The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world • Hacker News Board

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#21

Post by doublerabbit » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #8

assemblylang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is the relationship between W3C and WHATWG these days? IIRC a few years ago W3C essentially handed over web standards to WHATWG, with the thinking being that it wasn't helpful to have 2 competing standards.

Since the web standards are owned by WHATWG, any idea what the purpose of W3C is nowadays?

Somehow I've not herd of WHATWG and according to the wiki article the active memberships are: Apple, Google, Microsoft and supposedly Mozilla?

The three largest tech companies own the internet standards? That's quite unsettling.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#22

Post by Macha » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

Why? How present was covid in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand ("the anglosphere") in March 2022? It was still precautionary "Let's see if we stop it getting in" thoughts in those countries at those times. Large numbers of cases were still mostly in Italy and China at that stage. And China had only recognised it as a pandemic two months earlier, so I don't see any real complaint to be had of classifying 26 months as "two years", even if you want to focus on when it started rather than when it became a global pandemic.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#23

Post by amelius » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

0des wrote: post #4

W3C wew. Where do we even start? Let's begin with a polite thank you for your service, a hot drink, maybe some type of certificate of acknowledgment that says like "you were present." and then call it day. But beyond that, in my opinion, W3C has been a disaster since day 1. It seems like some people with good intentions decided one day they could just play RFC roulette and maybe if they slipped enough nonsense into t…

Main problem is that the web is amassing complexity everyday, without ever shedding any of it.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#24

Post by 0des » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #23

0des wrote: post #4

W3C wew. Where do we even start? Let's begin with a polite thank you for your service, a hot drink, maybe some type of certificate of acknowledgment that says like "you were present." and then call it day. But beyond that, in my opinion, W3C has been a disaster since day 1. It seems like some people with good intentions decided one day they could just play RFC roulette and maybe if they slipped enough nonsense into t…

Main problem is that the web is amassing complexity everyday, without ever shedding any of it.

So? Everything in life is like this. Yesterday will always be easier than tomorrow.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#25

Post by amelius » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

0des wrote: post #24

amelius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Main problem is that the web is amassing complexity everyday, without ever shedding any of it.

So? Everything in life is like this. Yesterday will always be easier than tomorrow.

Point is that you have to be incredibly careful about allowing new complexity. Now we have reached the situation that implementing a new browser has become possible only for very large companies. This would not have been necessary if the web was built using a more layered approach.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#26

Post by tannhaeuser » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

assemblylang wrote: post #7

gmfawcett wrote: post #2

What is the relationship between W3C and WHATWG these days? I haven't been following that story for years now -- at the time it seemed that W3C was losing relevance, and that WHATWG was becoming the de facto standards keeper for web tech.

>What is the relationship between W3C and WHATWG these days? IIRC a few years ago W3C essentially handed over web standards to WHATWG, with the thinking being that it wasn't helpful to have 2 competing standards.

W3C had released redacted snapshots (HTML 5, 5.1, and 5.2) of WHATWG's so-called "living standard", then published HTML 5.3 as a reference to a specific WHATWG commit and for a short time promised more supposedly at least qa'd snapshots, then last year finally gave up and just linked to WHATWG's head [1]. SVG2 didn't go anywhere either due to lack of interest of "browser vendors". MathML hasn't been updated in many years AFAIK. So that leaves ARIA and CSS.

Whatever W3C does and with due respect to TBL, as a self-proclaimed standardization body they've failed spectacularly to keep "browsers vendors" at bay and the web from being monopolized, and I think they should disband, if only to demonstrate to the world that the web isn't "standardized" in any meaningful sense of that word. Even HNers frequently have illusions about "web standards".

While on the way out, they might attempt to deliver CSS specs actually useful for developing browsers. Or maybe they want to venture into developing a browser themselves using their funds?

[1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/NOTE-html53-20210128/

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#27

Post by 0des » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #25

0des wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Everything in life is like this. Yesterday will always be easier than tomorrow.

Point is that you have to be incredibly careful about allowing new complexity. Now we have reached the situation that implementing a new browser has become possible only for very large companies. This would not have been necessary if the web was built using a more layered approach.

> you have to be incredibly careful about allowing new complexity

Right, this is my point, the W3C just seems to make it up as they go along and pick and choose.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#28

Post by mminer237 » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #21

rpastuszak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the web standards are owned by WHATWG, any idea what the purpose of W3C is nowadays?

Somehow I've not herd of WHATWG and according to the wiki article the active memberships are: Apple, Google, Microsoft and supposedly Mozilla? The three largest tech companies own the internet standards? That's quite unsettling.

Regardless of who participates in drafting standards, those five control the de facto standards anyway as they make the five largest browsers.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#29

Post by jddil » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

This is going to come off as glib but the W3C has no relevance anymore, it exists to give the WHATWG the stamp of approval on it's RFCs. It's like the grandfather you give deference to but hasn't been relevant in years.

They may still "control" css and xml (not sure the exhaustive list) but I don't understand why those haven't been moved to WHATWG as well.

Re: The Web as the ultimate tool of resilience for the world

#30

Post by criddell » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #3

The W3C has endangered long-term resilience on the Web by supporting misguided efforts like EME, which aim to add a requirement for de-facto proprietary "plugins" to the open Web platform. Why should they deserve our support?

> Why should they deserve our support?

How are you supporting them?