The same day I decide to leave HTML Working Group due to the flood of emails and general lack of organization and direction; Apple, Mozilla, & Opera also decided enough is enough. They’ve filed a formal proposal for the current W3C HTML Working Group to adopt the work the WHATWG has already put into HTML5. This will act a starting point for further discussions of the HTML5 specification. We’ll see what the co-chairs have to say about this and if it’s accepted.
I was initially excited about being a part of the HTML Working Group. I felt subscribing to the mailing list would offer an opportunity to contribute to the development of the HTML5 recommendation, or at the very least provide some insight into the process. So far, I have gained a bit of insight into the process. It’s that there really isn’t one.
The amount of email that the list generates is completely unmanageable. A weekend can generate about 150 emails. And most of those emails are quite lengthy. There’s currently no real structure of what discussions should take place or how they should be handled. Actually, so far one quarter of the discussions have been about that fact. People trying to come up with a process. If you count all the discussions about how to handle the previous WHATWG efforts and how the new discussions will interplay with those, then it’s probably more like one third. I would have figured most of this would have been ironed out before setting up the new working group, but it hasn’t. The rest of the discussions are people pitching what they would and would not like to see in HTML5 and the ensuing arguments debate. Which is how it should be, but right now everything is posted very “willy-nilly”.
I’m sure most of these issues will resolve themselves in due time and real work will begin to get done (there’s some very smart people on this list). But unless you make the HTML WG your primary effort and don’t have a day job or a family, I’m not sure how anyone could actively participate. So I’ve unsubscribed from the mailing list. I’ll probably still keep tabs through the blog and the mailing lists online archives, but unsubscribing will remove the unnecessary “select unread, mark as read” workflow I currently have with dealing with the list.
As an update to my previous post about the W3C HTML Working Group, I myself have joined. I’m coming at this from the perspective of an end user in what the working group will produce, the recommendation spec for HTML5. Not as someone who will implement the recommendations into the actual browsers, but as someone who lives day in and day out writing modern HTML markup. Since much of my work is centered around creating modern web applications and web applications is one of the main things to be addressed in HTML5, I’d be keen to add my 2 cents where appropriate.
I encourage anyone who feels that they may have something to contribute or has any strong opinions on where the language should or shouldn’t go, to sign up. It’s open to the public, so should something get decided you don’t agree with, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. At the very least you’ll get a front row seat to the creation HTML5.
Yesterday the W3C announced the formation of a new HTML Working Group with goal of updating the HTML & XHTML standards and bring them into the modern age. I personally have only 2 concerns with the new effort.
One, there won’t be a formal specification until Q3 2010. Yup, 3 1/2 years. And that’s if they keep to the timeline. But the other issue with that is once it’s a final spec, it’ll be another 2-3 years before these features are commonplace enough in the browsers for them to be useful. Of course the browser makers can be proactive and start implementing these features before the spec is a final recommendation. But considering the current recommendations (which are around 7 years old) still aren’t fully implemented, I’m not overly optimistic that will happen.
My second concern is that the co-chair of the new working group is Chris Wilson, the Group Program Manager for Microsoft Internet Explorer. My concern is not about Chris as an individual (I don’t know him), but that he’s employed by a leading browser manufacturer. And not necessarily because it’s Microsoft, I’d feel the same if it was someone from Mozilla, Opera or Apple. Having a browser manufacturer heading an organization with the task of updating the HTML standard seems like a conflict of interest. But considering the other co-chair is Dan Connolly from the W3C, there may be some checks and balances in place.
On a very positive note, the discussions related to the new recommendations will be open to all in a public forum. From the press release:
“Based on significant input from the design and developer communities within and outside the W3C Membership, W3C has chartered the group to conduct its work in public and to solicit broad participation from W3C Members and non-Members alike.”
So if you feel you have the expertise to contribute to the new HMTL/XHTML recommendations, sign up.
This is a very exciting development for anyone who works in the world of HTML. A lot has changed since the last recommendations were finalized in the ways we build web sites and web applications. It’ll be great to have markup that accounts for that and allows for developers to push it even further.
Just don’t let this take away from any CSS love :)
What? http://t.co/6H5npHzk 2 hrs ago
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A little over a year ago I did a refresh of the Media-Hive company site. Based on the original design direction by Greg O’Keeffe, I set out to tie together loose ends of the previous site and simplify some of the information architecture.
Over the past few months I’ve been obsessed with a little app called Instagram. It’s an app for the iPhone that lets you take square format photos, apply a filter, then post to multiple services such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and others.
This past Saturday I had pleasure of attending the NIN/JA (Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction) show at the PNC Bank Arts Center (Garden State Arts Center to those of use who know better) in Holmdel, NJ. It was a big day for me as I had been looking forward to this day ever since I purchased the tickets a couple of months ago.
It’s been two months since I released my first Wordpress theme, Manifest. And in those two months the response has far exceeded my expectations. Which honestly wasn’t that hard since I didn’t really have any. Since it’s release, Manifest has been listed on various Wordpress theme blogs and used on countless personal blogs. It’s also enjoyed over 1100 downloads. Which still boggles my mind.
One of the key features of my recently released Wordpress theme, Manifest, is that IE6 is unsupported. This hasn’t been an issue with the vast majority of people using the theme, but there have been a couple of comments and emails asking about IE6 support. I figured I’d clear the air on the subject.