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W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

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Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#251

Post by bzbarsky »

domenicd wrote: post #246
bzbarsky wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WHATWG's formulation of HTML has deliberately distanced itself from SGML out of ignorance I don't think that's a fair characterization at all. Ian Hickson was pretty intimately familiar with the SGML formulation of HTML. What led to that being dropped was that no browsers implemented it in practice and that trying to implement it as written in the HTML 4 standard actively broke web pages (which had been written aga…

> That is a good point, yes. Arguably it should have been left in as a void element with no behavior to avoid parsing issues of the sort you describe... That's what we did, actually :). Parsing behavior was unchanged. Ctrl+F "keygen" in https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/parsing.html .

I should have checked carefully, sorry!

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#252

Post by olliej »

austincheney wrote: post #243
snek wrote: post #164

To clarify why WHATWG exists and why W3C lost power over the HTML spec: Around 2004 W3C abandoned organizational effort on HTML in favor of things like XHTML2, XEvents, semantic web, etc. The WHATWG was formed in reaction to that, rewriting HTML completely from its W3C HTML 4.0 version for example to make it better for web applications and to specify things in more detail. Since the formation of WHATWG, W3C HTML spec…

That explains the HTML spec but not the DOM spec.

The DOM is specified as part of the HTML spec.

The whatwg HTML spec defines exactly how html is parsed, and exactly how every element interacts the scripting environment. Just defining the grammar is not sufficient.

Historically for instance something like

foobarbaz

Produced a different DOM tree in different browsers. WHATWG specified what should actually happen. IIRC IE managed to produce a DOM graph rather than a tree in the above example.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#253

Post by olliej »

snek wrote: post #164

To clarify why WHATWG exists and why W3C lost power over the HTML spec: Around 2004 W3C abandoned organizational effort on HTML in favor of things like XHTML2, XEvents, semantic web, etc. The WHATWG was formed in reaction to that, rewriting HTML completely from its W3C HTML 4.0 version for example to make it better for web applications and to specify things in more detail. Since the formation of WHATWG, W3C HTML spec…

The biggest problem is that in addition to going all in on xhtml, the w3c actively dismissed the need to correctly specify the actual behavior of the web, rather than some idealized model.

Essential the w3c went “incorrect” html isn’t valid so we don’t need to specify it, even though all browsers support that “incorrect” content. Instead they said “everyone should just use xhtml as that makes sure the syntax is correct”.

Unfortunately they again failed to address the real world:

* xhtml is necessarily slower to display because you cannot do anything until you’ve got a full document (otherwise it will definitely fail to validate)

* because IE didn’t display xhtml it was published with the html mime type, so browsers that did support xhtml still had to parse it as html

* as a byproduct of the last one, invalid xml got added to documents which would then cause the browsers that did try to treat it as html to appear broken

* xml is also incredibly hard to actually get right - take RSS that was ostensibly XML from the outset. Even that has to be parsed as html because of the amount of broken xml.

By going all in on XML the w3c essentially went all in on a technology that people didn’t actually use or want.

But browsers did actually need an accurate specification that matched the real world, and that’s what became HTML5 through the hard work of people from apple, Firefox, (eventually) google, Microsoft, and opera - the w3c was not really involved. The end result is that in the modern DOM you are far less likely to need per-browser hacks than you once did.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#254

Post by ori_b »

robocat wrote: post #250
ori_b wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, much of the complexity is an emergent property of interaction between a spec and reality: the engineering choices developers make when implementing a spec. Ah, clearly that makes it easier for third parties to maintain browsers. Or, wait, no -- that's yet another way to push players that don't have hundreds of millions per year worth of funding. > Chrome mostly works better, follows specifications faster,…

I'll bite: do you think that Chrome is some sort of conspiracy?? I also don't like how Firefox, Safari and Edge have failed to compete with it, especially because I don't like that Google slurps so much private information. I wish Opera could have continued to compete as I loved the underdog for years. If it were just a problem of marketing, I could be upset. However technically the Chrome team is just totally oblite…

> I'll bite: do you think that Chrome is some sort of conspiracy?

No, it's a perfectly rational set of business decisions. I'd make the same ones if I was in charge of maximizing Google's control of the web platform.

> Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft are not poorly funded

Correct. Apple and Microsoft just can't make a business case for burning huge mountains of cash to dominate the web, so they let Google have that pie. Again, a rational business decision.

So we end up with what is largely a monoculture, with fewer compatible web browsers than any time in the past 20 years, because is willing or able to put in the resources to keep up with the incredible complexity required by the modern web.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#255

Post by robocat »

baybal2 wrote: post #35
cotelletta wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the same people who created XHTML, an ivory tower idea nobody was waiting for... who didn't support the most popular layout method at the time, tables, in their new styling language CSS. W3C became irrelevant because they kept thinking they could just tell the entire web what to do, that they'd make enormous technical investments to satisfy the W3C's latest fashions. I interacted with them once, over their…

> seamless iframe proposal. DOM v3 Document.load() https://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-LS/load-save.html was the candidate for client side document loading long before most people even knew what W3C is

From what I can see, your example of "DOM v3 Document.load()" is a great example of why the W3C failed to convince browsers to implement their proposals.

That spec seems to be mostly related to Java and it seems to me that it hardly considers how ECMAScript could use it i.e. someone had an idea, but couldn't translate that into a useful feature...

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#256

Post by frivoal »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #188

It's probably an unpopular opinion but I'm all for progress that may eventually lead to W3C's complete irrelevance. I've talked with folks at the WHATWG before, _Anyone_ can provide input and work with them. With the W3C it's, what, like $30k for the cheapest option and that barely gets you in the door. The W3C is too expensive to ever let small businesses or individuals have impact. I'd love to see more groups like…

There were serious issues with the way HTML was done at W3C, and this agreement between W3C and the WHATWG is a good thing.

However, all W3C specs are developed in the open, nowadays on github, and feedback from anyone anywhere is taken seriously. Don't like something about css? go here: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues. Something wrong with SVG? https://github.com/w3c/svgwg/issues. An issue with the Payment Handler API? https://w3c.github.io/payment-handler/. Dislike the way W3C itself works? That's here: https://github.com/w3c/w3process

Yes, the W3C is a membership based organization, and if you want to vote for instance on who gets to be on its Advisory Board, or have a say in the Charter of Working Groups, you need to be a member, and pay.

For the WHATWG, you don't get to vote on who's on the Steering Group, and you don't get a say on what new Workstreams are started / changed / stopped, even if you did want to pay. That's up to Google, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla. Sure anybody can suggest stuff (but that's true at the W3C too), but they decide, and there's no way into that club.

Not to claim that W3C is perfect. Plenty of improvements are needed. But claiming that small business or individuals cannot participate just isn't true.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#257

Post by frivoal »

domenicd wrote: post #146
hungryfoolish wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Overall, I think the WHATWG structure, of being open to input from all (instead of pay-to-play), Thats not entirely fair. The WHATWG is also pay-to-play in a way - the browser makers have disproportionally higher power, even more so than the w3c model where there is at least some form of consensus forming among a group of people with more international representation. Now technically anyone in the world can open a g…

Hmm, you seem to have skipped over some of my points. The WHATWG is open to input from all, but only things browsers are willing to ship get into the specs. So yes, that's more power. No disputing that. But I would rather not have specs full of unimplemnted fiction, even if that fiction has consensus among paying member companies. The W3C is not open to input from all. If you open a GitHub issue contributing an idea,…

> The W3C is not open to input from all. If you open a GitHub issue contributing an idea, but do not pay member fees, they cannot incorporate your idea into the spec, because of Intellectual Property Rights concerns. There is no way in the W3C to say "I sign over my IPR rights" without also paying thousands of dollars per year.

This is not true: https://www.w3.org/2019/Process-20190301/#contributor-licens...

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#258

Post by frivoal »

danarmak wrote: post #23
klez wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I put any value in what W3C recommends? For the same reason you put any value in, e.g., ISO or ANSI. Because others recognize them as the standard organization and put value in what they recommend.

But no browser maker recognizes the W3C standard or claims to implement it, so what good is it?

For HTML and DOM, this is true. There are many more things at the W3C, the most obvious of which is probably CSS. Browsers totally pay attention to what these spec says, and are the dominant participants in producing these specs.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#259

Post by frivoal »

sheepdestroyer wrote: post #68
baybal2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and so will Mozilla do once Google and Apple decide that they no longer need them to legitimise WHATWG. Mozilla execs dug a ditch for W3C, but fell in it themselves. Mozilla set itself on this trajectory once they stopped their backing of W3C. The only point of Firefox was it delivering quick, glitch free, standard compliant web. With web standards becoming defunct, it is there no more. But hey, Mozilla execs…

What could Mozilla have done with W3C making HTML5 DRM (EME) part of the official spec? That stance is the main reason W3C lost support from the community (They not only lost Mozilla but also EFF and a lot of trust from independent developers). That DRM affair was also conducted in a very shady way with secret votes, etc...

W3C didn't loose Mozilla over EME. 1) Mozilla is still an active participant in W3C (there are many more things than HTML there) 2) Mozilla supported EME. Maybe reluctantly, but supported it nonetheless.

Re: W3C and the WHATWG sign agreement to collaborate on single version of HTML, DOM

#260

Post by erklik »

mrguyorama wrote: post #182
inlined wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, I can build world scale cloud systems but can’t build a web front end anymore to save my life. I’m blown away by the sheer complexity that has evolved in frontend code. Developers there have such a broad toolset and arcane knowledge about how you really need to combine two CSS traits on surrounding containers to get the positioning you want. Unfortunately, in our industry, most engineers think the layer abov…

And Rube Goldberg machines are engineering marvels, but we shouldn't laud the engineer who builds one to transport a part from here to there when a "simple" conveyor belt does the job just fine. How much of that complexity was necessary? How much of it was chosen to boost someone's CV?

I mean a lot of the complexity in the front end has arisen from the need of the business to provide more feature full experiences, not because some developer thought he could pad his CV. Developers aren't developing complicated front ends to pad CVs, they are developing complicated front ends because the business needs it to solve certain problems.
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