1200 baud modem!

~~~
pmarca
Tim, is that you?

~~~
nostrademons
See, if you hadn't let the riffraff in, you'd know for sure...

------
Osiris
_I was proposing to use the file extension (.xbm above) to tag what format the
image was in, but with the intention that in future, when HTTP2 comes along,
the same format negotiation technique would be used to access images._

Nineteen years later and we still don't have HTTP2.

~~~
molmalo
In the link provided by sbierwagen, it states:

<http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>

 _“HTTP2” is a reference to Basic HTTP as defined in 1992. At this point, in
early 1993, it was still largely unimplemented. The draft known as “HTTP2”
evolved and was eventually standardized as “HTTP 1.0” (albeit not for another
three years). HTTP 1.0 did include request headers for content negotiation,
a.k.a. “MIME, someday, maybe.”_

So, at least in this context, yes, we do have "HTTP2".

~~~
Lennie
Oops, I was calling HTTP/2.0 HTTP2 as a shorthand seems that I was so wrong to
do that :-)

------
mcs
[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0186.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-
talk.1993q1/0186.html)

Ha, so that's what rel was supposed to mean.

~~~
steferson
Wow, I have been meaning to look what rel means for years and I always forget.

Am i glad I saw this.

------
RyanMcGreal
Mark Pilgrim had an insightful take on the development of the IMG tag in his
book _Dive Into HTML5_ :

<http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>

------
ianstormtaylor
It's too bad they went with `img` and `src` instead of listening to Tony
Johnson and using `image` and `source`. Saved a few characters for needless
abbreviation.

~~~
jacobr
But how many more bytes would've been sent since 1993 were they image and
source? :)

------
conradfr
I feel sorry for Tony Johnson that had "something very similar in Midas 2", as
it's the Mosaic implementation that "won" :)

~~~
marquis
It also shows here in his comment how 'small' the internet was: maybe everyone
having fibre to their home was some far-off imaginings of crazy people.

"I somewhat prefer ICON since it implies that the IMAGE should be smallish"

------
malandrew
I think the best part of this entire exchange is that it provides proof that
shipping code wins.

------
Maarius
Sounds like a good idea

------
logotype
We've landed on the moon!

