
HTML 5.1 is the gold standard - bpierre
https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/11/html-5-1-is-the-gold-standard/
======
bryanlarsen
Note that this is _not_ the WHATWG standard that all browsers follow.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12848419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12848419)

~~~
Waterluvian
What is W3C doing here then?

Or will what WHATWG standardizes will basically be what this is?

~~~
wrs
See
[https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.html#his...](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.html#history-2)

>In 2011, however, the groups came to the conclusion that they had different
goals: the W3C wanted to publish a "finished" version of "HTML5", while the
WHATWG wanted to continue working on a Living Standard for HTML, continuously
maintaining the specification rather than freezing it in a state with known
problems, and adding new features as needed to evolve the platform.

>Since then, the WHATWG has been working on this specification (amongst
others), and the W3C has been copying fixes made by the WHATWG into their fork
of the document (which also has other changes).

~~~
wolfgke
This excerpt is a good summary of the smugness that I hate the WHATWG for.

~~~
mwfunk
What in that excerpt conveys smugness to you?

~~~
wolfgke
* the W3C wanted to publish a "finished" version of "HTML5"

Putting "finsished" into quotes is a hint of sarcasm of the WHATWG side.

* continuously maintaining the specification

Fixing known bugs is also a kind of continuous maintaining of a standard (this
is what the W3C and other standard bodies do). That the WHATWG writers put
this into contrast of the approach of the W3C is smugness again.

* rather than freezing it in a state with known problems

Fixing bugs and publishing errata is common for standards. The wording implies
that this is something the W3C does not do.

* and adding new features as needed to evolve the platform

Having a stable standard which one can refer to (say in project contracts or
for tooling) is also an important _feature_. The WHATWG connives over this and
only considers the things that _they_ do as features.

* Since then, the WHATWG has been working on this specification (amongst others), and the W3C has been copying fixes made by the WHATWG into their fork of the document

A very smug way to say "WHATWG does all the work and W3C is a copycat". Though
the facts might be true, there are more humble ways to express that.

* (which also has other changes).

OK, what the W3C does is not really important - we can skip over these changes
as they are not important (only the WHATWG version is).

~~~
gsnedders
Re:

> Fixing known bugs is also a kind of continuous maintaining of a standard
> (this is what the W3C and other standard bodies do).

And:

> Fixing bugs and publishing errata is common for standards. The wording
> implies that this is something the W3C does not do.

There are countless W3C specs that don't have errata kept up-to-date, and,
hell, the 5.1 errata is just
<[https://github.com/w3c/html/issues>](https://github.com/w3c/html/issues>)
(if they fix a bug in 5.2 drafts, will they keep the issue open so it
continues to appear on that (paginated) list of issues or not? because both
options seem terrible!). Similarly, the W3C almost never issues revised
recommendations to incorporate errata, which means even for specs where there
have been no errata for years you have to cross-reference two documents.

Another example is CSS 2.1, which doesn't have errata published any more:
they're just fixed in the editor's draft of 2.2, and left to linger in the 2.1
Recommendation and errata.

For plenty of W3C specs the only "errata" is an editor's draft of the next
revision.

~~~
wolfgke
Counterexample: XML 1.0, which is currently in Fifth Edition:

> [https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/)

(click under "Previous versions" to go to older editions).

~~~
gsnedders
Oh, yes, there are absolutely counter-examples. It's essentially down to each
WG whether they issue errata or revised recommendations, and when plenty of
(admittedly more obscure) WGs have their charter allowed to expire when all of
their deliverables have become recommendations there's at times nobody to
maintain the document per the W3C process.

An aside:

XML 1.0 Fifth Edition is actually a weird case: there are documents that are
well-formed XML according to the Fifth Edition and not well-formed according
to the Fourth Edition, because the characters allowed in places like tag names
went from being based on Unicode 2.0 to Unicode 5.0-or-any-later-version
(which was originally the difference between XML 1.0 and XML 1.1, except 1.1
was originally 3.0-or-any-later-version); as such, two XML 1.0 implementations
are no longer guaranteed to consider the same set of documents well-formed, as
it depends on the Unicode version each uses. As a result, plenty of
implementations of XML 1.0 have no plan on changing away from their Forth
Edition implementations.

------
tannhaeuser
What's up with the W3C hate here around? As far as I can see all they're
trying to do is to publish a snapshot of WHATWG's work, which WHATWG refuses
to do.

There are those of us who need to develop against a stable feature set.
Browser developers aren't the only ones interested in HTML, it's one of the
most used vocabulary/API of all times. Is it unreasonable to expect some
results after more than 10 years of work.

I think some WHATWG members make themselves a bad name by ridiculing W3C
publicly; WHATWG do great work, why do they find it necessary to troll W3C?

I have a feeling it is it because they think they "own" HTML or something. In
that case, they should be reminded of the fact that neither WHATWG nor W3C are
"standards bodies" vs. IETF and ISO/IEC, say.

~~~
Touche
Probably because the W3C literally copy/pastes other's work and claims it for
their own. Look at this blog post, which doesn't credit WHATWG at all for
doing the actual work of speccing HTML.

~~~
bootload
_" Probably because the W3C literally copy/pastes other's work and claims it
for their own. Look at this blog post, which doesn't credit WHATWG at all for
doing the actual work of speccing HTML."_

Does WHATWG put a licence their work?

~~~
Touche
I don't know or care, I didn't claim that W3C is breaking a license, just that
they are taking other people's work and claiming it as their own. That you
can't see the difference between these things is not anything I can help you
with.

~~~
bootload
_" I didn't claim that W3C is breaking a license, just that they are taking
other people's work and claiming it as their own."_

The only reason I ask? If there's a license you can force the W3C to display
it. I can see what you're getting at, and if the W3C as an organisation is
stupid enough to make claims on ideas from WHATWG they should be reminded and
forced to acknowledge this through law. One way to do this is enforcement by
license.

~~~
tannhaeuser
It's absurd to think that W3C is claiming WHATWG's work as their own. W3C
specs are read by relatively few people who generally know about the text
provenance and its relationship with WHATWG specs.

------
maxerickson
Is it ironic that the actual gold standard was abandoned decades ago?

~~~
sp332
SGML? XHTML? VRML?

~~~
mmphosis
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard)

~~~
sp332
Thanks, that went over my head the first time I read it.

------
tannhaeuser
I, for one, find value in W3C's HTML 5.1 publication. I couldn't have
justified the effort to do my analysis/review of HTML 5 at
[http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html](http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html) based
on a volatile and ever-changing standard.

Mind you, the analysis is purely from a markup/formal language, not webdev
PoV.

Edit: typos

------
ricardobeat
I can't point out what but this post feels out of touch. What is the point he
wants to make, considering the release was already announced a week ago?

Also I remember working on a project using native drag & drop events back in
2012 with wide browser support, including IE.

------
z3t4
HTML is nice because you can come up with your own elements and attributes. I
for example use the abstract element a lot. And there are unofficial elements
and attributes that help screen readers.

------
minxomat
Pretty ironic to advocate a "gold standard" when their website looks like
early-2000's MSDN.

~~~
wolfgke
What is considered as good design depends a lot on the zeitgeist and culture.
For example in Asia (e.g. China, but also Japan) there is a rather different
taste what is considered as a well-designed website:

[https://econsultancy.com/blog/67466-why-do-chinese-
websites-...](https://econsultancy.com/blog/67466-why-do-chinese-websites-
look-so-busy/)

[http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/why-is-chinese-web-design-
so-b...](http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/why-is-chinese-web-design-so-bad)

[https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-
differe...](https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/)

