Future Changes to HTML?
There has been some buzz recently about proposed changes to the HTML specification. The W3C is talking about a new HTML 5.0 spec and corresponding xHTML 2.0. There are blog posts about this here, here, and here (the last one is by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of HTML, but it's a little more technical than the others. The first two are the same, but comments raise some different issues).
The question is: what would you want to see added to HTML? What do you want it to do that it can't do already?
(keep in mind that we are speaking of HTML as a structural mark-up language only, not as a way to make things look a certain way or add other wizzardry )
Busy posted this at 21:09 — 7th November 2006.
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I thought HTML died out, hense the reason XHTML came along?
How can they have two, unless they go in totally different directions.
The websites mentioned state people have mixed views of the w3c, if they update HTML how can people believe anything they say, let alone believe in them. After four years they change their minds?
Megan posted this at 22:07 — 7th November 2006.
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Read Tim Berners-Lee's blog post, that explains it. Basically, they have recognized that people aren't transitioning to xHTML like they intended, therefore the continued need to support HTML. Although I don't think that makes a difference really. People didn't transition because they didn't know about it (either that or they have a problem with the way IE handles xHTML doctypes). So going this route doesn't seem to address the real problem IMO.
Megan
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demonhale posted this at 04:39 — 8th November 2006.
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Ditto on this point. People still dont even understand xhtml or its difference with html... Although I feel changing it all over again would confuse yet another generation of coders. I wish they would just create a commission to make all browsers follow either specs...
Busy posted this at 09:17 — 8th November 2006.
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I did read the links, thats why I quoted those things.
What they need to do is phase out HTML and make XHTML the standard, otherwise XHTML will become HTML and these guys making up the rules as the go will loose face.
If they go back to HTML they might as well say Microsoft has won and standards will never be followed.
Megan posted this at 13:51 — 8th November 2006.
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I think it's more a problem of not being able to communicate with the majority of people creating web pages.
Busy posted this at 22:04 — 8th November 2006.
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Are they just taking the easy way out?
I saw mention of browsers but no mention of editors. At a guess I'd say over 75% (probably closer to 85) of designers/developers use some type of editor. Look how many come up the ranks starting with front page.
These are the things they need to be targeted, not the professional designers/developers.
Can see it now:
p1: Lets learn HTML 5
p2: Why?
p1: It's the latest and greatest ...
p2: Whats the point, it will be replaced by YHTML in a couple of years
or
p2: *My editor doesn't do HTML 5, whats the point in spending another bunch of cash for ANOTHER version of *my editor ...
or
p2: As long as Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera etc all fully support HTML 5 100% lets do it, otherwise it's still in beta and we should wait for the real release
*my editor being the name of the editor they use
DDoSAttack posted this at 00:45 — 9th November 2006.
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Busy has an excellent point in that someone needs to MAKE the browser creators follow certain standards. Right now all it is is basically "please follow this set of standards and if you don't well that is ok because we will make it so that things more or less work anyway"
This is not an IE, Mozilla, etc... issue. It is a w3c issue. They consistently put forth standards and refuse to do anything about them. This is why companies like Microsoft feel empowered to do what they want and essentially create their own set of standards. How can you blame them for this attitude when nobody says differently?
Imagine if tire manufacturing following this same path. The road building company says that roads can be made for round tires and oval tires.
Now tire 1 which is shaped like an oval will only work flawlessly on road 1 which is created with tire 1 in mind. However someone decides that they wish to use tire 1 on their car and drive it on road 2 which is made with circle tires in mind. The tire works but won't provide a smooth ride.
Who is responsible for the standardization of the roads and tire manufacturing? What happens when companies do not follow the standards set forth?
Right now on the internet we have this same problem and nothing happens, which is the root of the problem.
Creating a new set of rules is definitely not the answer, nor will it be "better". At least not until we get some semblance of order in how the standards are implemented and upheld. I believe that it will sit there like XHTML and do nothing... all because the other stuff 'works'.
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 05:02 — 9th November 2006.
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DDoSAttack, I'm glad you raised the analogy with tyres and roads. There's a lot of interesting history regarding standardisation, ruling bodies, and de facto standards in those industries. I think there's a lot we could learn by looking at how those folks try (and fail, depending on your perspective!) to implement and enforce standards.
I don't have time right now to go into them, but I'll mention a couple more examples I encountered recently.
I was replacing some old components on my bicycle and found that the screws, new bits and bike weren't compatible. Turns out they were measured and designed using different standards for screws (or bike parts). Eventually, I cobbled it together with some other screws and nuts -- rather like a CSS hack.
Screws and bikes have been around at least a century each, and are fairly simple things, yet there are still no totally universal standards for many of their features. Part of the problem lies in the cost of retooling legacy equipment, and updating designs and units. Another curious factor lies in vendors trying to ensure customer loyalty (lock-in).
(There is a standard screw (American), actually, and it's interesting how the British came to adopt it. Bike screws are different, though.)
There's a similar situation with shoe sizing. And they've been around many centuries.
Essentially, standardisation is a difficult problem in many industries. I'm beginning think it's impossible to reach a happy solution for web standards before its necessity expires. However, making an effort towards it keeps the situation from getting worse (as is its natural tendency), so it is worthwhile, imo.
How does a new HTML standard fit into my thinking? I'm not sure, actually. I can't imagine it doing great harm or great good. I'm still undecided.
andy206uk posted this at 12:11 — 9th November 2006.
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One thing I want to see in future versions of (X)HTML is a way to mark text as being less important in a meaningful and semantic way (something a lot of designers use for)
Andy
Megan posted this at 14:10 — 9th November 2006.
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That's a really good point, Andy, you should suggest that on one of the blogs I linked to. Another example would be a tag for .
JeevesBond posted this at 18:10 — 11th November 2006.
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Well this is a good point, but the W3C is made up of the companies that are part of it, they all have a say in how the standards are written so should have no reason to deviate from what is published.
I think the problems we are seeing are indicitive of the Microsoft 'embrace, extend, extinguish' policy toward things that threaten them. As Abhi pointed-out, there are deviations from the standard to achieve 'vendor lockin'. Like the analogies Abhi.
You say this is a W3C problem, but how can they enforce the standards? It's not as if they can send a bunch of mafia gorillas up to Redmond to throw chairs at Steve Ballmer.
When standards are created they're certainly not a binding contract, if they were I don't think many of the companies signed up to the W3C today would be partaking.
As for continuing to support HTML, I think this is a step backwards. Certainly most sites aren't using xhtml yet, but more and more people are starting to understand. Using xhtml standards based coding has a good effect upon Google rankings (less code more content), designs are easier and faster to code using xhtml standards. The benefits are there, this just seems to be ratifying those people who're stuck in 1998!
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andy206uk posted this at 19:18 — 11th November 2006.
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It's a shame that the web has to stay backwards compatible. If it weren't for all the old sites browser vendors could stop supporting anything using older versions of HTML which would force people to create standards compliant code.
I almost think we need to create a second web. One that supports only standards compliant XHTML, XML etc (where pages fail if they don't validate to their doctype) and perhaps makes use of a modern replacement for email that loses all of the inherent problems within the way email works at the moment (spam, spoofing etc - although this is an altogether different topic).
Lets face it - with the way the web is at the moment, there will always be bad websites out there, and theres nothing anyone can do about it.
Andy
JeevesBond posted this at 20:40 — 11th November 2006.
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Perhaps we should fork Firefox, rip out all the code that allows invalid code to work and replace it with a big fat: 'Sorry can't render this page 'cos it's broken, and that' message.
Ohhh, if only I had the time!
Yep, agreed. Browser writers will never stop supporting broken sites because many sites would stop working in their browser, and site makers won't stop making crap code because the browser writers still allow their sites to work.
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Busy posted this at 22:25 — 11th November 2006.
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The internet is run in part (bill gates etc) by some of the biggest corporations in the world, yet they work opposite to their normal business practices.
Look at the products they make, bikes, gaming machines, cars, computers ... nothing is backwards compatible - yet they are world wide.
They can't use their normal business practice because the internet moves to fast, with to many directions.
The W3C have to stand up and make a stand with these companies or they will be ignored even more.
Microsoft (for example) can make a difference, am sure most of you have had windows for years, some maybe since DOS days, does anyone ever remember an update for frontpage (apart from the windows version changes). What about Publisher, Word etc, have they ever been connected to a validator, HTML Tidy type thing?
andy206uk posted this at 17:26 — 12th November 2006.
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I heard rumours that they've made efforts for Expression (the replacement for FrontPage) to be more standards compliant but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not
Andy
Megan posted this at 13:59 — 13th November 2006.
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Expression is very standards compliant, yes. As far as I can tell, anyway. Here's a thread with my review. I've heard that they will be discontinuing Front Page once Expression is launched. MS is at least talking the talk about standards now. I don't believe that they actually embrace them (maybe some of the individual developers do), but at least they are feeling the pressure to comply. So standards advocates are having an impact.
Megan
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Neutron2k posted this at 23:43 — 14th November 2006.
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the problem with them developing a 5 version of html is that they are once again opening the gap for bad development. The whole point in xhtml was to force developers to use some type of standardised code. The reason people are not transitioning to it is because they either don't know about it, or because they are not phasing out support for html4.
If they phased out html4 in the new browser releases, then people would be forced to make the transition. Obviously to do this they would have to have a years announcement so that everyone got the idea and had time to update their sites.
at the end of the day theres no real reason for people not to make the switch. Its essentialy the same markup but with a few rules.
andy206uk posted this at 00:05 — 15th November 2006.
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Not gonna happen. There are sites out there now that are no longer maintained and over 10 years old but quite often still useful. Are you saying that they should be hidden from users because they're old? That really defeats the point of the internet.
I think the best solution would be if browsers had some kind of warning on older sites. i.e. -
You are viewing a website that utilises old and out of date coding - this may cause problems with the way the site displays (possibly phrased in a more usercentric way though).
I'm sure having that at the top of their pages would encourage a lot of site owners to buck up and update their sites, but it's a lot of work.
HTML as it stands shouldn't be developed any further. I was under the impression that the web was moving towards XML and that XHTML was just an easy way for people to begin the transition (with people later integrating other forms of XML within their sites such as MathML(?) and Xforms as well as custom DTD's and XSS...
Or maybe I was too busy flicking ink at the back of class when they explained it all...
Andy
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 00:23 — 15th November 2006.
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That was the grand plan, yeah. I find it somewhat ironic how XHTML1 is a transition to XHTML 2 which is a transition to XML, XHTML1 Transitional is a transition to XHTML1, and now HTML5 is supposed to be a transition to XHTML.
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 00:19 — 15th November 2006.
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I think that's what they're trying to do with this new version. If they phased HTML4 out, a lot of people will be left in the lurch. The problem then would be how to deal with those who stick with an obsolete standard for the sake of convenience.
And since HTML4 is not going to change towards XHTML, there is no way to gently coerce HTML4 users forward. The idea with HTML5, I suspect, is to guarantee compatibility, in the relative short term, for HTML4 code but with the condition that it will change in the future.
Well, that's how I interpret their motives for HTML5, anyway.
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