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> WHATWG's standards I my opinion one cannot call something a "standard" that changes every few days. EDIT: In this sense W3C's HTML 5.x can be considered a r

> WHATWG's standards I my opinion one cannot call something a "standard" that changes every few days. EDIT: In this sense W3C's HTML 5.x can be considered a rather badly authored (cf. other comments here) standard, while what the WHATWG releases is not something that even measures up to a standard, but it is the daily version of how HTML is supposed to be today.

andrewmcwatters 9y ago
Exactly. How the hell is someone supposed to built against their work? You can't, it would just be piecemealed.
- Touche 9y ago
  Just because something changes often doesn't mean it is unstable. Do you ever shop at amazon.com? I do, and I find it pretty stable. Just because it changes often doesn't mean things are sloppily accepted, or that experimental ideas are added and later removed. Indeed, if you want to build something for the web, reading an outdated document that contains bugs browsers have already fixed is not a good idea.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > Just because something changes often doesn't mean it is unstable. When you do a project contract, you surely want to define the exact standard with respect to which the application is to be developed against, so that one can decide whether the reason for something looking wrong is a browser bug (I can work around it - but it will cost extra money) or indeed a bug in my code that the customer found (i.e. I have to work extra hours for no money because I did bad work). To be able to decide such questions is a central purpose of existence for standards.
    - Touche 9y ago
      When I do a project I want to be able to code against the standards from which browsers were developed; that is the WHATWG standard.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > When I do a project I want to be able to code against the standards from which browsers were developed; that is the WHATWG standard. I already argued that there is no WHATWG standard, but only a document that changes every few days. Even without this nitpicking: Which of these thousands of versions is the one on which the browser implementation is based on?
        Touche 9y ago
        This one: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/ https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/ . Contrary to some people's perception here, everything that goes into this is implemented by at least 2 browsers.
        xg15 9y ago
        Again, which one? The one from November 14, 2017, the one from December 14, 2017 or the one from January 14, 2018? Do you really want to make a requirements document that describes something different at the day you sign it and at the day you deliver?
        Touche 9y ago
        Sorry, but you can't print that page and use that forever. I understand that you wish that you could, but you can't. I live in the real world, so rather than reading a snapshot and hoping it stays that way forever, I just read the up-to-date version since that's what is implemented by browsers, not the PDF I saved 3 months ago.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        It is a strong liability in a project contract if the standard with respect to which you implement the code changes under your feet.
  - andrewmcwatters 9y ago
    This just speaks from lack of experience: that's exactly what it means in the world of software. Do you not understand what specification means? "Specific" is even in the word. You can't compare it to browsing on Amazon, because functionality doesn't just go missing and literally break buying things; functionality doesn't just suddenly get added and people rely on the exact font size and copy of a particular header in the men's clothing department to be precisely 2em and "Men’s Clothing," and now that it's changed to 1.5em and "Men's Winter Fashion" a third-party app can't render the header in an appropriate width size nor find the clothes to begin with.
    - Touche 9y ago
      Nothing you said here is true of the WHATWG standard. It doesn't make breaking changes and it is specific.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Nothing you said here is true of the WHATWG standard. It doesn't make breaking changes and it is specific. Counterexample: About three months ago I asked on HN why on modern browsers some subtests of Acid3 fail: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256890 I actually got some pretty smart answers, for example: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259428 To quote it for convenience: "Two changes lead to three failures in Chrome. The first change is described in the 'note' at https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#child-index https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#child-index Chrome is failing a test because the root node claims to be a 'first-child'. The root node is the first sibling, but since it doesn't have a parent, the selectors 3 spec didn't include it. The selectors 4 draft does away with the requirement that a 'first-child' have a parent, and chrome's behaviour matches. The second is discussed here https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/319 https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/319 Roughly, when interpreting qualified names, Chrome is throwing InvalidCharacterErrors when the acid test wants it to throw NamespaceErrors, in situations where you really have both. This leads to two tests failing." So decide for yourself whether the WHATWG "standard" did breaking changes in the past or not.
LaGrange 9y ago
It's not enough to be stable to be a standard, you also need authority that enforces it. Either because people "respect you" (whatever that means), or because there's a central authority forcing them to implement the standard, people actually implement it. If they don't, then it's not much of a standard. So, WHATWG is in constant flux, and W3C has about as much authority as I do. _Thankfully_ in practice WHATWG is "stable enough," but just saying that's what "we" consider a good enough standard for something used in creating all sorts of UIs, from trivial to vitally important, is indicative of a bigger problem.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > It's not enough to be stable to be a standard, you also need authority that enforces it. There exist lots of standards that hardly anybody cares about. So this is clearly not true.
  - eberkund 9y ago
    That was his point...
dmitriid 9y ago
https://github.com/whatwg/html/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/whatwg/html/blob/master/FAQ.md What parts of the standard are stable? The whole standard is more or less stable. There are some parts of it that describe new technologies that have not yet been implemented everywhere, but at this point those additions are only added after the design itself is pretty stable. Such additions must also have the support of two or more implementers, per our working mode[1]. Why are there no stable snapshots, or versions, of the standard? In practice, implementations all follow the latest standard anyway, not so-called "finished" snapshots. The problem with following a snapshot is that you end up following something that is known to be wrong. That's obviously not the way to get interoperability! This has in fact been a real problem at the W3C, where mistakes are found and fixed in the editors' drafts of specifications, but implementers who aren't fully engaged in the process go and implement obsolete snapshots instead, including those bugs. This has resulted in serious differences between browsers. [1] https://whatwg.org/working-mode#additions https://whatwg.org/working-mode#additions

andrewmcwatters 9y ago

Exactly. How the hell is someone supposed to built against their work? You can't, it would just be piecemealed.

Touche 9y ago
Just because something changes often doesn't mean it is unstable. Do you ever shop at amazon.com? I do, and I find it pretty stable. Just because it changes often doesn't mean things are sloppily accepted, or that experimental ideas are added and later removed. Indeed, if you want to build something for the web, reading an outdated document that contains bugs browsers have already fixed is not a good idea.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > Just because something changes often doesn't mean it is unstable. When you do a project contract, you surely want to define the exact standard with respect to which the application is to be developed against, so that one can decide whether the reason for something looking wrong is a browser bug (I can work around it - but it will cost extra money) or indeed a bug in my code that the customer found (i.e. I have to work extra hours for no money because I did bad work). To be able to decide such questions is a central purpose of existence for standards.
  - Touche 9y ago
    When I do a project I want to be able to code against the standards from which browsers were developed; that is the WHATWG standard.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > When I do a project I want to be able to code against the standards from which browsers were developed; that is the WHATWG standard. I already argued that there is no WHATWG standard, but only a document that changes every few days. Even without this nitpicking: Which of these thousands of versions is the one on which the browser implementation is based on?
      - Touche 9y ago
        This one: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/ https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/ . Contrary to some people's perception here, everything that goes into this is implemented by at least 2 browsers.
        xg15 9y ago
        Again, which one? The one from November 14, 2017, the one from December 14, 2017 or the one from January 14, 2018? Do you really want to make a requirements document that describes something different at the day you sign it and at the day you deliver?
        Touche 9y ago
        Sorry, but you can't print that page and use that forever. I understand that you wish that you could, but you can't. I live in the real world, so rather than reading a snapshot and hoping it stays that way forever, I just read the up-to-date version since that's what is implemented by browsers, not the PDF I saved 3 months ago.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        It is a strong liability in a project contract if the standard with respect to which you implement the code changes under your feet.
- andrewmcwatters 9y ago
  This just speaks from lack of experience: that's exactly what it means in the world of software. Do you not understand what specification means? "Specific" is even in the word. You can't compare it to browsing on Amazon, because functionality doesn't just go missing and literally break buying things; functionality doesn't just suddenly get added and people rely on the exact font size and copy of a particular header in the men's clothing department to be precisely 2em and "Men’s Clothing," and now that it's changed to 1.5em and "Men's Winter Fashion" a third-party app can't render the header in an appropriate width size nor find the clothes to begin with.
  - Touche 9y ago
    Nothing you said here is true of the WHATWG standard. It doesn't make breaking changes and it is specific.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Nothing you said here is true of the WHATWG standard. It doesn't make breaking changes and it is specific. Counterexample: About three months ago I asked on HN why on modern browsers some subtests of Acid3 fail: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256890 I actually got some pretty smart answers, for example: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259428 To quote it for convenience: "Two changes lead to three failures in Chrome. The first change is described in the 'note' at https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#child-index https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#child-index Chrome is failing a test because the root node claims to be a 'first-child'. The root node is the first sibling, but since it doesn't have a parent, the selectors 3 spec didn't include it. The selectors 4 draft does away with the requirement that a 'first-child' have a parent, and chrome's behaviour matches. The second is discussed here https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/319 https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/319 Roughly, when interpreting qualified names, Chrome is throwing InvalidCharacterErrors when the acid test wants it to throw NamespaceErrors, in situations where you really have both. This leads to two tests failing." So decide for yourself whether the WHATWG "standard" did breaking changes in the past or not.

LaGrange 9y ago

It's not enough to be stable to be a standard, you also need authority that enforces it. Either because people "respect you" (whatever that means), or because there's a central authority forcing them to implement the standard, people actually implement it. If they don't, then it's not much of a standard. So, WHATWG is in constant flux, and W3C has about as much authority as I do. _Thankfully_ in practice WHATWG is "stable enough," but just saying that's what "we" consider a good enough standard for something used in creating all sorts of UIs, from trivial to vitally important, is indicative of a bigger problem.

wolfgke 9y ago
> It's not enough to be stable to be a standard, you also need authority that enforces it. There exist lots of standards that hardly anybody cares about. So this is clearly not true.
- eberkund 9y ago
  That was his point...

dmitriid 9y ago

https://github.com/whatwg/html/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/whatwg/html/blob/master/FAQ.md What parts of the standard are stable? The whole standard is more or less stable. There are some parts of it that describe new technologies that have not yet been implemented everywhere, but at this point those additions are only added after the design itself is pretty stable. Such additions must also have the support of two or more implementers, per our working mode[1]. Why are there no stable snapshots, or versions, of the standard? In practice, implementations all follow the latest standard anyway, not so-called "finished" snapshots. The problem with following a snapshot is that you end up following something that is known to be wrong. That's obviously not the way to get interoperability! This has in fact been a real problem at the W3C, where mistakes are found and fixed in the editors' drafts of specifications, but implementers who aren't fully engaged in the process go and implement obsolete snapshots instead, including those bugs. This has resulted in serious differences between browsers. [1] https://whatwg.org/working-mode#additions https://whatwg.org/working-mode#additions