4 ms·
The problem is that the real world differs so markedly from the standard that really they're just an "in theory..." reference, or a "hey that will be cool in 5
by showerst 17y ago
The problem is that the real world differs so markedly from the standard that really they're just an "in theory..." reference, or a "hey that will be cool in 5 years if it gets built" reference.
HTML5 features are a wonderful example. If I'm targeting the iPhone, the new location API is a goldmine, but otherwise it's meaningless (for now) because 50%+ of my audience (IE/Opera) doesn't support it. I know I need to build in a good fallback anyway, but the point is that the standard only matters insomuch as it's actually implemented.
One look at the different local storage/web storage implementations bears this out.
I don't really care if W3C argues itself into oblivion if the browsers leapfrog them and implement something useful (see: canvas/iecanvas).
If the browsers are outrunning the standards by a significant margin, rendering the standards irrelevant, then the process is broken.
</rant>
- artagnon 17y agoAgreed. My point is simple- throwing web standards out of the window is no solution. It serves as a guideline (or "documentation") for both programmers writing browsers, and authors writing web pages. I'm not asking for strict adherence, just a guideline. If you try to implement a TCP/IP stack strictly as per the RFC, you'll find that it can't communicate with any real-world operating system- that doesn't mean that you throw RFCs out of the window. Things have always been, and will always be, engineered to "work".