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I think we can do better than AMP. How about having no Google affiliation and making it a strict subset of HTML+CSS? Those AMP tags make the likelihood of indep

I think we can do better than AMP. How about having no Google affiliation and making it a strict subset of HTML+CSS? Those AMP tags make the likelihood of independent implementations much lower. Can we just remove client-side dynamism/interactivity from the picture at least at first or as an option? We can go a long way with pure, strict, reduced HTML+CSS (still includes HTML forms). I've been toying with this idea myself [0], but the key is strictness and complete no-runtime-needed backwards compat w/ current HTML+CSS. And for goodness sake, no proxies, pre-rendering, etc. 0 - https://github.com/cretz/software-ideas/issues/92 https://github.com/cretz/software-ideas/issues/92

mattmanser 8y ago
Why is it needed at all? We have HTML, we have an agreed upon governance for it. Page load speeds are, frankly, none of Google's business and click jacking is a disgusting practice. It's a text book case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > Why is it needed at all? We have HTML, we have an agreed upon governance for it. For my selfish reasons, so I can write a competing browser that only accepts that format. While I want the spec smaller and more strict for selfish reasons (ease of implementation), it has bonus value for performance use cases. Also, there is value for devs to signify that they are attempting to conform to a certain specification (i.e. the purpose of a doctype). Sans validation the value is less, but still, having a simplified spec subset for web pages at least lets the community/ecosystem grow around it.
- infogulch 8y ago
  > Page load speeds are, frankly, none of Google's business If I as a user care about page speed when choosing between search results (many do, every single amp-related thread has several, this one included), then Google cares and it is their business. If the industry were capable of making fast web pages then they'd already be doing it. Claiming that "only using some features of system X" is equivalent to "use system Y which is defined as a subset of X" because a technical comparison claims that they're the same is completely missing the mark.
  - mattmanser 8y ago
    And heroin makes you feel great, doesn't mean you should pay attention to anyone who says they like it. The consequences of accepting AMP are so severe that it doesn't matter if some people like the faster load times, it is utterly irrelevant.
- dagenix 8y ago
  > All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Just because you are all worked up about something, doesnt mean that anyone else should be ashamed of themselves.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  > It's a text book case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I think that anyone who works at Google has an obligation to speak up. The company is on a path to destroy the open WWW. The primary reasons for pushing AMP are clearly not about fast web pages. Open governance isn't going to fix it. The AMP project should be shut down replaced with an open discussion about how to make the Web less bloated using existing standards. Serving from CDNs in restricted formats should not be a requirement for publishing on the Web. The source of the problem is JavaScript, not HTML.
- zaarn 8y ago
  Google can care about page load speeds without needing AMP, I would hope that at some point they use their own tools (Their page load speed benchmarking tool) to inform their search rankings instead of invention solutions in search of a problem.
wlesieutre 8y ago
How about use the normal HTML+CSS spec that we already have and refrain from dumping 5 MB of JS and assets into every page? If we go down the AMP road of a faster and more minimal web spec, I'd bet that we're going to spend the next 10 years gradually adding more capabilities/cruft into it until AMP 5.0 ends up just as bad as HTML/CSS except now we're have two diverged standards for making slow webpages.
- vanadium 8y ago
  Something like XKCD 927.
- stanleydrew 8y ago
  Your solution to increasing page size is to hope that people just stop doing the thing that they were doing? I don't particularly care if a new standard is defined or not, but at some point you have to shift incentives and Google has shown itself to be willing to throw its weight around.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    IMO Google's previous moves to derank search results of pages with poor load times is a reasonable way to do it. Social sites could apply similar leverage, not promoting content as much if they know it loads slowly. Beyond that, I wonder if in browser "This page is loading slowly" wall of shame messages could work, styled similarly to the "This page tried to open four popup windows" alerts. Users don't have any visibility into page size or javascript load beyond how sluggish it feels, but both of these impact your user experience and battery life, so I'd love to see browsers do more to expose poorly performing sites. Browsers setting a benchmark for "This is unacceptably crappy" would let users know they should expect better. The hard part of that would be differentiating sites that use tons of resources for bullshit reasons from sites that are actually doing something.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      I use uMatrix, which makes JS opt-in rather than opt-out. It’s a hassle, but I get to choose to enable content I want while blocking trackers and bloat. It’d be great if those portions just weren’t transferred to me.
skybrian 8y ago
You can certainly try to invent your own standard, but you won't get the major news publishers to adopt it without incentives from a big company like Google, Facebook, or Apple. Who else controls that much traffic?
wmf 8y ago
A strict subset of HTML+CSS doesn't give 100% of the benefits of AMP and apparently at Google the perfect is the enemy of the good so they're going all or nothing on performance. Standardization of AMP is underway in the form of Feature Policy, Web Packaging, iframe promotion, Performance Timeline, and Paint Timing but it's going to take years. https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-learned-from-amp/ https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lesso...
s17n 8y ago
Good luck getting any publishers on board with that.
- kodablah 8y ago
  These publishers are going to feel the wrath of easy-to-use, widely distributed client-side page proxy/distillation apps if they're not careful with their anti-user stances.
  - s17n 8y ago
    If that happens, they will only double down on walled gardens like facebook instant articles and the amp carousel.

mattmanser 8y ago

Why is it needed at all? We have HTML, we have an agreed upon governance for it. Page load speeds are, frankly, none of Google's business and click jacking is a disgusting practice. It's a text book case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

kodablah 8y ago
> Why is it needed at all? We have HTML, we have an agreed upon governance for it. For my selfish reasons, so I can write a competing browser that only accepts that format. While I want the spec smaller and more strict for selfish reasons (ease of implementation), it has bonus value for performance use cases. Also, there is value for devs to signify that they are attempting to conform to a certain specification (i.e. the purpose of a doctype). Sans validation the value is less, but still, having a simplified spec subset for web pages at least lets the community/ecosystem grow around it.
infogulch 8y ago
> Page load speeds are, frankly, none of Google's business If I as a user care about page speed when choosing between search results (many do, every single amp-related thread has several, this one included), then Google cares and it is their business. If the industry were capable of making fast web pages then they'd already be doing it. Claiming that "only using some features of system X" is equivalent to "use system Y which is defined as a subset of X" because a technical comparison claims that they're the same is completely missing the mark.
- mattmanser 8y ago
  And heroin makes you feel great, doesn't mean you should pay attention to anyone who says they like it. The consequences of accepting AMP are so severe that it doesn't matter if some people like the faster load times, it is utterly irrelevant.
dagenix 8y ago
> All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Just because you are all worked up about something, doesnt mean that anyone else should be ashamed of themselves.
JoshMnem 8y ago
> It's a text book case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. All the Devs working on this project should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I think that anyone who works at Google has an obligation to speak up. The company is on a path to destroy the open WWW. The primary reasons for pushing AMP are clearly not about fast web pages. Open governance isn't going to fix it. The AMP project should be shut down replaced with an open discussion about how to make the Web less bloated using existing standards. Serving from CDNs in restricted formats should not be a requirement for publishing on the Web. The source of the problem is JavaScript, not HTML.
zaarn 8y ago
Google can care about page load speeds without needing AMP, I would hope that at some point they use their own tools (Their page load speed benchmarking tool) to inform their search rankings instead of invention solutions in search of a problem.

wlesieutre 8y ago

How about use the normal HTML+CSS spec that we already have and refrain from dumping 5 MB of JS and assets into every page? If we go down the AMP road of a faster and more minimal web spec, I'd bet that we're going to spend the next 10 years gradually adding more capabilities/cruft into it until AMP 5.0 ends up just as bad as HTML/CSS except now we're have two diverged standards for making slow webpages.

vanadium 8y ago
Something like XKCD 927.
stanleydrew 8y ago
Your solution to increasing page size is to hope that people just stop doing the thing that they were doing? I don't particularly care if a new standard is defined or not, but at some point you have to shift incentives and Google has shown itself to be willing to throw its weight around.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  IMO Google's previous moves to derank search results of pages with poor load times is a reasonable way to do it. Social sites could apply similar leverage, not promoting content as much if they know it loads slowly. Beyond that, I wonder if in browser "This page is loading slowly" wall of shame messages could work, styled similarly to the "This page tried to open four popup windows" alerts. Users don't have any visibility into page size or javascript load beyond how sluggish it feels, but both of these impact your user experience and battery life, so I'd love to see browsers do more to expose poorly performing sites. Browsers setting a benchmark for "This is unacceptably crappy" would let users know they should expect better. The hard part of that would be differentiating sites that use tons of resources for bullshit reasons from sites that are actually doing something.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    I use uMatrix, which makes JS opt-in rather than opt-out. It’s a hassle, but I get to choose to enable content I want while blocking trackers and bloat. It’d be great if those portions just weren’t transferred to me.

skybrian 8y ago

You can certainly try to invent your own standard, but you won't get the major news publishers to adopt it without incentives from a big company like Google, Facebook, or Apple. Who else controls that much traffic?

wmf 8y ago

A strict subset of HTML+CSS doesn't give 100% of the benefits of AMP and apparently at Google the perfect is the enemy of the good so they're going all or nothing on performance. Standardization of AMP is underway in the form of Feature Policy, Web Packaging, iframe promotion, Performance Timeline, and Paint Timing but it's going to take years. https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-learned-from-amp/ https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lesso...

s17n 8y ago

Good luck getting any publishers on board with that.

kodablah 8y ago
These publishers are going to feel the wrath of easy-to-use, widely distributed client-side page proxy/distillation apps if they're not careful with their anti-user stances.
- s17n 8y ago
  If that happens, they will only double down on walled gardens like facebook instant articles and the amp carousel.