7 ms·

That is a very dishonest representation of how the Web standardization process works.

by sid0 15y ago

slowpoke 15y ago
He does have a point with the third parties though. Software ecosystems controlled by a single (in most cases proprietary) entity are bad.
Silhouette 15y ago
The trouble is, right now we don't really have a web stanardisation process. We've got HTML5 and CSS3 in the works, of course, but the reality is that we're in the middle of Microsoft vs. Netscape, all over again. If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). If you want to use the more interactive HTML5 elements, it's even worse. HTML5 video won't be a credible successor to Flash video until there is a standardised, high quality a/v format that all browsers support. Even then, the simple fact is that Flash video players offer way more powerful customisation and some features involving content streaming and protection that are still commercially relevant even if the "everything should be free" crowd want to bury their heads in the sand. We have SVG and HTML5 Canvas technology to do drawing without relying on plug-ins these days, except that when you actually try to use them, you find that they aren't always supported to the same extent on all popular browsers, particularly the mobile ones where avoiding the weight of downloading a plug-in seems most advantageous of all. Did I mention web fonts? (Not that it matters until the on-demand font services realise they aren't special and most of us are never going to rent a font instead of paying one-time fees like we do for stock images, blog templates, etc. Or until the rendering on some platforms means most of the fonts actually available don't like the rear end of an animal with stomach problems. But hopefully those issues will pass, at which point having a common font format would be handy too.) All the while, Mozilla and Google are having a pissing match to see who can release some bleeding edge thing faster than the other, but since no-one else supports it the same way yet, it's basically worthless. Meanwhile, they keep pushing releases every few weeks, and they do break things, often those very HTML5 and CSS3 features we're all meant to love that are supposedly driving web technology development. (Google screwed up rounded corners for several successive versions. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly. Don't even start trying to do tricky things like using Java applets -- and before anyone chimes in about obsolete technologies, remember that there was a big push to improve support for applets not so long ago, and that many state-of-the-art programming languages run on the JVM.) The recurring theme in all of this, of course, is that you can't write one thing that runs reliably everywhere today. Until you can, any so-called standards will just be marketing propaganda for one browser team or another.
- sid0 15y ago
  If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. Or you can wait a little until the standard goes through and the syntaxes are unified. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). The target is not the browsing public -- it is your audience. For instance, a site for hackers really doesn't need to support IE<9. I agree with the <video> problem for sure. There are philosophically and commercially opposed interests involved there. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly Could you cite or give examples of these? Obviously things are still in flux, but we've all learned to deal with bugs in software. We know our own code isn't immune to them, so I think it's too much to expect the platform we're building on to be immune to them either. I don't think bugs reflect negatively on the web standardization process, though.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    > Or you can wait a little until the standard goes through and the syntaxes are unified. The trouble is, the current standardisation processes are far too slow to be practically useful, while the breakneck pace of experimental feature development is too fast to keep up, so there is no useful definition of "a little" in your suggestion that we can use for planning new web projects and making decisions about which technologies we will rely on. > There are philosophically and commercially opposed interests involved there. It also doesn't help that both sides throw out FUD as if it's going out of fashion, and that some of the (acknowledged) patent encumbered formats are technically far superior to the (possibly) unencumbered ones. That means until either the software patent madness is fixed or organisations like Mozilla start putting up hard cash, their integrated video functionality will never be as good as what you can get in something like IE (or, apparently, Chrome, since Google seem to have quietly dropped their policy of discontinuing support for H.264). > Could you cite or give examples of these [font bugs in Firefox]? On Windows systems, the kerning is very odd in a lot of fonts since they moved to the new rendering engine a while back. The spacing following a capital T is usually way too tight, and in some fonts there are a few other examples as well. This can render pages completely illegible at typical body text sizes. Also, take a Windows 7 computer with a few Adobe professional OpenType fonts installed locally -- probably some that come with Creative Suite would do -- and just try selecting those fonts using CSS in recent versions of Firefox. It simply doesn't work and falls back to the next font family in the list, though the same page will find the fonts and render quite happily in other browsers on Windows 7, or in the same version of Firefox on Windows XP for that matter. Most currently available web fonts also seem to look terrible (poorly hinted, terrible aliasing) on Windows XP in Firefox, but since they don't look great in other browsers either and they look better in Firefox on Windows 7, I'm inclined to point the finger more at Windows XP than Firefox in that case.
pnathan 15y ago
Eh, it seems to be borne out. The w3c seems to be more hot air than effective body: whatever the browsers decide is standard is standard.

That is a very dishonest representation of how the Web standardization process works.

by sid0 15y ago

That is a very dishonest representation of how the Web standardization process works.

He does have a point with the third parties though. Software ecosystems controlled by a single (in most cases proprietary) entity are bad.

Silhouette 15y ago

The trouble is, right now we don't really have a web stanardisation process. We've got HTML5 and CSS3 in the works, of course, but the reality is that we're in the middle of Microsoft vs. Netscape, all over again. If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). If you want to use the more interactive HTML5 elements, it's even worse. HTML5 video won't be a credible successor to Flash video until there is a standardised, high quality a/v format that all browsers support. Even then, the simple fact is that Flash video players offer way more powerful customisation and some features involving content streaming and protection that are still commercially relevant even if the "everything should be free" crowd want to bury their heads in the sand. We have SVG and HTML5 Canvas technology to do drawing without relying on plug-ins these days, except that when you actually try to use them, you find that they aren't always supported to the same extent on all popular browsers, particularly the mobile ones where avoiding the weight of downloading a plug-in seems most advantageous of all. Did I mention web fonts? (Not that it matters until the on-demand font services realise they aren't special and most of us are never going to rent a font instead of paying one-time fees like we do for stock images, blog templates, etc. Or until the rendering on some platforms means most of the fonts actually available don't like the rear end of an animal with stomach problems. But hopefully those issues will pass, at which point having a common font format would be handy too.) All the while, Mozilla and Google are having a pissing match to see who can release some bleeding edge thing faster than the other, but since no-one else supports it the same way yet, it's basically worthless. Meanwhile, they keep pushing releases every few weeks, and they do break things, often those very HTML5 and CSS3 features we're all meant to love that are supposedly driving web technology development. (Google screwed up rounded corners for several successive versions. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly. Don't even start trying to do tricky things like using Java applets -- and before anyone chimes in about obsolete technologies, remember that there was a big push to improve support for applets not so long ago, and that many state-of-the-art programming languages run on the JVM.) The recurring theme in all of this, of course, is that you can't write one thing that runs reliably everywhere today. Until you can, any so-called standards will just be marketing propaganda for one browser team or another.

sid0 15y ago
If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. Or you can wait a little until the standard goes through and the syntaxes are unified. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). The target is not the browsing public -- it is your audience. For instance, a site for hackers really doesn't need to support IE<9. I agree with the <video> problem for sure. There are philosophically and commercially opposed interests involved there. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly Could you cite or give examples of these? Obviously things are still in flux, but we've all learned to deal with bugs in software. We know our own code isn't immune to them, so I think it's too much to expect the platform we're building on to be immune to them either. I don't think bugs reflect negatively on the web standardization process, though.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  > Or you can wait a little until the standard goes through and the syntaxes are unified. The trouble is, the current standardisation processes are far too slow to be practically useful, while the breakneck pace of experimental feature development is too fast to keep up, so there is no useful definition of "a little" in your suggestion that we can use for planning new web projects and making decisions about which technologies we will rely on. > There are philosophically and commercially opposed interests involved there. It also doesn't help that both sides throw out FUD as if it's going out of fashion, and that some of the (acknowledged) patent encumbered formats are technically far superior to the (possibly) unencumbered ones. That means until either the software patent madness is fixed or organisations like Mozilla start putting up hard cash, their integrated video functionality will never be as good as what you can get in something like IE (or, apparently, Chrome, since Google seem to have quietly dropped their policy of discontinuing support for H.264). > Could you cite or give examples of these [font bugs in Firefox]? On Windows systems, the kerning is very odd in a lot of fonts since they moved to the new rendering engine a while back. The spacing following a capital T is usually way too tight, and in some fonts there are a few other examples as well. This can render pages completely illegible at typical body text sizes. Also, take a Windows 7 computer with a few Adobe professional OpenType fonts installed locally -- probably some that come with Creative Suite would do -- and just try selecting those fonts using CSS in recent versions of Firefox. It simply doesn't work and falls back to the next font family in the list, though the same page will find the fonts and render quite happily in other browsers on Windows 7, or in the same version of Firefox on Windows XP for that matter. Most currently available web fonts also seem to look terrible (poorly hinted, terrible aliasing) on Windows XP in Firefox, but since they don't look great in other browsers either and they look better in Firefox on Windows 7, I'm inclined to point the finger more at Windows XP than Firefox in that case.

pnathan 15y ago

Eh, it seems to be borne out. The w3c seems to be more hot air than effective body: whatever the browsers decide is standard is standard.