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In the real world, most true progressions in web technology has been some variation of the following: * One browser vendor implements something * Some other b

by halo 18y ago

In the real world, most true progressions in web technology has been some variation of the following: * One browser vendor implements something * Some other browser vendor realises its a good idea, copies it * Every other vendor scrambles to implement some form of it * Behaviour is formalised into a standard * Browsers slowly but surely end up on the standardised version This often tends to create saner and more useful 'standards' than the real ones: InnerHTML, the Quirks Mode box model, Ajax, Canvas, font-face, JavaScript. The downside is slow and 'incorrect' implementations can be slow to fix bugs (although that happens with true standards too). Standards are rarely truly "industry leading" and I'm truly not sure if the standards leading is actually much better in the real world than the present ad hoc development method.

ZeroGravitas 18y ago
That's a standard free-market, laissez-faire take on things, but not entirely accurate. The usual IT factors of lock-in, path dependency and network effects have their place. As does the frequently underestimated, yet monumental task of getting effective interoperation even when all parties are willing and able to do so (neither of which is generally the case). Minor browser engines such as Webkit, Gecko and Opera can't change the market much on their own. They need to be interoperable to some degree for people to start using their additions to the standards on the wider web. HTML5 (nee WHAT-WG) was initially those browser vendors coming together to work on exactly that. You give Canvas as an implementation before standardization example, yet it was far more iterative than that with Apple's original implementation (for use in the walled garden of their widgets) being presented for standardization with the explicit idea that it was good for Apple if there were interoperable implementations out there. It's a pretty good example of Co-opetition. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition)

by halo 18y ago

ZeroGravitas 18y ago

That's a standard free-market, laissez-faire take on things, but not entirely accurate. The usual IT factors of lock-in, path dependency and network effects have their place. As does the frequently underestimated, yet monumental task of getting effective interoperation even when all parties are willing and able to do so (neither of which is generally the case). Minor browser engines such as Webkit, Gecko and Opera can't change the market much on their own. They need to be interoperable to some degree for people to start using their additions to the standards on the wider web. HTML5 (nee WHAT-WG) was initially those browser vendors coming together to work on exactly that. You give Canvas as an implementation before standardization example, yet it was far more iterative than that with Apple's original implementation (for use in the walled garden of their widgets) being presented for standardization with the explicit idea that it was good for Apple if there were interoperable implementations out there. It's a pretty good example of Co-opetition. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition)