Monday 7 April 2008

The John Slatin Fund Accessibility Project

For the many people who knew and worked with John Slatin, his passing comes as a deep sorrow. His humor, kindness and always energetic work for Web accessibility are an inspirational cornerstone for all of us working to create a better Web, and ultimately, a better world.

After a long illness, John’s passing has left his family with medical debt. I can’t express the amount of personal rage I have against my wealthy and powerful nation’s inability to provide quality healthcare to its citizens. It is one of my gravest fears that I will leave the same legacy of debt on my loved ones who should be left able to care and comfort one another rather than see their life savings and resources lost during such a difficult time.

This in mind, I was extremely encouraged and moved to hear that a fund to assist with the Slatin family’s needs at this time has been set up. It works like this: Any company or individual who wants an accessibility site review is asked to donate $500.00 to the fund. In return, that company or individual will receive a review performed by top accessibility experts including such impressive names as Wendy Chisholm, James Craig, Marla Erwin, Derek Featherstone, Bruce Lawson, Gez Lemon, Ian Lloyd, Ann McMeekin - the list is literally a who’s who of the finest accessibility practitioners in the world. These experts donate their time to review your site, and in turn, the fund receives the money, which goes directly to the Slatin family to offset their medical debt.

Personally, I will miss John for so many reasons. It’s hard to imagine that he’s even gone, he was one of the most supportive mentors in the last few years of my own professional life. It brings comfort to know that the community has come together in such a positive and productive way to honor him, and his family, for the richness he brought to all he did and everyone he knew.

For more information on the project, please visit The John Slatin Fund Accessibility Project Home Page. There is also a Facebook Page where you can find more information as well as community support.

Filed under:   professional, web design and development, society, announcement, accessibility, community
Posted by:   Molly | 1:13 pm | Comments Off

Sunday 3 February 2008

Call for Web Standards Quips and Clips

I’m preparing my keynote for Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand, coming up next week. I would very much like a sampling of video shots of a wide range of individual opinions and thoughts answering the question: “What is the definition of Web Standards?” You can be as funny, mean, or weird as you like so long as you have some clear point to make. If you’re an enthusiast, be enthusiastic. If you’re a hater, be a hater. Just have a point, and think of the children

If you’d like to help out, drop a me! please in the comments. Shyness definitely does not apply here. I’ll contact you by email privately with details as to where to send and format, etc.

I’ll be using these clips within the presentation to gain a widespread look at how people define, and feel, about Web standards. Mostly, the point is to demonstrate how it can mean such a variety of things to people from all over the world. The more variety, the better. I will then publish them in the public domain for all to enjoy.

Up for it? Let’s hear from you!

Filed under:   professional, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, conferences, announcement, browsers, microsoft, accessibility, javascript
Posted by:   Molly | 6:55 pm | Comments (25)

Thursday 31 January 2008

From Web Standards Diva to Web Standards Devo

This post emerges from a comment I wrote to the response thread in my “Web Standards Aren’t” post, which I hope will clarify my thoughts a bit as well as take a lighter look at what I’m working to articulate here.

I’ve decided to become a Devo rather than a Diva. I’m going to design my new site with frames, tables, spacer gifs, lots of flash embedded into framed pages via iframes. I’m going to use non-semantic, presentational HTML, table based layouts, and lots of inline CSS.

The frightening issue is that I can build such a site so it will validate, pass at least WCAG priority 1 accessibility and have effective SEO.

The mere fact that I can actually do all that and be in compliance with specs should help clarify my point, I hope. It’s not the specs that define Web Standards. We are talking about best practices. We use the term “standards” fast and loose, and for an industry that is so interested in semantics, I find it endlessly ironic that we have chosen such a piss poor description to define a certain level of professional practices.

We co-opted the term “standards” and applied it to something that wasn’t a standard, rather, a series of specifications that are RECOMMENDED practices.

Am I saying stop working to specs? No. Am I saying we’re on the wrong path as we try and build a better Web by increasing education and awareness around specs and best practices - well, if anyone here thinks I mean that you must not have met me or know me too well. Rest assured my heart is right there, I want a better Web, and that means better practices, more education, more resources, more outreach.

I’m challenging the status quo. I’m just asking that you take a look at the semantics of the situation and not be led into a sense of comfort that we actually have achieved any semblance of a standard. If that were true, all browsers would behave the same way, and my code would be just like your code, and every CMS and development software would be interoperable, use correct nomenclature, and follow the specs.

Is that the Web we have? Clearly not. And as we grow and expand both on the desktop and into mobile devices, these issues become more fragmented, not less.

Filed under:   professional, standards, software, web design and development, society, w3c, browsers, accessibility, community
Posted by:   Molly | 6:49 pm | Comments (46)

Web Standards Aren’t

After a fantastic day in Perth I ended up talking to a group of oil workers. Men of all classes and walks of life. Scottish, English, Aussie. Tattoos, guys with attitude, heart, and an amazing decency of soul.

An engineer on an oil rig finds a fitting that’s defective. He tells his mates to fix or replace the fitting.

Following manufacturing specs, the person given the task consults the specs, and he builds it just so.

It fits, and will function. If it does not fit, it is not allowed to be used. Those are standards. The products developed meet manufacturing specs world over, and that’s that.

What we have today, on the Web, are not standards in the truest sense. We are at a time in the evolution of the Web where the idea of “standards” is more of a profound misnomer than ever.

Please Define Web Standards

Bet an Aussie dollar you can’t!

Most folks reading this post will say Web standards are markup and CSS, and maybe, just maybe, accessibility.

So what about JavaScript?

If you’re really smart, you raised your hand like Arnold Horschack and shouted out: JavaScript.

Surprise you markup and CSS pedantics, you know, that’s a “standard” too.

Democracy Killed My Grandma

The democratic Web fosters anarchy. That’s not a bad thing per se. I like the idea of anyone having a soap box. It makes for intrigue if not logic.

But professional sites must set some practice that is equivalent to all counterparts. And also supports my Mum when she wants to post a photo.

Don’t you agree?

Context, He Said, Is Everything

There’s a reason that we don’t have standards on the Web, or clearly understand what “standards” really are. The bottom line is it’s not that important.

Web standards aren’t, because democracy demands it.

The grand paradox is that our professional world demands a standard that can be measured and judged. And yet, we need to be free to not be conformists.

Web Standards Really Aren’t

Go ahead, tell me what they are. I know you can’t, because they aren’t. We have specifications, recommendations, implementations and a lot of best practice chatter.

What we do not have is the ace that will fit perfectly in the hole. Web standards aren’t.

It’s time to move on to whatever is next.

Filed under:   professional, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, browsers, microsoft, ajax, innovation, accessibility, javascript, whatwg
Posted by:   Molly | 8:28 am | Comments (52)

Thursday 24 January 2008

Me, IE8 and Microsoft Versioning

If you work in Web design and development and haven’t read any of the articles and discussions taking place regarding IE8 and its use of meta versioning for standards compliance, it’s time to read up on it ASAP. Begin with Aaron Gustafson’s “Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8” on A List Apart. You can follow the threads from there. Russ Weakley at maxdesign is keeping a good list of the conversations too, so you can drop by and fill up on all
the mud-slinging and drama as it unfolds.

Burning truths

I began to write a response to Shelley Powers’ formidable “Bobbing Heads and the IE8 Meta Tag.” In this article, I’m cited as being in compliance with the Microsoft meta option. At first I resisted that I was being “compliant,” thinking that despite my discomfort with the option, I thought (and still do think) that it was the best solution that came up during the year-long versioning discussion we had.

The year long, very private, NDA’d versioning discussion. Which is where I have to agree with those who cite me as being “compliant.”

Because this was not a public discussion, and because I and others both internally and externally failed to convince Microsoft to make it a public discussion (although to their credit they did bring in industry advocates), I am in fact in compliance with the meta choice.

However, this doesn’t mean I agree it’s the right thing to do. I can say that I think it was the best of a list of much more problematic options that were presented. Just think about what naturally came up at first, attaching to the DOCTYPE switch or encouraging the use of conditional comments are both easily identified (but also very problematic) possibilities. And just because I did in the end agree that this was the better choice has nothing to do with silence. We all had legal and ethical responsibilities in that process.

I wish, oh how I wish, we could have all worked on this openly and together. That would have been my dream, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

Holding back the tears

When I began to talk to Microsoft and IE via the WaSP Microsoft Task Force, the conversation was far more open, or at least it appeared that way. When I left WaSP to work with Microsoft in a liaison capacity, that was still true. Over the past few years changes within the company infrastructure led to changes for the IE management hierarchy, and suddenly things got very quiet.

Silence can equal consent, indeed. Which is why I personally focused on breaking that silence. It took enormous pressure internally (and frankly, I believe that’s continuing) as well as my blatantly asking Bill Gates about it this past December to push the doors open again. Finally, this allowed Aaron, who was part of that long versioning discussion, to publicly talk about the switching work being done.

If those hands had not been forced, no one would have heard about this until IE8 landed on our doorsteps.

Out the issues

Now it’s out in the open, prior to a beta. We now know a hell of a lot about IE8 because of this. We can take a damned good guess at what’s actually in IE8 standards-wise because in IE8 standards mode, we have Acid2 compliance. Break down Acid2, and you’ll see what those implementations are or will be.

I believe we are in a much better situation knowing all of this in advance of the product. Was it wrong for Microsoft to shut up? I say yes and I call foul on those folks within the organization who allowed the very positive and productive conversations be shut down so dramatically. Clearly, they made a drastic mistake, which they were warned about by internal folks as well as advisors over and over and over again. So, the more yelling that comes from the Web community and the public press, well, that’s a message Microsoft will listen to so let’s remember that and hope some good comes of it.

Honestly, would it have been better to hide all this information until IE8 landed on our doorsteps? I don’t think so. At least now we have a window into what Microsoft is doing and the conversation, as is evidenced by the activity of the last week, is outed.

Transparency is bullshit, let’s get naked

Open standards must emerge from public, open, bare discussion. Microsoft clearly does not agree with this. It goes against its capitalist cover-up mentality, even when Bill Gates himself has quite adamantly stated that there should be no secrecy around IE8. In fact, he was the one who let the name slip. The fucking name, people! This shows you how ludicrous the lack of communication had become: Gates himself didn’t even know we weren’t allowed to say “IE8.”

This covert behavior is a profound conflict for me as I’m sure readers will at least agree that I’m pretty darned overt by default. But I knew it going in, I just kept and am still keeping my hopes high because that is also my default.

Sometimes the solution is to step back and re-evaluate. Sometimes the solution is to walk away. I haven’t firmed up my personal decisions on that just yet. Maybe it’s time to go back to Old School WaSP-style stinging of MS, but that definitely is not my default.

Can’t we all just get along? No, really. During my time at WaSP, the door was open to a kinder, gentler way. More fool me? So be it. I’m not giving up the greater goal, which is keeping the Web open, free, naked, bare-assed to the world.

Of, by and for

I think about all of us, whether we are “for” or “against” a given approach in the context of Web technologies in general, and I realize how necessary our arguments are. We are some of the world’s smartest, most innovative, committed and passionate people. How we’ll start figuring out better ways to collaborate, change old-school thinking, and encourage positive innovation and growth for the Web, well fuck if I know. Been down several roads (WaSP, for example) to try and see just how to do that.

What I do know is that the Web is still of the people, by the people, and for the people, no matter what Microsoft or anyone else does. And we’re the people to keep it that way. It’s not the what, but the how, and the when, that we have to focus on.

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, browsers, microsoft, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, community
Posted by:   Molly | 10:22 pm | Comments (67)

Tuesday 22 January 2008

TravelBlog 2008: Australia and New Zealand

I’m in Houston and in a few hours will board a plane that will take me to Guam, then on to Cairns and points in Australia and New Zealand.

There are two concise reasons this trip is important to me:

1). 2008 marks the 20th (yes, that’s TWENTIETH) year online (bbs’s anyone?)
2). I turn 45 on the 25. It’s a rite of passage, I think.

For one month I’m going to explore Australia and New Zealand. I will post photos and ideas and inspiration.

I am also working hard, my current project: massive HTML and CSS testing for MS.

I’m very excited.

Filed under:   professional, standards, software, web design and development, travel, food and drink, society, w3c, browsers, microsoft, ajax, rails, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, The Daily Molly, community
Posted by:   Molly | 12:01 am | Comments (40)

Thursday 1 November 2007

W3C TPAC Upcoming

The “all hands” meeting of the W3C, combining the Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee meetings commences next week in what is certain to be an historic event.

This is the first time we’ll see the HTML 5 Working Group Members and its many Invited Experts meet en masse and face to face. The CSS Working Group, the QA working group and the WAI working group meetings are all on my personal lists for participation, along with the most important aspect of any conference of this nature: Talking to and meeting as many folks as I can.

On Wednesday, November 7, I am beyond honored to host the opening panel presentation for the Technical Plenary itself. Joining me in “From the Outside, In” will be Aaron Gustafson, Patrick Haney, Matthew Oliphant and Stephanie Troeth whose individual experiences span many aspects of real-world issues as influenced by W3C policies and practices.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the many people at the W3C and in the industry in general to have honored this group a unique opportunity to build bridges between the working communities of the Web and its most revered academic and scientific body, the World Wide Web Consortium.

From the Outside, In: Real World Perspectives on the W3C

Whether you’re a Web designer, developer, usability specialist or work in any one of the myriad jobs that go into making great Web sites, it’s clear that the W3C has significant influence on how you work. Whether it’s via the specifications that go into the software and agents that you use daily, or as the cornerstone of educational material, the W3C is involved somewhere in the process.

But it’s also clear that there’s been a gap between the real-world and the internal workings of the W3C. As Working Groups such as HTML 5 and CSS become more open, so must our conversations open. In this session, the W3C will have the opportunity to listen to real-world perspectives, respond to criticisms and praise and keep alive the ongoing commitment to authentic conversation and active community participation.

The panel:

• Molly E. Holzschlag (Web Standards and Practices Education and Outreach, Molly.Com, Inc.)
• Patrick Haney (Harvard)
• Matthew Oliphant (MathWorks)
• Stephanie Troeth (CloudRaker)
• Aaron Gustafson (Easy! Designs, Inc.)

We will also have a post-session q&a in the hallway near the presentation room, as well as dedicated Birds of a Feather tables set aside for ongoing discussion at lunch that day.

Am I excited? You bet. Idealistic, well always. Optimistic? Verdict is still out. In the meantime, this feels like forward movement and I, for one, want to be part of that momentum.

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, society, w3c, conferences, announcement, browsers, innovation, accessibility, community
Posted by:   Molly | 5:49 pm | Comments (35)

Friday 26 October 2007

Train the Trainer Swag Prep

Ooh, yummy stuff for the Train the Trainer Swag bag courtesy Microsoft, Peachpit Press, O’Reilly Publishing, and Lynda.Com.

Juicy stuff includes:

• One copy CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt
• One copy Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke, edited and with a foreword by me, and an introduction by Dave Shea
• One copy Expression Web software
• An IE7 water bottle (perfect for warm sunny Tucson weather)
• One copy of CSS for Designers from Lynda.Com

Swag is set, shopping’s been done, the refreshments for this evening’s opening mixer are chillin’ and short of some general cleaning, the first official Train the Trainer event is about to kick off!

Filed under:   professional, standards, software, web design and development, giveaways and fun, w3c, conferences, creativity, browsers, microsoft, ie7, accessibility
Posted by:   Molly | 3:55 pm | Comments (28)

Thursday 18 October 2007

Standards Needs and Wants

What do you need and want from Web Standards?

1. I want generated content
2. I want CSS3 features, especially design-oriented techniques such as better flow and layout, multiple background graphics, etc.
3. I want to rebuild the Web

Rebuilding the Web would be a very sexy pipe dream from which we all woke up with cream in our respective jeans.

I’m hoping CSS3 is more sexy. I kinda think it offers us a lot.

Part of my role is to ask and to translate the collective concerns to organizations that need to hear (and most importantly, understand) your needs. I personally don’t know what is “correct” or “right” really. So, I’m asking. And I’ll keep asking, and hopefully our voices will have some impact. I believe they can, and ultimately will.

Would readers be so kind as to tell me what your role is (designer/developer/implementor/other) in your answer as that will help me understand the context of your responses?

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, hardware, w3c, creativity, browsers, microsoft, ie7, ajax, innovation, accessibility, javascript
Posted by:   Molly | 10:16 pm | Comments (54)

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Come Together for a Rich Web Experience

The Rich Web Experience is a show I’m really getting excited for. I’ll tell you why.

I know nothing about JavaScript and Web applications in the real world. And I’m aching to learn!

And wow, I get to do that from people such as Douglas Crockford and Alex Russell. If you do anything with front end web development or browser technology, they are both worth a very serious listen. Not to mention the fantastic line-up that RWE has put together.

I’ll be reviving the popular keynote I did in Vancouver in February “WSI: Web Standards Investigations” as well as presenting on Web browsers and standards. I’m giving a workshop on CSS, too.

Here’s my schedule:

• KEYNOTE - WSI: Crimes Against Web Standards
  Web standards investigators: Get your crime scene gear on and help Molly dig up the dirt on crimes committed against web standards. Molly will demonstrate markup and CSS samples from her own felonious work dating back to 1993, as well as the work of other infamous standardistas before they got rehabilitated and let standards into their hearts.
• Markup & CSS for Developers: Empowering the Application Developer with Front End Magic
  As a developer you’ll probably be tasked with technical concerns such as streamlining file size, optimizing http requests, and ensuring that your web sites and apps remain manageable and flexible. You also need to step in and modify style and even create visual interfaces for your apps. Markup and CSS for Developers is a 90 minute presentation aimed directly at dealing with CSS from a developer’s point of view.
• The Broken World: Solving the Browser Problem Once and For All
  The Web was meant to be interoperable, but as every web designer and developer knows, interoperability is the very thing we lack. As we build standards-based, flexible, accessible, well-designed sites, we find it’s the browser that gives us most of our headaches. In this session, you’ll learn to take better control not through hacks and filters, but through an understanding of why browsers work the way they do.

Social Software as a Platform for Human Advancement
As we enthusiastically embrace the many technologies that come together to create Web applications, it’s important to also stay aware of the societal impact our software offers. In particular, social applications offer a foundation for improvements in all kinds of relationships. Spanning from business-oriented apps that enhance networking and economic opportunities to the more personal social applications that allow for myriad interaction, the social application deserves our attention not just as technologists, but as individuals and communities, too.

I’ve been honored to bring what I know about markup and CSS to the Rich Web, in particular the applications experience. I’m not a programmer, but I love working with programmers to find solutions to major issues in the delivery of a great web site experience.

Who’s going to The Rich Web Experience (RWE)? Anyone want to go?

I’m hoping to see you there.

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, travel, WaSP, society, w3c, conferences, announcement, browsers, microsoft, ie7, ajax, rails, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, community, RWE07
Posted by:   Molly | 4:02 pm | Comments (56)

Wednesday 15 August 2007

Web Standards Situation Solutions

As the past few days of discussion surrounding the concerns I’ve publicly raised regarding the current state of standards affairs, I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster reading arguments between people I respect and love, seeing once strong voices putting their heads in the ground and pretending everything is just fine even if glacially slow; and feeling overwhelmed at the complacency, frustration and despondency reigning supreme instead of the movement and joy that once filled the Web.

I’m a person of action as well as words. So when members of the WHAT WG and the W3C asked me to help clarify the concerns I feel, I made a point of figuring out how to do just that. I dropped by the WHAT WG IRC chat and talked with members there. Within a few minutes we came up with a few action items that people agreed would be helpful.

De-Mystifying and Clarifying HTML5

The first concern is to answer the question “Why HTML 5?” in a way that is as clear as possible and will make sense to the largest group of people as possible. This means no spec-speak in the analysis. The second concern is to highlight for the broader community just where the “hot topic” problems are, and begin honing in on those realistically, looking at how we can all come to mutual agreement. And when I say we, I mean WE. Remember that the WHAT WG and HTML 5 WG are open to your participation.

Ian Hickson has agreed to go through the current spec and red mark the unresolved issues and hot topics. A group of folks including myself have committed to taking those and providing them via a public forum (probably the WHAT WG blog, or possibly on W3C, or both) bullet pointing in clear terminology the rationale, outstanding issues and encouraging positive discourse about those issues.

Solving the Human Problem

As Jeremy Keith pointed out in a recent heart-moving post, it’s a pretty awful thing to see people who ultimately share common goals and even friendship fight with each other. Perhaps this is why I’ve been so upset, I’m very sensitive when it comes to relationships and clearly things haven’t been paradise for and between many of my colleagues lately.

In the IRC conversation (you can find resources and transcripts via the WHAT WG landing page) we discussed the value of face to face meetups. Logistically, this is a very difficult thing to achieve since we are a truly worldwide group, many people are students or don’t have budget from their companies to travel and so forth.

So one course of action we discussed was to have a simultaneous meetup in a number of cities across the globe where all interested parties get together F2F with the goal of open discourse over hot topics related to the specs. The value of this exercise would allow people to get together and meet their colleagues. Most would agree that F2F meetups can help mitigate some of the anger that is all too readily expressed in the online environments.

Lemons to Lemonade

Hopefully these planned actions will help clarify and calm some of the frustration, as well as bring a broader understanding of the real issues to everyone, myself included.

Is my approach passionate? You bet, and if you know me, it’s clear that the day that passion goes away I know I will have ceased to be effective in any way in this industry and I will leave it. But that day isn’t today. It’s a warm summer evening in Redmond, Washington, and I’m going to take some fresh lemons and make lemonade.

Anybody want a glass?

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, creativity, browsers, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, community
Posted by:   Molly | 10:10 pm | Comments (107)

Monday 13 August 2007

Dear WHAT WG and HTML 5 WG

Henri Sivonen asks the following lucid question amongst the chaotic discussion on this site recently:

On #whatwg various people (including me) commented that they don’t understand your point. Could you please clarify what problem you see with HTML 5 and what would need to be done to address your concern? Right now, this post seems to add to the discord.

Here are some direct suggestions. Please do bear in mind my prior post was not about WHAT WG, nor was it intended to upset people so. Clearly, I landed on a raw nerve. But here are some very simple suggestions to begin with:

1. UNIFY the HTML 5 lists and all IRC activities
2. DETERMINE the true key players in HTML5 WG with a fair balance of representation from spec authors, implementors and real-world developers as well as theoreticians and visionaries
3. DO NOT alter the integrity of what is already in use and in existence
4. PLACE new features in another release, perhaps a point release
5. RELEASE only those features that repair widely agreed upon problems
6. CONTINUE the innovative work, either within the W3C or without it but NOT on a dual path
7. LEARN to work with existing communities, as they must LEARN to work with you (for example, finding common ground with accessibility groups)

Finding the pathway to these issues is something I had hoped that WaSP, for example, would be involved in more helpfully. That’s part of my frustration. That I aside, I hope this provides a little more clarity to what apparently came across as vague concerns.

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, announcement, browsers, innovation, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, community
Posted by:   Molly | 11:20 am | Comments (68)

Saturday 11 August 2007

Dear W3C, Dear WaSP

Dear W3C, Dear WaSP,

Having been given the odd task of coming up with Technical Plenary material for the W3C, it strikes me not simply a blow but a full knock-out when my colleagues either don’t respond or merely suggest that we let Tim Berners Lee talk about the Semantic Web yet again and let everything in the Web Standards world go on as if the work that you and I do daily didn’t exist.

Fuck that.

Pay attention, W3C and anyone who cares. We have serious problems. On the surface:

• HTML 5 serialization under W3C
• Run Time Environments such as AIR
• Personal agendas overriding agendas that serve the greater good

I call on my colleagues, my friends to talk about this. Oh goodness, and here’s a unique idea. Perhaps the Web Standards Project (WaSP) can stop playing to its own audience and address:

• The future of JavaScript and its standardization under ECMA considering the Adobe/Mozilla relationship, whatever that is, really
• The future of markup - for god’s sake why are we revisiting the lingua franca of the web? Doesn’t WaSP or other standards groups have a serious responsibility to hash this out?
• Moving education forward. There is nothing like teaching people how, because then they’ll go and do. That’s true innovation.

Are you all just dumbed down by the fact you’ve got a job or what? Tell me. Let’s fix it. W3C, WaSP, whatever. We have problems.

Let’s talk about them and figure something out.

Filed under:   professional, faith(less), policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, announcement, browsers, innovation, accessibility, javascript, whatwg
Posted by:   Molly | 1:40 am | Comments (89)

Wednesday 20 June 2007

Train the Trainer Program

I’ve written a lot about HTML and CSS lately, and now I want to do not say.

Every other weekend I’m in the U.S. from this September ’til next and I will offer a FREE two day course to six (6) educators each available weekend, with dates to be announced following my schedule.

Here’s the deal: You demonstrate to me that you will take your knowledge forward to other educators, students, trainers and evangelists who can and will talk to their students and/or companies about standards.This is a MUST. I only will train people for FREE who can prove they are in education, technology training, or work with a company where they can provide in-depth training for their teams.

You come to me. I already travel a lot, so this is good for me. You pay nothing to me, only your travel expenses. I will teach HTML, XHTML and CSS technology principles. I will also offer project management ideas and provide for code reviews and one-on-one time.

I will teach anyone who will teach others whatever it is that I know, for free, for a year. What do you say? If you like the idea, post here and we shall work together to put dates to the plan.

I also challenge my colleagues to do the same formally.

Who’s ready?

Filed under:   professional, faith(less), policies, standards, software, WaSP, society, w3c, announcement, creativity, browsers, microsoft, ie7, ajax, innovation, accessibility, javascript, whatwg, molly asks you, community
Posted by:   Molly | 7:16 pm | Comments (85)

Tuesday 19 June 2007

So How Do We Fix the Web, Really?

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.

We are, each of us, shaped by the experiences we have. It’s funny that skeptics would suggest that Microsoft has me drinking too much kool-aid, or that the WHAT WG has my ear, or that I just want to shake up the W3C. The truth is to some extent all these are accurate: I do maintain my defense of Microsoft, I respect the WHAT WG members and have talked to many of them in depth about this issue, and my esteemed colleagues at the W3C have certainly gained my respect and love over the years, if not my general distaste for the processes and in-fighting that’s historically shaped the organization.

As we are shaped by our experiences, I want to point out that mine are perhaps unique. I’m an independent developer who has worked the Web since 1993, in IT since 1988, and when I caught the standards bug I threw my time, money and passion into ensuring that I went out and shook hands with as many people as I could. I might talk a lot, but I do a lot of listening too, and I’ve had the tremendous good fortune to travel the world and speak with designers and developers in every possible work environment, with every conceivable skill sets, passions and needs.

Fundamentally, I’ve always been an educator, not an evangelist. My agenda is pretty simple: Help people live their lives and do their jobs better by doing my honest best to share ideas, solutions, perspectives, life experiences and to improve my life in kind with the sharing and collaboration that emerges out of those relationships.

As some folks know, I’ve been touring Europe and presenting on Web browsers, Web standards, and CSS. Here are some of the general and sobering situations I’m running across the deeper I go into under-represented countries when it comes to educational opportunities and resources.

Let’s start with a visit to Hungary. The conference attendees in Budapest were made up of people from all over Eastern and Central Europe. Of approximately 200 attendees:

• 90% have been working with HTML (or XHTML) for five years or longer
• 15% have been working with CSS for three years or longer
• 75% are still using tables for layout
• 2% knew what the DOCTYPE switch was
• No one expressed interest or concern in accessibility for the Web
• About 4-5 people were on par with advanced developers in the UK, US or Australia

Next, Amsterdam. Mostly Dutch attendees. Typically perceived as a more technically advanced country, of the some 200 folks I interacted with over 2 days:

• 90% have been working with HTML (or XHTML) for five years or longer
• 45% have been working with CSS for three years or longer
• 65% are using tables for layout
• 10% knew what a DOCTYPE switch was
• No one expressed interest or concern about accessibility for the Web
• About 20 people were on par with advanced developers in the UK, US or Australia

Now, Zurich. Swiss and German attendees. Smaller group, 50 - 75 or so:

• 90% have been working with HTML (or XHTML) for five years or longer
• 10% work with CSS at all
• 98% are using tables for layout
• 2 people knew about the DOCTYPE switch
• 1 person expressed a great interest in accessibility (he explained his mother has a disability and that’s why he got interested in the topic)
• 1 person actually asked me “Is it really possible to use CSS to lay out sites?

Okay, this is just an anecdotal sampling, but it reflects what I’ve seen in Asia, too. We forget how elite we are, how privileged to even have the conversations that we do.

Afternote, 20 June 2007: I have de-emphasized the word “elite” there. It wasn’t meant as a me-better-than you as a person. Think about an elite force within the military. The point is that they are trained more specifically and can be more agile in their responses due to that training. That is what I mean, and I’m afraid some people are missing my point completely because of the heated feelings around that one word.

Perhaps there is a better solution than pausing standards development. If so, I’d like to know what you think it might be. One thing is absolutely key and that is there is no way we are going to empower each other and create the Web in the great vision it was intended to be if we do not address the critical issue of education. And stability. And these things take time. It requires far better orchestration than I personally have been able to figure out, and while the W3C, WHAT WG, WaSP and other groups have made numerous attempts to address some of these concerns, we have failed. We haven’t done a good job so far to create learning tools and truly assist the working web designer and developer become informed and better at what he or she can do. We haven’t done a good job sitting down at the table together and coming up with baseline strategies for user agents and tools.

How this should be accomplished, I don’t know. What I do know is that we have to find a way to mitigate this problem. We have to. I do know that complicating specifications isn’t the solution. Trying to manage bugs and implementation problems across all user agents and rushing to make “new” specs adds pressure and confusion to software and browser developers, book authors, technical trainers and of course the designers and developers working on the front lines and having real challenges, not theoretical ones, every day.

So what would you make of this in light of what’s going on with browsers, specifications and implementation? How on earth can we expect the hard workers of the Web, who tend to be highly motivated to be educated but have precious few resources to get well educated quickly and effectively? How to we strengthen the platform, catch the world up to current practices and continue innovation?

Filed under:   professional, policies, standards, software, web design and development, WaSP, society, w3c, browsers, microsoft, ie7, innovation, accessibility, whatwg, molly asks you, community
Posted by:   Molly | 4:47 am | Comments (107)