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09.11.2008 // 5 CommentsHTML5 to be “done” in 2022. This is not a joke.

Comments

1. 001 // Brian McKinney // 09.11.2008 // 12:47 PM

   Jeff - don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel. :)

2. 002 // Torbjørn Lunde // 09.11.2008 // 2:30 PM

   Standards development isn’t like making software — people are implementing HTML5 as we speak, and many parts of HTML5 will likely be widely used long before HTML5 is officially “done.”

   Also: W3C is working to slow, indeed. That’s why some smart guys came up with WHATWG to speed things up.

   http://www.whatwg.org/

   Many people that have helped wiht important things with HTML and CSS har a part of the group, including the “grandfather of CSS” Håkon Wium Lie.

   So… it might get to 2022 before slow-ass W3C have a recommendation finished, but WHATWG will have stuff ready way before that.

   And the my bet is that W3C-standard will largeley be based on WHATWG. (WHATWG is very friendly towards W3C and wants co-operation, and have invited several W3C members to thier group.)

   More important than these specs are how fast they will be implemented. How much cool stuff is there in the specs that WebKit(Safari), Gecko(Firefox) and Presto(Opera) supports that a certain other browser does not support?

   I might be predicting the future too much here, so don’t kill me if I’m wrong… but these are my expectations at least.

   (And sorry for my bad english.)

3. 003 // Jeremy Keith // 09.11.2008 // 3:35 PM

   Jeff, might I suggest that you do read the rest of the interview. I appreciate that you used the word “done” in scare quotes but, if anything, a last call working draft by October 2009 is scarily soon.

   There’s “done” and there’s done (as in “and dusted”).

4. 004 // Jeff Croft // 09.11.2008 // 7:50 PM

   Jeremy-

   I have no interest in reading the rest of the interview, because none of it affects me, or any web designer/developer living in the real world. Those of us who make our livelihood doing real work for real clients know that in the end, it doesn’t matter if HTML5 is “done” today, tomorrow, next year, or fifty years from now. We have to use the tools that are available to us in browsers. What’s written down on some silly spec document is incredibly meaningless, in the real world.

   If and when HTML5 proves useful to me in the capacity of serving my clients, then you better believe I’ll use it. Until then, I’m not going to bother reading about vaporware and empty promises.

   This is a perfect example of the sort of pragmatism versus purism that define the difference between you and me, Jeremy. You care, first and foremost, about specs, standards, semantics, and pedantics. I care about my livelihood, my clients, users, design, communication, and connecting people. There’s nothing wrong with what you care about — it’s just different than what drives me. Someday, you’ll accept that we’re different in that way and stop taking people’s light-hearted jokes about standardistas like yourself so defensively. We tease because we love. Seriously.

5. 005 // Jeremy Keith // 09.12.2008 // 6:55 AM

   Jeff, your list of the things I care about it incomplete. All the things you list for yourself would also be on my list of priorities …although “my livelihood” might not make the cut and “users” and “connecting people” would definitely appear above “my clients”.

   We have a lot in common.

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