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Fifteen years for HTML 5?

Brian Dillard, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 @ 5:30 am

A List Apart just published a great summary of the ongoing development of HTML 5. Buried at the bottom is a statement that reveals exactly why most people are paying so little attention to this evolving standard (emphasis mine):

Work on HTML 5 is rapidly progressing, yet it is still expected to continue for several years. Due to the requirement to produce test cases and achieve interoperable implementations, current estimates have work finishing in around ten to fifteen years. During this process, feedback from a wide range of people including, among others, web designers and developers, CMS and authoring tool vendors, and browser vendors is vital to ensure its success. Everyone is not only welcome, but actively encouraged to contribute feedback on HTML 5.

Ten to fifteen years? Is this a typo? A joke? No, this is standards bodies in action. As much as I object to the Flex/Silverlight proprietary-runtime thing on philosophical grounds, from a practical standpoint I can't fault the impulse. Between CSS 3, HTML 5 and ECMAScript 4, the standards process for core web technologies is a slow-moving train wreck. What's the point in getting involved when the standards take years or even decades to be codified, much less implemented by all the big browser makers?

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Topics: Web Standards

Agile Ajax

Comments: 3 so far

Depressing…

Comment by David, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 @ 6:18 am
Please read the WHATWG FAQ entry on the deadline of HTML 5: http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML_5_be_finished.3F It isn’t really as bad as it looks on first sight. For instance, CSS2 is still being developed after a decade. And HTML5 is bug fixing HTML4 which has been around for a long time too.

Comment by Anne van Kesteren, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 @ 7:40 am
Keep in mind that SVG was defined in 1999 and is still nascent in terms of browser support. After 3-4 years of only promise people started to write it off, but it appears to slowly be gaining traction.

Comment by anonymous, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 @ 8:12 am

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