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> I think HTML deserves better than being tinkered with all the time for no good reasons other than job security and/or achieving Webkit dominance, or other neb

> I think HTML deserves better than being tinkered with all the time for no good reasons other than job security and/or achieving Webkit dominance, or other nebulous reasons at this point. That's good, because these aren't the reasons the HTML standard is changed, and to claim they are is absurd. HTML may have had its origins in SGML, but it has long, long since grown past beyond those origins to become the web platform. Like any other non-dead software platform, it is undergoes a process of refinement and enhancement, not for reasons of "job security" or "Webkit dominance", but to provide additional functionality to allow more and better software to be build with of it, and to remain competitive with other software platforms. You, and a large constituency of Hacker News commenters along with you, may utterly loathe the web platform. You may wish the web had evolved along entirely different lines, remaining a simple system for server hypertext documents. But the fact is, it didn't, and to act as if that the global development ecosystem that relies on the web platform doesn't exist is ridiculous.

tannhaeuser 7y ago
There is a gulf of nuance between these two extremes you describe. The web has "evolved" from a medium for simple self-publishing into a medium of mass surveillance and manipulation, big media, privacy-invading ads, uncalled-for browser monopoly, information oligopoly, and arbitrary crap code being sent to you in ridiculous quantities, not only draining your batteries and showing no respect for planet earth wrt energy efficiency, but also actively putting you in danger through fishing, xss and whatnot, and making your future ability to even read your legal, personal, study, business, or banking documents dependent on a needlessly over-complicated technology stack that no-one has the ability to influence in meaningful ways except Google, an ad company. What it has not evolved into is a medium for long-term preservation of digital information, information autonomy, for simple ecommerce transactions and payments for everyone (as a merchant), for letting content producers thrive with quality content, or one that fosters free speech and diversity. It has "evolved" by being captured to serve the interests of very few players, and fails the criteria of not having to appease computers or software programs that seem to be at war with one another.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

There is a gulf of nuance between these two extremes you describe. The web has "evolved" from a medium for simple self-publishing into a medium of mass surveillance and manipulation, big media, privacy-invading ads, uncalled-for browser monopoly, information oligopoly, and arbitrary crap code being sent to you in ridiculous quantities, not only draining your batteries and showing no respect for planet earth wrt energy efficiency, but also actively putting you in danger through fishing, xss and whatnot, and making your future ability to even read your legal, personal, study, business, or banking documents dependent on a needlessly over-complicated technology stack that no-one has the ability to influence in meaningful ways except Google, an ad company. What it has not evolved into is a medium for long-term preservation of digital information, information autonomy, for simple ecommerce transactions and payments for everyone (as a merchant), for letting content producers thrive with quality content, or one that fosters free speech and diversity. It has "evolved" by being captured to serve the interests of very few players, and fails the criteria of not having to appease computers or software programs that seem to be at war with one another.