molly.com
Thursday 14 June 2007
HTML5 and XHTML 1.1+ MUST Stop for Now
I’ve been holding this post in for so long my kidneys hurt.
Discussions about HTML5 should stop. Discussions about XHTML 1.1+ should stop.
Full stop.
- COMPLETE HTML 4.1, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1 in specs and browsers where applicable
- CALL for consistent implementation of these most basic specifications in all current browsers and devices to this point
- WAIT for future HTML, XHTML and CSS implementations until these implementations are complete
- FOCUS on JavaScript and DOM fixes and implementations as we come up to par with markup and style
Let’s discuss.
Filed under: professional, policies, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, browsers, microsoft, ajax, accessibility, javascript, whatwg
Posted by: Molly | 7:15 pm |
June 14th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Holzschlag–
You hit that nail on the head.
In the interim, implementation of true security countermeasures. Enough of the circus acts and pseudo-security.
The future of a true open Web is at stake.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Can I vote for you for president of the Internet?
I agree whole-heartedly. But how can enough pressure be exerted upon Microsoft (the main offender of being a bit behind the times) for them to change? I doubt they will be motivated without first a serious loss in market share. The average Web user doesn’t know of or care about standards and specs to switch from it.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I can agree on the HTML/XHTML front but on the CSS side of things, despite things not working consistently, I believe things are close enough that some elements in CSS3 can start to see the light (multiple backgrounds, selectors, etc). Some of the more edgy stuff like the layout stuff in CSS3 will need to wait.
I’m sure it’s difficult for Microsoft to play catch up, especially considering that they still seem to be trying to patch what they have but to stop now doesn’t seem to be the answer.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
It’s like you read my mind.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Molly, you know I love you, but is this you speaking or Microsoft? The web needs to move forward, not stay still. What exactly needs to be “finished” in HTML 4 and XHTML 1? They’re already done, completed and interoperably implemented specs. They’ve been finished for too long, and the W3C going down the rathole of XHTML2 for so long means it’s more than time to start on the next version of HTML/XHTML - one that will be implemented. If Mozilla, Safari and Opera all implement HTML 5 (some have already implemented pieces of the WHATWG HTML 5 spec), and customers demand those features, Microsoft will be forced to implement it. I say, about damn time.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
I agree! Let’s get everyone up to speed on the current stuff first (CSS 2.1 - oh, hell yes!)
….and breathe.
Dean: She can read your mind…it’s scary.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Hallelujah. Best idea I have heard of yet.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I think you’re on to something. I just fixed one of my blogger templates to switch from XHTML 1.0 Strict (a blatant falsehood) and drop back to HTML 4.01 Transitional. I also did a little checking and I’m pretty much limiting myself to the CSS 1.0 that is compatible with CSS 2.0.
It was simple pragmatics. These are the stable ones, and that is what matters I think. Getting stable sites and stable browsers. (Accessibility is another matter. I don’t know what to say about that.)
More here: http://orcmid.com/blog/2007/06/small-matter-of-blog-page-text-size.asp
and here: http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/wingnut/2007/06/adjusting-blog-style-information.asp
June 14th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Amen, Molly! Plus, make the specs clearer where they aren’t in terms of implementation (CSS, I’m looking at you). And I do agree though that some CSS3 stuff could become “CSS2.2″ and be implemented now, but whatever.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
The back of the train will never catch up to the engine — if you stop pushing forward, you’re basically saying “what we have now is good enough”.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I have to agree with Brett. There’ll always be differences/inconsistencies in the way different browser vendors implement the spec. In fact, I’m starting to learn to embrace the inconsistencies as one of the heterogeneous essence of the Web.
In an ideal world, everything works the same, cross browsers and all of them implement the spec in full.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
It would be nice to have all major browsers be consistent in rendering markup, handling styles, and executing javascript. Even if progress needs to be halted for a while, there is already plenty of material for vendors (I’m thinking of Microsoft here) to catch up with, and get implemented FULLY and CORRECTLY.
It seems to me that Internet Explorer is the biggest common factor, and the biggest hurdle. I sometimes wonder if Microsoft will ever pull itself together and actually finish implementing the standards in IE.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
In a sense I think I’d put it this way: we need to push the browser makers to finish what they start. No more of this “support *most* of a standard” crap. All or nothing; don’t start the next thing ’til they’re done with the first thing.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Please! Yes! Yes-yes.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:03 am
For the record, this is Molly speaking. In fact, I shudder to think what Chris Wilson and my other Microsoft and W3C and WHAT WG mates are going to say when they read this. I’m taking a risk here because this is not going to be a very popular perspective to many.
So for anyone questioning “who” is speaking here, let me confirm, this is all Molly, loud and clear.
The core focus of what we need as a community is interoperability and implementation in devices from screen to handheld and beyond. There is NO browser that does things consistently, and at least part of the blame lies with vague specifications and closed or unarticulated agendas across the entire spectrum of device manufacturers. We need to sit down and agree on error handling, clarify implementations of specs including CSS 2.0/CSS 2.1; encourage stability in the DOM and oh imagine this: promote stability in the user agent before advancing the specifications.
Hey, it just MIGHT be a useful exercise.
There are plenty of use cases to show how dreadful baseline implementation is across the browser and device market. There’s no need to name names because even if we had a user agent that was 100% to a given spec, we still would have gross misinterpretations of specs across all of device and tool land. It’s still early in the actual work of sitting down and working together, if we’re ever able to really pull that off. And I hope we can.
Think about it in a broader sense. Remove the brands and look at the baselines.
Print and handheld media are good examples. And then there’s always the snakepit of accessibility. We need better, more extensible design and development tools. We deserve better tools. We need these things. We’d use these things.
Building and advancing software takes time. And building and advancing the user agent properly is an enormous part of that process, particularly as browsers become the platform for delivering ever more complex and interactive applications and media.
There’s another related priority as well, and that’s education. What is being proposed, discussed and argued over in the specification discussions might be fine in theory, but real designers and developers have to work in the real world. And in order to do that, they have to learn a lot. A whole lot. Educating people about a moving target is extremely difficult. We of the digerati (god that’s an awful term but you know what I mean) don’t realize how much we know much less how little we understand. There are so many people who need good education - and who want it. Some stability here would help.
Patience, I’ve been told, is a virtue. I don’t know that much about virtue, but I’m learning.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Molly,
A big chunk of HTML 5.0 is to make HTML 4.01 implementable interoperably. It is exactly the purpose of your call.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:44 am
I couldn’t agree more Molly, I’m glad you’re spoken up.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Dido and the holding off.
The HTML 5 working group is a complete joke.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Initial thoughts: Yes and then again no…
I understand the rhyme and reason behind holding back on the fuss and furore of competing standards / approaches when those that are accepted aren’t being fully / correctly implemented within user agents.
However, when user agents reach that level there needs to be single common consensus on the way ahead (and that isn’t necessarily driving one area home at the expense of another), and those discussions and the framework of those discussions should be happening (and seems to be happening in part), now.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Honestly, whilst I appreciate you’ve written this post with words to be confrontational and jarring, it oversimplifies far too much.
As Karl points out very clearly, a huge motivation of the ‘HTML 5’ specification is to *fix* HTML 4. As in, the HTML 4 specification has proved insufficient to be implemented in a complete and interoperable way.
Yes, it’s confusing to everyone and I rather wish we’d just called it ‘HTML’, but ‘5’ is not a version in the conventional sense and the current intent of the Working Group is that the ‘HTML 5’ will include everything you need to _render_ HTML 4 (inter-operably, specified in sufficient detail for implementers), whilst evolving the language available for use by authors too.
So no, absolutely not. If you stop development on HTML whilst waiting for browser makers to fill in the gaps in the HTML 4 specification themselves and remain interoperable with each other and less popular devices (or: ‘magic’) then you’re leaving the standardised web to die slowly and have proprietary solutions take it’s place.
Now, I happen to fully support the development of new features in HTML as well, but the above is the most important reason that HTML 5 development must continue and be embraced.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:01 am
lol, Molly, we had the same thoughts at the same time - WCAG, HTML, and CSS: Maybe the standards need a break, http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070615/wcag-html-and-css-maybe-the-standards-need-a-break/
June 15th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Addendum: Almost the same thoughts, of course.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:09 am
[…] Molly asks developer communities to stop discussions of new and advanced specs - CSS3, HTML5, XHTML 1.1/2 - until there is full and consistent support for existing technology. […]
June 15th, 2007 at 3:44 am
Fixing the Web… Together!
Molly Holzschlag recently posted an article about stopping the development on HTML 5 and XHTML 2.0 until implementations are consistent for HTML 4.01 and others. It is surprising because one of the main goals of HTML 5 is exactly this,…
June 15th, 2007 at 5:08 am
Molly,
I think you have brought up a good point, but would like to suggest another approach. I read through the comments both for and against your idea, and have reached the conclusion that they are both right, and altogther wrong. We do need to continue developing the new standards, you can’t stop planning for the future. However, industry can’t continue to implement at the breakneck pace we have pushed on them over the last decade. It leads to sloppy code and security issues. The middle ground is concentrate on the browser side on implementing the current accepted standard in a secure and consistent manner, and on the planning of new standards, write clear and concise documentation so everybody can agree on what is being said. In the past it was a competition to inovate that hurt standards as IE and Netscape competed for customer base, now it is the fact that nobody can read the standards documents and agree on what they say. The sad part is that all of the major players are on the W3C and allegedly contribute. I don’t mind the browsers differeing in the way that I interact with them, but the way they interact with out content should be rock solid and as per the standards.
The short answer is develop to the current standards, and write the next standard so it can truly be standard.
Mike H.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Here, here Molly.
June 15th, 2007 at 6:19 am
So we have to wait for MS to get around to implimenting a 7 and a half year old spec before we start looking to what’s next?
No, MS (and yes, I realise none of the others are perfect, but they’re a lot further on than MS still) needs to get wiht the program and catch up. We need some progress, and it’s upto MS and others to keep up. They screwed up by halting dev, it’s their problem to get back to where they need to be.
If HTML5 brings benefits to the arena, why stop it, wait till MS finally get HTML4 nailed, and then wait another 10-15 years for MS to work out the next stage?
“oh that web sites like something from 1999″ would be an insult. Yet MS (mainly) can’t even get 1999’s specs implimented properly. The world, the web, has moved on hugely since then, if HTML5 helps address that change, MS, Mozilla, Opera, Apple, need to get with it.
Another thing we don’t need is Apple’s inflated ego matter of factly stating Safari as the best browser and releasing biased, flawed stats showing it’s also the faster.
June 15th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Molly, I agree with you.
I think we need to see a fuller support of the current state before worrying about the next state and the state after that and the state after that, etc.
How can all these groups talk about creating the new standards when the current ones are not really ’standard’ because they are not supported well enough?
June 15th, 2007 at 6:40 am
The only thing I would add is that a lot of the HTML5 spec retrospectively fixes HTML4 so I would like to see those aspects of the spec implemented. I would like to see Web Forms 2.0 implemented as a baseline too. My fear with HTML5 is that browser vendors might stall for a complete implementation, including all those fancy new elements. I’d rather fix HTML4, add WF2 and start from there. If browser vendors could agree to do this I would be happy.
June 15th, 2007 at 7:51 am
HTML5 will not solve the problems of the Web. The Web has a history of band-aid solutions and HTML5 is another band-aid. The Web is suffering from a terminal disease and we are using band-aids to mask the problem.
We need to stop all development of HTML and focus on XML. It’s not breaking the Web - it creating a new Web.
June 15th, 2007 at 7:51 am
No, the standards specs have been completed and published for years. These are two separate forces of the market driving each other: the standards groups and the standards implementors. It’s not a problem of the standards groups if the browser makers aren’t keeping up. Opera and Firefox have implemented a great deal of the newer specs, and even the more obscure specs. Why should we keep holding back the web so that essentially 1 browser manufacturer can catch up?
June 15th, 2007 at 8:11 am
[…] Few weeks back at this months AWIA Mini Talks, Geoff brought up the argument that the web industry doesn’t really have standards at all. Well not standards in the traditional sense. It more has a series of guidelines that browser vendors have chosen to implement their way. He commented they need to stop and fix it before moving forward. Now I have been thinking on this for while, why not just freeze all the standards and get them all implemented correctly. Well Molly Holzschlag has been thinking this too. To the extent she suggests: The core focus of what we need as a community is interoperability and implementation in devices from screen to handheld and beyond. There is NO browser that does things consistently, and at least part of the blame lies with vague specifications and closed or unarticulated agendas across the entire spectrum of device manufacturers. We need to sit down and agree on error handling, clarify implementations of specs including CSS 2.0/CSS 2.1; encourage stability in the DOM and oh imagine this: promote stability in the user agent before advancing the specifications. […]
June 15th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Jordan, but if there isn’t pressure put on that ‘1 browser manufacturer’ to catch up how do you expect them to? They have shown that in release after release their proprietary code is way more important then having things look good/work well across different browsers and platforms. They show they do not care time and time again and only very recently have begun to admit past mistakes by hiring people like Molly to help.
I would love a world where firefox/opera/safari rule the browser roost around the world which forces ‘e’ to stop their BS but that is not where we are today so something else needs to be done. In my opinion.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Hmm.
I very much agree with the bit where unfinished bits of the current specs should be completed and implemented. I’m also behind any move to standardise javascript and DOM across browsers. For instance I thought it was a very good move by the Webkit team to stop adding new features and concentrate on fixing bugs for a while.
I don’t agree that’s enough of a reason to stop work on new(er) specs and implementations though. The only problem really is that people (by their very nature) love to work on new stuff. They’re far less happy to go back and fix old bugs.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Two cents from someone who only wishes they knew what they were talking about.
I think that UA Developers should do exactly what you’re calling for. It seems to make sense that if you’re going to release a major version of a UA intended for general use, you should have things compliant and stable.
I think that the people developing the specs (W3C, WHATWG, et al) should create the specs for the next iterations, but that they could probably improve they way those specs are presented. Of course, we can’t eliminate the UA people from this aspect, but any representative from an organization that’s into UA development should not be influenced by the actual development of that UA. I think that if we’re going to have the UA developers convene and agree on what works how, this is the stage for that. This will mandate better specs, which will help things work more “right” from the start. It also eliminates the need for another group, with the need for extra communication channels. Kills a little clutter, in that regard, few lines to get crossed.
I also think I’m dreamin’, as that’s really a utopian system, and I doubt that it would work so wonderfully in reality (no matter how good our intentions are).
The software development should not control the standards development. Standards should strive to eliminate the amount of interpretation allowed to software.
Also, if you want to stop the assembly line, I think we should be looking at XHTML 1.1. No dealing with “one standard, three flavors”, less porting over of habits from another spec, and making advancement much more streamlined. Now, I don’t know the reasons why this would be a horrible idea, but I’m sure there is one, and I’m just ignorant.
Finally, we all know some browsers have further to go than others, but I think Molly’s trying to also push the point that the 2 most advanced browsers should render the same page, in all media, and handle issues in more of a similar matter. So look at it that way, rather than distracting some developers from trying to catch up.
JA
June 15th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
i have to agree molly… enough said.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
HTML 4.01 as specced is impossible to interoperably implement, simply because the spec is too vague. Most of what HTML 5 is doing is fixing that. At the same time it’s also defining a couple of new elements (because browsers vendors are expressing the strong intent to implement them with or without a spec), and some other people are floating ideas for some additional elements which could be really useful and thus _might_ make it into the spec - which of course is what gets most of the attention - but this is really only a very small part of what HTML 5 is about.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Molly, if what you were saying had any chance of working, it would have worked some time in the past 7 years. It hasn’t. Unless you are going to tell us that IE 8 is a year away with full HTML 4.1 and XHTML 1.0 support, as well as CSS 2.1, then I don’t see any progress. And even then, let’s face it… HTML 4.1 is not a very good spec, and XHTML 1.0 is even worse. At least this talk about HTML 5 is looking toward something that can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time… something HTML 4.1 never had.
June 16th, 2007 at 12:15 am
…ah roger that green leader.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:50 am
I agree, what the benefit of developing HTML5 or XHTML1.1 while current specs are not supported enough.
Instead let’s develop ways to use current specs in reaching what we want, and that’s already happening the best example of that is microformats, S5 slides and cool CSS techniques that come out every day etc…
June 16th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Is this really possible? If so, great. But I don’t think that this will come true.
June 16th, 2007 at 3:49 am
No offense, Molly, but your conclusion to stop HTML5 doesn’t make sense. You want to fix HTML 4.01 and the HTML DOM. The vast majority of what is in the HTML 5 spec is about doing exactly that! Merely patching the HTML 4.01 spec with minor edits makes no sense—there’s too much to fix. (Fixing CSS is outside the scope of the HTML 5 spec.)
As for stopping adding new features, single-vendor solutions such as Flash and Silverlight are not going to stop and wait for us to fix the HTML 4.01 feature set and then expanding on features. In order for the multi-vendor royalty-freely implementable open technologies to compete with the single-vendor technologies, we can’t stop adding competitive features. Instead, we have to add new stuff in parallel with fixing the old stuff.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:23 am
YES! Very good! This is what this blog should be about (IMHO) - addressing real issues in the developer community!
June 16th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
No. There’s nothing wrong with creating new specs, or even with browsers who are “further along” implementing parts of those specs. Certain browsers haven’t implemented certain parts of existing specs for one of two reasons: 1) the spec is unclear, or 2) they’re just not going to. HTML5 is trying to fix the “unclear” part, and the “just not going to” part can’t be fixed, especially not by us stomping our feet and pouting our lips. (We’ve tried.)
June 16th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Have been reading these comments with a lot of interest. Seems that everyone has made valid points.
How all this standard stuff shakes out, I don’t know and I don’t care. It will take 5 years to reach a consensus on HTML 5.0 whatever and/or CSS 3.0 whatever, regardless.
If Internet Communication is kept simple and stupid, “ain’t broke don’t fix it”, void of circus acts, it will render close enough across major browsers and can meet Priority 3 accessibility standards. XHTML works for me.
What Microsoft does or does not do, anymore, I could care less. Market forces will continue to dictate their course of action regardless of how many times and ways they try to paint an orange yellow and call it a banana. Things are at a point, from my perspective, where Microsoft browsers can now be ignored.
Holzschlag, Meyer, Zeldman, countless others — you have made my life much easier. More importantly, you have had significant impact upon the delivery of Internet Communication to vast numbers of people and, as a result, have contributed to the enrichment of their lives.
For that, thank you very much.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
HTML 5 will not fix HTML 4.01 it’s only going to make things worse for developers. HTML 5 is NOT backwards compatible to HTML 4.01 because they dropped a bunch of elements and attributes. Some elements are dropped in XHTML 5 but allowed in HTML 5. The rules for some elements have no logic whatsoever. For example, you can use FONT but only if you use a WYSIWYG editor. B, I and STRONG have very imaginative new meanings. The whole notion of inline and block elements are all out of whack. For example, this is valid in HTML 5:
Heading
This means inline elements can contain block elements.
HTML 5 is not about fixing HTML 4.01. HTML 5 is about providing rules for browsers to render tag soup. Nothing is going to get fixed! Development of HTML 5 must stop.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
The above example should be:
<FONT style=”color:red”><H1>Heading</H1></FONT>
June 16th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
[…] Molly E. Holzschlag calls for a full stop on the HTML5 progress. I wonder why? […]
June 16th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Kenny M.: there is a difference between what useragents should be able to handle and to what is considered ‘conforming’…
June 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
If you want trains to run on your tracks you need to lay the sleepers before the rails.
June 17th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Was reading Dubost’s post about fixing the Web — http://www.w3.org/QA/2007/06/fixing_the_web_together.html … and the W3C servers are broken when attempting to publish a comment. Go figure.
So, I am posting the intended comments here.
Holzschlag, if this post is to off topic, delete it, please. Thanks.
What are these phone calls/e-Mails going to point out??
Reference is constantly being made to a “broken Web” and how HTML 5 is going to help fix that.
What is actually broken?? Content that is not standards compliant breaks the Web??
A significant argument can be presented that the only things that are “broken” are the tools that have been used to produce Web content and the level/amount of education for those individuals publishing content while using those tools.
Developing a new standard will not solve these issues. What it will do is increase the complexity of the education process and further muddy already muddy waters.
The two greatest offenders of generating “broken” content, Microsoft Word and FrontPage, are history.
The market success of FrontPage produced a plethora of other sloppy development applications.
Maybe the objective should be to get these development tools so the tools will easily generate semantic content, do it simple and stupid so that your grandmother can publish content if she so desires.
The Web is and should be open … open to anyone to publish content. To think that everyone should be a top-tier developer is ludicrous.
Holzschlag hit the nail on the head … let things catch up and stop thinking the somehow a new standard will magically repair what has been done.
June 17th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
About the server, yes there was a power outage on some of the machines, I’ll take care of it this morning, as soon as I arrive at the office.
About the phone calls
* Users of the Web site will get a dialog from Win IE saying “save this page on your computer”. It means that 75% of users will not be able to see the content.
* Then let’s say that this big site is used by 25% of users with browsers which can handle application/xhtml+xml, it means the site has to be perfect before displaying the page. Any kind of well-formed errors will display an error message in the browser. (XML spec rule)
Bear with me, I’m not saying XHTML is bad, I use it on a personal web site served with the right mime type: application/xhtml+xml. It requires from the maintainer of the Web site, to introduce quality control early in the publishing process. If the pages are not well-formed, the publication can NOT happen. So it will minimize.
Let’s say that if we had draconian rules for HTML 4.01 (not defined in the spec) and that the browser should not display anything at all or a big red flag for all invalid content. Every webmasters, content developers will be harassed with phone calls and emails.
It is the social part of the Web. There is user interaction.
About history in terms of Web development. Saying that Microsoft FrontPage is history is not enough. What is the plan to fix 95% of the Web content? The content which is used now. If there is a solution, I’ll be happy.
For “let things catch up”, read top to bottom HTML 4.01, and you will see that is difficult to implement, ambiguities, behaviours not specified, etc. HTML 5.0 contains a lot of what Molly is calling for, fixing HTML 4.01 to make it implementable.
June 17th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I can’t help read this and think that perhaps the standards movement has passed into the Trough of Disillusionment on the Gartner Technology Hyper Cycle.
Disclaimer: I believe in an XML web. I accept that that web has a technology life cycle similar to that of software. Imagine if our word-processors of today looked like WordPerfect for DOS from the nineties. Imagine if vehicle (car/plane/train) improvement had been halted back in the 1920s.
Onwards!
June 18th, 2007 at 3:49 am
Forget ancient desktop authoring apps like Frontpage or (gasp) Word, how does any web standards body seriously expect countless competing CMS apps to play ball? It comes down to accountability. If present web standards cannot be enforced there’s no reason for the CMS vendors to take any of this seriously and author products that conform.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:10 am
dubost–
Thank you for your reply.
The XHTML DTD served with a correct MIME type is not an issue in any modern user agent if, as you have stated, content is coded correctly.
Maybe I just simply look at things with the mind of an eleven year old kid. To think a change in standards is going to fix broken Web content is similar to trying to fix broken automobiles by rebuilding roadways and changing the engineering on how those roads are built.
Designers/developers have gotten so wrapped up in the “we” concept and what is good for “us” that focus has been lost on what the Internet is about and who it serves.
To the average Web visitor, what is being referred to as “broken content” is not broken to them. “Elk don’t know how many feet a horse has.”
HTML 5.0 appears to be stepping backwards, eg. co-mingling design and content. Standards are not broken. What is broken is how people code content and the tools used to create content.
I personally have a hard time grasping the concept that broken content is all that important when factoring in that anyone should be able to publish content. Browsers seem to handle “broken” content with greater ease than interpreting standards compliant content.
What to hell do I know .. not a damn thing. Dubost, Holzschlag, et al .. you people are the experts. Just please don’t screw it up .. keep it simple and stupid. Above all else, “if it ain’t broke, don’t be trying to fix it.”
June 18th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Web standards, the three-legged race
A few days ago Molly threw a bit of a hand grenade into the community: COMPLETE HTML 4.1, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1 in specs and browsers where applicable CALL for consistent implementation of these most basic specifications in all…
June 18th, 2007 at 10:33 am
I agree. But, what would all those browser vendors,programmers, working groups and other employees that have a career or other interest in hypothetical specs do with their time?
I reckon more people think they have a better living to be made worrying about tomorrow’s standards than implementing the 90’s standards today, regardless of whether those 90s standards remain perfectly adequate or their implementations incomplete.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:45 am
[…] Anne Van Kesteren, perhaps in response to this post by Molly Holzschlag, created a difference document between HTML 4.0 and HTML 5. This is a very succinct look at how the markup will change, and I found it helpful. My heart will not break when such is implemented and we no longer have to worry about frames when we go to about.com. […]
June 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Rules before results
Rules before results: One approach to web technology debates what rules to follow, and then debates for a much longer period how not everyone follows those rules. (Another approach focuses on what capabilities consumer machines actually have today… h…
June 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[…] And Molly: I really would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that your call to stop HTML5 progress is not in any way related to Microsoft, but if that’s the case than I must say that you are truly misinformed about the meaning and intentions of HTML5 itself and the actual conformance level of browsers (except IE) to the very technologies you’re mentioning. Why would the world need to wait for 1 single vendor, especially when this vendor has the most resources and despite that kept the world waiting for many years already while doing nothing? […]
June 19th, 2007 at 1:24 am
What seems to me to be the most important spec in terms of getting right is xhtml1.1. And what I’ve always seen as the whole purpose of xhtml1.1 is the modular aspect. We hear/read/say/write a lot about how great svg is (and for what it’s worth I agree), but who can name a browser that understands it properly? How do we use such a wonderful tool in a way that is both practical (as in “it works”) and semantically correct? For example, I could display my company’s logo as svg pretty easily with an object tag — but that’s not valid markup. I could treat it like it’s xml and try
img:svg xmlns="http://w3.org/something/whereeversvgis.dtd"or whatever voodoo w3 has in mind, but that doesn’t display anything. So the real question to me is “What good is a standard that nobody supports?” — and that standard is xhtml 1.1. Which is a real shame, because the extensibility of xml is what I was always led to believe was the reason behind xhtml in the first place.Or maybe things that start with an x are just cooler. How should know, I just work here.June 19th, 2007 at 2:24 am
A number of people have said that HTML v5 will resolve a lot of the problems with HTML v4 (all while changing some things and adding new features).
If I’m interpreting what Molly said correctly, I believe her intentions are to fix the existing specs, without changing meaning of elements or functionality, without adding new features etc. so that something stable and consistent can be implemented from them.
Then, once that is done (perhaps excepting microsoft who never seems to want to play nicely with the other User Agents) new specs can be developed which possibly add new fetures.
In the software development world it’s always best to have a zero bugs policy. Meaning that bugs are resolved before making the code more complex by adding new features or changing functionality. Another benefit is that considering the above, if you have zero bugs you can immediately implement new features; I don’t claim to be an expert myself but from what I’ve been told bugs often hold back development of new features, because leaving the bugs in there and adding the new feature(s) would break things, where as new features added code with zero bugs is far less problematic.
I think Molly has the right approach in theory & principal, it just depends how this is actually going to be executed. Any clarification Molly?
June 19th, 2007 at 4:49 am
[…] Here are thoughts I’ve been having since I wrote the post “HTML5 and XHTML 1.1 Must Stop For Now.” There were many fine responses and discussion of various viewpoints, which of course was part of the point of the blog post in the first place. […]
June 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am
I’m sympathetic to the position that QA of existing specs is a high priority, but a certain amount of thinking about new features is worthwhile… as a way of recruiting engineering talent, for one thing. Often somebody is drawn to the working group in order to push a new feature; then they get familiar with all the details involved in deploying new features, and they end up appreciating the need for QA of old features and they end up helping out with those too.
June 19th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
One quick aside on an already overloaded stream of comments: We keep talking about browsers as if they are the problem, as if somehow the fact that there are all of these (badly-) implemented pages out there has a very important impact on how forgiving a browser has to be if you are going to use it for long.
My concern is that we don’t have much assurance that a page conforms to a given HTML/XHTML DTD and that page-generation tools, widgets, gadgets, and services have a lot more to do before browsers can be fussy about the HTML they accept.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:55 am
[…] Recently Molly Holzschlag, someone I admire and respect immensely, posted on her blog calling for discussion about HTML 5 and XHTML 1.1+ to stop and for the existing specifications (HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1) to be consistently implemented across browsers and devices. […]
June 21st, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Well it appears that most web browsers support XHTML 1.1.
Except IE, that is.
Another way IE is holding up the web.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:12 am
I cant agree with idea of stopping development of new standars for any reason.
We have CSS.3 already frosen for the last 5 years and the same is with x/HTML, why would we need to slow down even more ? Because people in Africa don’t know about internet at all ? - That cant be an excuse.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Molly,
> Discussions about HTML5 should stop.
> Discussions about XHTML 1.1+ should stop.
> Full stop.
Yes. Agreed.
> COMPLETE HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1
> in specs and browsers where applicable
Yes. I unconditionally, positively, unequivocally support this request. Please forward my unconditional support for this request to all your Microsoft hierarchical superiors.
We should all wear a “T-shirt saying COMPLETE HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1 in specs and browsers where applicable”.
> CALL for consistent implementation of
> these most basic specifications in all
> current browsers and devices to this
> point
Yes, yes and yes.
Best regards and please take care of yourself, Molly
Gérard Talbot
June 25th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I can’t agree that discussion about new standards should stop until all browser vendors have managed to implement whatever is in the current HTML, XHTML.. specs.
To me, that sounds like asking to stop the discussion about hybrid cars or other technologies that make us less dependant on imported oil, before American car producers have managed to build cars that are as fuel efficient as Japanese cars already are.
Whatever is discussed now in the HTML 5 Working Group, will become a recommendation in Q3 2010. The major browseer vendors are represented in the group and are having a public disussion about how to fix what is currently not working.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I agree, the main culprits are Micrsoft for keeping the world’s most used browser behind so much. However, I agree with Jonathan Snook that some CSS3 could be implemented.
Browser makers are getting impatient and releasing proprietary CSS3 only for their browsers, and this fragmentation is not good.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:11 am
[…] Molly E. Holzschlag je dáma, jejíž příjmení nevyslovím na poprvé správně. Napsala přes 30 knížek týkajících se webových technologií, jistou dobu vedla Web Standards Project, aktuálně spolupracuje s Microsoftem při vývoji Internet Exploreru a také přednáší na řadě amerických univerzit. Takže osoba veskrze znalá problematiky Webu. Přesto Molly rezolutně napsala, že diskuse o HTML5 a XHTML 1.1+ by měly být zastaveny. Úplně zastaveny. Alespoň nyní. Žádá: […]
July 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Molly, I agree with one part of your sentiment: that standards must be supported fully.
We need an enforceable system, possibly using trademark law, where browser makers cannot advertise support for a standard or use its logo in their products until they first pass implementation tests. Until then they should only be allowed to advertise “experimental partial support” for the standard, “for testing purposes only”. Partial and broken standard support in browsers is squarely to blame for the sad state of the Web today.
That being said, there is no reason at all we should hold up development of future standards like XHTML 2.0 just because one certain browser manufacturer (cough cough) has only recently even figured out what the “object” tag in 1990’s-era HTML specs is used for. I applaud you for your work improving support for the standards in Internet Explorer, and I am glad Microsoft seems dedicated to this task. But, the fact is, the other major browser makers have been supporting these standards far better — and have been continuing to fix whatever rendering bugs are left. (For example, Gecko and WebKit both now pass the ACID 2 compliance test.)
As for the 95% of the Web that’s authored using broken HTML, do you know why that is? Because 95% of the Web was authored using a broken web browser. We can’t blame the authors when their tools were, well, bad. Improve the browser, and the Web will improve as well.
I think XHTML 2.0 could be a great place for a fresh start. New MIME type, no requirement for backwards compatibility. Let’s get it right this time, and keep the old rendering engine with all its bugs for compatibility with the old Web, with all *its* bugs.
July 11th, 2007 at 11:48 am
What about MSTL (MicroSoft Markup Language)? Microsoft Internet Explorer still doesn’t worry about standards!
July 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
First of all, let’s be dead serious here. Enough pussyfooting around it; most of the problems for the web being the way it is lie on Microsoft’s doorstep. Between letting IE lag for years, releasing horribly broken tools in Frontpage and Word’s HTML generator, and attempts to control the Internet for their own gain, they have generated a good 90% of the problems currently faced (not to say that they haven’t given anything good to the Web). Braking web standards development is simply an admittance that Microsoft has so much market control on the client side that we literally have to stop the evolution of the web just for them. IMO, that is complete BS, and it would be BS if anyone else asked for it, either.
However, this is ESPECIALLY not the time to be stopping development on the web standards. Various vendors are coming out with new XML based standards, plugins for the Internet…
You don’t believe that if HTML isn’t evolving they aren’t going to suggest their proprietary solutions would get the job done better, do you? I don’t know about you, but being a non-Windows user, the idea of a completely Silverlight-based web scares me. I don’t want to get locked out of the Internet because I don’t run Windows or don’t have Office.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I agree…but can we let CSS sneak up to version 3.0 before freezing it? I think we’re all getting a bit tired of nesting containers to support multiple background images :-\
July 31st, 2007 at 12:40 am
[…] “Here are thoughts I’ve been having since I wrote the post “HTML5 and XHTML 1.1 Must Stop For Now.” There were many fine responses and discussion of various viewpoints, which of course was part of the point of the blog post in the first place. […]
September 8th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
[…] Besides the complete silence about IE.Next on the IEBlog (a shrill contrast to all the “excitement” being displayed during the IE7 development phase) I also questioned Molly Holzschlag’s rationale for calling a stop on the HTML5 progress and called on Microsoft to stop stalling and actually improve their browser. […]
November 4th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Thank’s
Nice article/blog
Good read
http://www.hagayret.net
http://www.okmeydan.com
http://www.vazgecmem.com
December 1st, 2007 at 11:13 am
Agreed. There are enough new web technologies developing to keep us busy while browsers are perfecting support for the current specs/standards. If complete support can not be accomplished at this level, what makes anyone think it will be possible when the specs become more complicated and powerful?
Browser Developers: Please get on the same page and stop releasing “major” updates until full support for the current specs has been achieved. Releasing a new version may make you look cool for continuing development, but it creates further setbacks for web designers, developers and, most importantly, the end users.
Great post, Molly!
December 12th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Indeed, good show, molly; capital post all around! I’m actually jealous I haven’t hopped onto the web-dev blog craze to say it myself, albeit, not as informed.
.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:31 am
[…] “Here are thoughts I’ve been having since I wrote the post “HTML5 and XHTML 1.1 Must Stop For Now.” There were many fine responses and discussion of various viewpoints, which of course was part of the point of the blog post in the first place. […]
February 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
You mean you think IE EVER is going to support even the current standards? I doubt it…
February 25th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
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February 26th, 2008 at 11:09 am
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March 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
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March 17th, 2008 at 10:10 am
thnks
March 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am
thanks
May 31st, 2008 at 4:37 am
I’ve read a little about HTML 5, and I know it has a lot of advantages over XHTML 2, but the problem is all my sites are in XHTML! Will XHTML ever get the same features as HTML 5? Perhaps when major browsers (theoretically, I know how things are) support HTML 5?