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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

#261

Post by austincheney »

olliej wrote: post #252
austincheney wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foo bar baz 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…

The DOM is a completely separate unrelated specification. https://dom.spec.whatwg.org

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

#262

Post by austincheney »

coldtea wrote: post #222
austincheney wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were focused on data organization and security instead of rounded corners or querySelectors, but most frontend developers saw that as stalling.

Neither data organization nor security is their role... One belongs to the backend to decide, the other is for HTTP/S-level specs and Javascript, none of which are or should be W3C's concern.

I use all kinds of defined data structures in my JavaScript applications. Defining such as an interface is one TypeScripts biggest wins. W3C also owns XML and XML Schema which are all about defining data structures on the client side.

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

#263

Post by tannhaeuser »

bzbarsky wrote: post #203
tannhaeuser wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it used to be based on SGML (though now it's not, for various reasons) HTML doesn't cease to be based on SGML by mere declaration, or even by brittling it to the point it can't be parsed by any known formal standard. That's more a political stance, as in American isn't English or some such. WHATWG's formulation of HTML has deliberately distanced itself from SGML out of ignorance and a desire to not being accountabl…

> 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…

The narrative that "HTML5 looked at what browsers do, rather than following ivory tower SGML" is simply a myth and not backed up by facts. Ian Hickson introduced sectioning elements, the whole flawed outlining algorithm idea, and the aside element (presumably to make it easier to tell ads from content for Google's crawler), with lots of controversities at the time. The HTML spec is also chock full of inconsistencies of that time and mindset (for example, the allowed characters in ID attributes or general lexical rules for elements not matching CSS selectors' idea of an ID or element name) not actually supported by any browser.

Please don't tell me SGML comments were the problem - SGML commenting syntax is straightforward, eg. anything in double-hyphens within a markup declaration is treated as a comment, and there can be multiple comments in a markup declaration (unlike XML). The only problem I see is that there is an interaction with an ancient form of JavaScript comment taking the form of double-hyphens, presumably to make JavaScript commenting uniform with HTML syntax. Now the rules for terminating the content of a script element are dangerously bogus in ancient HTML, but HTML5 has done nothing to fix the situation.

In any case, WHATWG has driven almost all web browsers out of existence already; appealing to what "browser vendors" (Google) actually do is not the solution, but part of the problem, obviously.

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

#264

Post by tannhaeuser »

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 .

You do realize that spontaneously editing the spec to drop, then re-introduce an element buried in a git commit is exactly the reason why WHATWG is an unreliable source for a definite HTML reference, don't you? Especially when it goes unnoticed even by experts such as GP. At the same time, you want to claim authoritative control over HTML, yet show no sign of respecting other established standards and standard bodies such as ISO/IEC, IETF (eg avk's URL "standard"), and W3C?

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

#265

Post by BinaryIdiot »

frivoal wrote: post #256
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 Paym…

Thank you. These are fair points. When attempting to talk to various folks years ago the WHATWG always made it easier for me but I see your point.

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

#266

Post by olliej »

austincheney wrote: post #261
olliej wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 foo bar baz 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…

The DOM is a completely separate unrelated specification. https://dom.spec.whatwg.org

fair point. I was conflating whatwg spec and html5 (Actually, it's possible they were at one point the same spec - there was some work over the last 5 or so years to stop putting literally everything in a single spec document, unfortunately after a decade of web engine work everything turns into a single amorphous blob)

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

#267

Post by nwmcsween »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #171
bzbarsky wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The markup parts of HTML (e.g. the parsing) are pretty frozen and have been for a while. This is the part that can sort of argue it used to be based on SGML (though now it's not, for various reasons). The "HTML spec" includes a lot of APIs and processing model details that need tweaking as new constraints come up. A good example is that a lot of APIs that involve cross-window access need changes to their specificatio…

> it used to be based on SGML (though now it's not, for various reasons) HTML doesn't cease to be based on SGML by mere declaration, or even by brittling it to the point it can't be parsed by any known formal standard. That's more a political stance, as in American isn't English or some such. WHATWG's formulation of HTML has deliberately distanced itself from SGML out of ignorance and a desire to not being accountabl…

I agree 100%, its sad to see XHTML go from declarative and well thought out components to a web ui markup + a pile of js.

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

#268

Post by om2 »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #263
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…

The narrative that "HTML5 looked at what browsers do, rather than following ivory tower SGML" is simply a myth and not backed up by facts. Ian Hickson introduced sectioning elements, the whole flawed outlining algorithm idea, and the aside element (presumably to make it easier to tell ads from content for Google's crawler), with lots of controversities at the time. The HTML spec is also chock full of inconsistencies…

The HTML parsing algorithm looked at what browsers do. WHATWG HTML also included other innovations, some of which didn’t entirely work out. Nowadays, new additions are not added so loosely and there is a better defined working mode and governance policy.

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

#269

Post by om2 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #103
ChrisSD wrote: post #9

I still maintain that the "living standard" is an oxymoron. It's a collaborative browser dev document. Don't get me wrong, that's great. However for everyone else an unversioned document, any part of which can change at any moment, is not what's usually thought of as a standard.

Hopefully those aren't in contrast to each other. You can have a living document that gets consistent updates AND still has meaningful versions, much like a lot of well developed software. The goal is for the time between HTML versions to not be a decade, but instead for consistent, incremental improvements without browsers trailing behind for years. At the same time, these should (hopefully) not be breaking changes.

This new model announced in the OP will do that. Snapshots every 6 months that are taken through the W3C REC track.

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

#270

Post by austincheney »

olliej wrote: post #266
austincheney wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOM is a completely separate unrelated specification. https://dom.spec.whatwg.org

fair point. I was conflating whatwg spec and html5 (Actually, it's possible they were at one point the same spec - there was some work over the last 5 or so years to stop putting literally everything in a single spec document, unfortunately after a decade of web engine work everything turns into a single amorphous blob)

They were never the same. The closest thing is that the DOM spec and W3C’s XML Schema spec were joint publications for several years.
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