Microsoft: break up HTML 5

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The ever-increasing intricacy of the World Wide Web is evidenced by the character and scope of the HTML 5 draft specification. Microsoft wants to hasten HTML 5’s arrival, but its proposed solution may not sit well with all parties.

In a recent interview, Internet Explorer platform architect Chris Wilson told SD Times that more progress could be made with teams working in parallel, and he recommended that portions of the HTML 5 specification be broken off and assigned to new workgroups. That might not be as radical as it sounds, according to Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond, who believes that it makes sense to subdivide HTML 5 into smaller, more manageable pieces. “I can’t even imagine how many years it will take browsers to implement it [HTML 5].” Hammond posited, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Wilson explained that several pieces of HTML 5 would be equally useful outside of it, particularly for Web applications and content. Those bits include such features as the Canvas APIs, which are used to render moving graphics; offline caching of Web applications' resources; persistent client-side data storage; and the peer-to-peer (P2P) networking connection framework.

View: Full Article @ SD Times

#1 Jugalator on 23 Apr 2008 - 11:19

But will there be any practical differences compared to if they don't?

The WebKit team is planning to implement some "useful" parts of HTML 5, for example. And probably more to come in the future.

I think the web browser developers will incrementally start support HTML 5 regardless if this happens or not.

#2 +M2Ys4U on 23 Apr 2008 - 13:55

I think it'll add semi-standardised sets of features for browsers to implement, rather than them adding random features from all over the spec. Not that people won't implement the easiest to implement features, but still.

#3 lol911 on 23 Apr 2008 - 15:51

“I can’t even imagine how many years it will take browsers to implement it [HTML 5].” Hammond posited, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Uh, yeah.. that's Microsoft ****ty way of implementing things alright. Hey, let's spend 5 years (or whatever the exact amount of time was) implementing CSS2. LMAO.

#4 tntomek on 23 Apr 2008 - 15:56

We have HTML5 already, just use Flex or Silverlight, they already support most of these features.

By the time this HTML5 spec will be standardized and implemented the web will be in Web 3.0 and it will be too little too late.

(2 replies) #5 Borbus on 23 Apr 2008 - 19:21

Microsoft need to support CSS before they worry about HTML 5. And XHTML would be good too.

#5.1 Jugalator on 23 Apr 2008 - 19:47

Yes, I agree it's a bit funny Microsoft of all companies are talking about this. They're just now with IE 8 starting to work hard for CSS 2.1 support.

#5.2 +Octol on 24 Apr 2008 - 22:16

(Jugalator said @ #5.1)

Microsoft said in the IE8b1 Release Notes:

Effect of HTML 5.0 Spec Updates:

The Internet Explorer 8 AJAX features Cross Document Messaging and DOM Storage are based on the HTML 5.0 specification. The specification is in draft stage and is continually being updated. Therefore, our implementation of the specification may be based on an older version. The Internet Explorer team will look into updating the implementation when possible after Beta 1.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/949787

(3 replies) #6 +Citizen Erased on 23 Apr 2008 - 22:18

Having looked between the HTML 5 and XHTML 2 specs, from a presention point of view, XHTML 2 seems more flexible....just my opinion though.

It would be nice to see both specifications finalised and decent support for both in releases of browsers within the next 4-6 months. Doubt it's going to happen though.

#6.1 rpgfan on 23 Apr 2008 - 23:50

(Citizen Erased said @ #6)

I like XHTML 2.0 as well. It seems very flexible while remaining semantic, though some of the samples in the current public draft makes it seem quite verbose. I think a bit of overkill was applied to those sample code snippets.

One of the most interesting things I find about XHTML 2.0 is the fact that any element may have a @src attribute specifying a resource like an image in place of the element's content. The most recent public draft (2006-07-26) states the following:

This collection causes the contents of a remote resource to be embedded in the document in place of the element's content. If accessing the remote resource fails, for whatever reason (network unavailable, no resource available at the URI given, inability of the user agent to process the type of resource) or an associated ismap attribute fails, the content of the element must be processed instead.

I can see the use of such an idea:

<p src="/img/shots/screen1.jpg" srctype="image/jpeg">Screenshot 1 (generic choice of words; bear with me)</p>

And even more use of:

<section>
  <h>Example output of the code:</h>
  <p src="/img/example.jpg" srctype="image/jpeg">
    <ul>
      
      <label>The numbers you rolled:</label>
      <li>6</li>
      <li>2</li>
      <li>4</li>
      <li>4</li>
      <li>4</li>
    </ul>
  </p>
</section>

(see what I mean about verbosity?)

The other thing that I find most useful is the fact that any element can have an @href attribute:

<nl id="SiteMenu">
  
  <label>Site Menu</label>
  <li href="/index.php">Home</li>
  <li>
    <nl xml:base="http://example.org/tuts">
      <label>Tutorials</label>
      <li href="/xhtml.php">XHTML</li>
      <li href="/php.php">PHP</li>
      <li href="/python.php">Python</li>
      <li href="/aspnet.php">ASP.NET</li>
      <li href="/winforms.php">.NET Forms</li>
      <li href="/cpp.php">C++</li>
      <li href="/x86asm.php">x86 Assembly</li>
      <li href="/winapi.php">Windows API Programming</li>
      <li href="/gl.php">OpenGL</li>
      <li href="/misc.php">Miscellaneous</li>
    </nl>
  </li>
  <li href="/forums/index.php">Forums</li>
  <li href="/about.php">About the author</li>
</nl>

It is quite verbose, but I like that aspect. Also notice how @xml:base was used! It is more useful in the actual document structure as an attribute than as an element in the head of the XHTML document via the 'base' element.

(singing) I love X-H-T-M-L 2-dot-0!

#6.2 Tikitiki on 24 Apr 2008 - 04:41

Yeh XHTML 2.0 is good and all. I just have one bone to pick (so far) with it, and maybe I'm wrong and it's been fixed but the last time I read up on it the "target" attribute was removed and no good alternative was implemented. Yes, we can use Javascript etc but what about our friends that have Javascript off? Is this a "screw you"?

#6.3 rpgfan on 24 Apr 2008 - 06:07

(Tikitiki said @ #6.2)

Well, I'm not sure, but I haven't personally seen anything like that. @target is still there AFAIK. However, things like _blank, _top, and other things were removed, in favor of a seemingly better way as described in the XFrames WD.

Resolution for _top - add @xml:id to your html element and link to that. That should work, I think.

Resolution for _blank - A quote from the XFrames WD says:

If no matching xml:id is found, then the targetted resource is processed in an entirely new environment with that target identifier (for instance, a visual browser might open a new window).

Resolution for _parent - similar to _top, add @xml:id to the necessary element

Resolution for _self - none needed, default behavior for a normal link; @target should never have had this value as an option IMHO (you click on a link in the nav menu and it has no target value, the nav menu then changes to the page you wanted to view - that is the nature of _self IIRC).

Last edited by rpgfan on 24 Apr 2008 - 06:15

(1 reply) #7 rpgfan on 23 Apr 2008 - 22:57

HTML5 isn't even finished yet, so why isn't MS worrying about the current recommendations (like XHTML 1.0, or even XHTML 1.1, and CSS 2.1, at the very least for now) before delving into drafts?

As for HTML5 already being here, no, it isn't. Silverlight doesn't work on Linux (though there is the Moonlight project headed by Mono developers), and people are getting tired of Flash (Flash makes the fans on my Windows notebook go into overdrive for some reason), meaning Flex isn't ideal either.

I like what the MS developers are doing with IE8 (as long as they don't backpedal on their decision to use IE8's super-compliance engine by default), but I hope they don't screw things up.

#7.1 +M2Ys4U on 23 Apr 2008 - 23:21

Because Microsoft is one of the parties involved in developing the spec.

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