Take back the web

Mark asked me to talk about something from my HTML5/CSS workshop (http://workshop.germanforblack.com) but I after prepping for my workshop I’ve formulated some other thoughts about how the web and standards sit. Hence this topic.

Ben Schwarz@benschwarzgermanforblack.com

FutureSo when you’re looking forwards, sometimes the best thing to do...

History

is to look at the past. what worked, what didn’t. etcetera

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

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2010

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

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1999

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2001

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2007

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2.0

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2.0 3.2 4.0

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2.0 3.2 4.0 4.01

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2.0 3.2 4.0 4.01

XHTML1

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2.0 3.2 4.0 4.01

XHTML1

XHTML1.1

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2.0 3.2 4.0 4.01

XHTML1

XHTML1.1

HTML5

Looking back, there was a lot of innovation going on early in my career, I quickly realised that since I ‘went pro’ with the web there had only been one major HTML release. This bothered me a fair bit. Looking at why: The W3C became increasingly interested in semantics and allowing publication of content on various devices, mobile, print, televisions. They made some good decisions, but poorly executed them. XHTML went nowhere.

“The CSS working group right now is chronically dysfunctional…”

-Ian Hixie, Google

WHATWG

The whatwg group formed because they didn’t believe that the w3c would well handle further development of HTML

The whatwg group have gone through the html5 spec with a fine tooth comb. Applying use cases and better documenting how browsers should handle elements down to a very detailed level.

What about CSS?

Bert Bos, co-inventor of CSS

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t take style tips from this man. Bert, the co-creator of CSS is a PHD and built a beautiful, elegant way for the world to apply style to HTML.

‘Fancy borders’

I saw him talk at web directions around 3-5 years ago, one thing that he said while showing new css3 features was ‘fancy borders’, this really stuck with me, he had no idea what designers really wanted or needed.

With an example like this sitting in the spec today, its pretty clear that designer presence doesn’t exist within the w3c

So...

One question comes to your mind when you consider that the w3c css working group are a ‘closed’ organisation

Are we fucked?

See : Recommendation 15, dated 2009.

See : Recommendation 15, dated 2009.

go back TEN FUCKING YEARS to 1999 and we’re at draft 3 for selectors.

go back TEN FUCKING YEARS to 1999 and we’re at draft 3 for selectors.

John ResigjQuery creator@jresig

but something happened, John, from mozilla worked css selectors into jquery

we got the functionality to use in JS two years ago. browsers have already implemented many of the selectors. this was a good result

The W3C will never be (good) designers

Fact.

David Desandro made this awesome sticker book using webkit transformations and animations. Key: Experiment with new features as early as possible. Build things that you aren’t sure about. Make use-cases for the w3c and tell them about it!

Write articles about technology, weather it be technical or about generally how it makes you feel. It is important to open dialogue up with designers, developers and spec authors.

Join or form your own groups

Take back the web

Thanks