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That’s a flamey title. They’re objecting to them publishing their spec before the negotiations with WHATWG are over.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…
I think you're downplaying the shit show that was XHTML. It was the epitome of standards people chasing the ideal of a perfect platonic ideal of a standard at the cost of actual usability. E.G. a single parse error in an XHTML document and it doesn't render at all. That all by itself was a deal breaker for many people.
But if you actually try to write a new browser from scratch, or a tool to scrape websites, you’ll learn to love XHTML, and hate HTML5.
The same that applies with human languages applies here as well. Writing a vocaloid for japanese is a high school programming class project. Writing a TTS for english takes thousands of Google developers years. Writing an XHTML1.1 parser and renderer takes a month. Writing an HTML5 browser takes thousands of developers years.
The WHATWG specs prevent the web from ever evolving further – we’re stuck with opaque websites and no way to build new technology on top of it. Building a crawler is a task of years, and semantic data tags are impossible to parse, because no one uses them right.
The only reason we can automate any parsing of websites is because either browser vendors spent billions on crawlers for their search engines, or if we run a full browser, or if we use the opengraph tags that Facebook forced on websites.
With XHTML1.1, Chrome and Firefox headless would never have been necessary. Imagine how much time and computational cost you could save.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…
To offer another perspective. I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leadi…
Okay, let’s make a deal:
We both write a crawler that can fully reliably parse websites.
I implement XHTML1.1, you implement HTML5. We both get 1 month time.
What do you think is going to happen?
XHTML was a worthy goal – with it, we wouldn’t have a need to run headless Chrome for tests. We could parse the web, and actually use the data. OpenGraph tags would never have been necessary. We wouldn’t need to throw DNNs at rendered output of a browser just to parse data.
HTML5 is amazing for existing browser vendors, developers, and in the short-term, users. But everyone else loses. Horribly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the W3C, still being relied on by the other actors on the web that aren’t the 4 largest browsers Why do other actors need to rely on the W3C? Why can't they use the WHATWG specs as well? You say they're more complicated, but if that's what the browsers do then that's what they do.
Because the XHTML spec would have made a lot of things easier. I can write an XHTML1.1 parser and renderer in about one month. Writing an HTML5 parser takes thousands of developers 5 years.
You are comparing two things that aren't equivalent. The living standard provides a lot more value than the old specs, and that's why they won.
It's sad to see the relationship between WHATWG and W3C has deteriorated to this point. Trying to wrangle a standard from a "living" (i.e. constantly changing) specification was always going to be tough but I'd have hoped both WHATWG and W3C would be able to maintain a working relationship.
Given the substantial overlapping of players in both groups, these days, I actually find surprising that there is divergence. All major vendors are opposed, so who is actually trying to push for changes, and why? I guess I'm lacking some background here, I really don't follow "standard wars" anymore...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…
> the W3C, still being relied on by the other actors on the web that aren’t the 4 largest browsers Why do other actors need to rely on the W3C? Why can't they use the WHATWG specs as well? You say they're more complicated, but if that's what the browsers do then that's what they do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To offer another perspective. I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leadi…
> I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. Okay, let’s make a deal: We both write a crawler that can fully reliably parse websites. I implement XHTML1.1, you implement HTML5. We both get 1 month time. What do you t…
You are acting like everyone would just stop and wait for you to make your dream implementation that's ideal - that's not how the world works.
WHATWG was an admission that we can't stop it, so we might as well embrace it. Embracing it has resulted in browsers being far more consistent, and new features being a shared part of the web platform, and not siloed off in plugins and other platforms. That's why W3C is irrelevant now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the XHTML spec would have made a lot of things easier. I can write an XHTML1.1 parser and renderer in about one month. Writing an HTML5 parser takes thousands of developers 5 years.
I can make a self-driving train far more easily than I can make a self-driving car. You are comparing two things that aren't equivalent. The living standard provides a lot more value than the old specs, and that's why they won .
We’ve made parsing the web something that only massive corporations can do. We’ve made building a browser so complicated that even Opera gave up after the complexity of HTML5, and we’re now left with only 4 major browser engines, of which 2 share a significant amount of code.
Do you see an innovative ecosystem there?
We’re left with a web that can’t be parsed, we’re left with a web where, to run Selenium tests, we have to run Chrome headless, because nothing else can even attempt to render websites anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…
I think you're downplaying the shit show that was XHTML. It was the epitome of standards people chasing the ideal of a perfect platonic ideal of a standard at the cost of actual usability. E.G. a single parse error in an XHTML document and it doesn't render at all. That all by itself was a deal breaker for many people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To offer another perspective. I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leadi…
> I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. Okay, let’s make a deal: We both write a crawler that can fully reliably parse websites. I implement XHTML1.1, you implement HTML5. We both get 1 month time. What do you t…