HTML5 kicked into 2014 HTML5 won't be finished for another three years, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has warned. On Monday, the standards body said that it has extended the charter of its group hammering out HTML5, with plans to advance the proposed spec to last-call status in May. Then we wait – for three years. The group gave as the reason …
"considering IE9 is coming this year, it's likely to be 2015 before Microsoft can genuinely claim an HTML5-compliant browser for the PC. Before that, we should expect another noncompliant browser in 2013."
Well if the spec isn't finished until 2014, then all browsers will be noncompliant until that time, not just IE.
Didn't IE9 top the current HTML 5 compatibility tests from W3C?
While I'm not saying that IE is perfect, here we are with a spec that won't be finalized for three more years, and the complaining is already starting with IE.
"Didn't IE9 top the current HTML 5 compatibility tests from W3C?"
Maybe, but it certainly falls way down the list on www.html5test.com - the RC scores 116 (+ 5 bonus points) whilst the FF4 beta 11 scores 197+9 (though an earlier beta scored 207+9!), Chrome 9 scores 242+13 (but STILL can't print background colours and images - aargh!), Opera 11.01 scores 177+7 and Safari scores 207+7.
*This* is why browser incompatibilities continue to exist. Browser manufacturers have no choice but to push on without guidance, and hope that it'll all work out in the end. Are we really supposed to not use technology *available today* until 2014?
What on earth is the problem here? Given the millions the internet industry makes, why can't some people with a clue take over these specs?
People with a clue have taken over the spec. It's exactly /why/ Opera and Mozilla established the WHATWG. The spec that the WHATWG are producing is basically what browser developers are implementing today. The W3C are essentially becoming an irrelevance. I'm all for 'standards' (actually an ISO or IEEE ratifies one would carry more weight), but if it's not what people are doing then it is just a work of fiction, simple as.
So, I'll be developing in HTML 5 in 2014? Nope. Since half the corporate world is still on IE6 and most of the rest a mixture of 7 & 8 (apologies to the few who are using other browsers, boy are you enlightened) I reckon XHTML + the usual tweaks and addons are all I'll need until, oh, say 2030 or possibly retirement age.
I couldn't agree more with this. In the real world of building web sites (i.e. not Youtube, Google, Facebook) I have to support IE6, this is ball ache enough using the XHTML standard, no way am I going to switch the HTML5 suggestion (I dont see it as a spec until it's finished). Whilst I may run to using a few CSS3 tweaks in my sites knowing that they will degrade gracefully I'm not about to start pissing around with the underlying page code by using something that's going to be a beta for four years.
More like three years for MS to lose patience, make the decision that "this is it" and declare a "fuck you" to any subsequent updates and / or changes, so that the world has to code once for "vanilla" HTML5 and once for the MS version....
IE: It may not be a coincidence that a "9" can be a "6", depending on how you look at it.
Bloody standards bodies. It's their glacial decision-making processes that are the root cause of most interoperability fuckups. We should just chisel the spec in rock somewhere and wait for continental drift to distribute it to the world, it would be faster.
Oh how naive I was when I thought IE9 would be equally compatible with HTML as other browsers would be (HTML in the WHATWG definition; bah)
I won't be happy if they change something that will kill proper compatibility for IE9.
Course, it'll all be moot, SP1 of Windows 7 comes with IE8 I believe, so we'll be stuck with people on that anyway.
When will this IE cycle end =[
They're just dragging it out now...
W3C: ah crap the specs almost finished and we don't have any work after as it works on everything
crappy manager type: well we could drag it out make another £50k+ arguing over the bold tag again... <b> or <strong> ... hmm lets see this take more than 3 years.
p.s. I know the lengthy bit was the video codecs but I'm still bemused over changing <b> to <strong>, wonder how many other pointless changes there will be.
Whilst I know the exact reason behind the <strong> I still quite like <b>...
It's less to type, i'd be happywith <st> or even <s> to be honest... their theory is it's text that needs to stand out, and how that is done should be CSS, realistically... and thus <b> might not actually be bolded. Course, in 95% of cases it will be.
Give up now....
Right <strong> is SEMANTICALLY different to <b>
<strong> means "add strong emphasis" to this text.
<b> simply means highlight this text (normally bold) and applies little/no semantic weight to the terms contained therein (highlighting searched for words for instance).
On screen there may be no difference BUT a screen reader (or search engine robot) _should_ add emphasis to one but NOT the other.
Though with HTML 5 <b> becomes almost utterly redundant since there will be the <mark> tag to fulfil much the same purpose.
bang on... foot dragging like this is what opens the door for things like flash.
In fact we really needed HTML5 to be finished last year. The browser designers are already calling their work HTML5 compatible and the lack of a defined yard stick from on high is what has opened the door for the spin artists to confuse and conflate. I understand that the consortium does not exist to make browser manufacturers' marketing departments happy... but this isn't just a marketing issue - the technologies that this standard is supposed to harness already exist, and one way or another they will be applied.
It's a real shame too, because we are relying on HTML5 to save us from the next real player
The usual astonishing ignorance on display here. 2014 is perfectly reasonable. 2020 for completion I should think. That's how long it takes. It has fuck all to do with actually using HTML5, the core of which is perfectly workable right now. The XML fetishists have been defeated; thank the Gods.
Apologies if I didn't detect sarcasm.
And what, pray tell, is wrong with a more XML-ish markup? the browsers will have their 'street' html mode anyway (as Opera called it) so they can waste processor resources trying to interpret bad code. Should we use JSON instead? POD?
But by the time this is all done the W3C will have become irrelevant because the browser vendors will have done something else anyway. Or everyone will be using facebook and youtube on iOS/Android/TV via native apps (via XML) and no-one will care about the web anymore.
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