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W3C Announces Plan To Deliver HTML 5 by 2014 110

Posted by samzenpus from the accelerate-the-plan dept.
The World Wide Web Consortium has proposed "a new plan that would see the HTML 5 spec positioned as a Recommendation—which in W3C's lingo represents a complete, finished standard—by the end of 2014. The group plans a follow-up, HTML 5.1, for the end of 2016." Instead of working toward one-specification-to-rule-them-all in 2022, features that are stable and implemented in multiple browsers now will be finalized as HTML 5.0 by 2014 with unstable features moved into HTML 5.1 (developed in parallel). In 2014, the commonly implemented parts of HTML 5.1 will begin finalization for 2016, with the unstable parts moved into HTML 5.2 (wash, rinse, repeat). Additionally, things like Web Sockets are being moved into their own modular standards (sound familiar?) for "...the social benefits that accrue from such an approach. Splitting out separate specifications allows those technologies to be advanced by their respective communities of interest, allowing more productive development of approaches that may eventually be able reach broader consensus."
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W3C Announces Plan To Deliver HTML 5 by 2014 More

W3C Announces Plan To Deliver HTML 5 by 2014

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  • That quickly? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21, 2012 @07:27AM (#41409493)

    Wow, let's not rush into anything here guys.

    • By the W3Cs standards, that's lightning fast. Besides, what happened to HTML5 being a versionless "living standard" (that is, constantly moving target). HTML5.1? That sounds like versions to me, guys!

      • The living standard thing was more WHATWG's idea. As far as I can tell, they and the W3C are cooperating on schedules and features, except when they're not. The W3C's and WHATWG's pace and goals seem to be quite different.

      • By the W3Cs standards, that's lightning fast.

        It is! I had a slight hope that by the time The Oxford English Dictionary Third Edition will be finished, they will be able to use it, instead of that horrible flash-like thing. This date makes it a little bit more realistic.

      • Re:That quickly? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @09:48AM (#41411033)

        Besides, what happened to HTML5 being a versionless "living standard"

        WHATWG manages the HTML "living standard". WHATWG HTML living standard is basically the venue in which interested parties, most notably all of the major browser vendors, hash out agreements on what will be supported in the future.

        W3C has HTML5 (and apparently now plans for HTML5.1, etc.) which seems certain to trail far behind the WHATWG living standard.

        If you think of the W3Cs standards as appropriate targets for relatively conservative web developers while WHATWG standards are for people building browsers and other infrastructure to work toward (plus, with a lot of caution as to particular browsers support status for individual features, more cutting edge web developers), it kind of makes sense.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Altanar ( 56809 )
          I especially fail to see how the sub-versions of HTML5 will be any meaningful way different from the living standard since they will all use presumably <!DOCTYPE html>. To the browser every document using that will be HTML5 with no mention of a decimal point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BZ ( 40346 )

      Part of the REC process involves having two browsers agreeing on the implementation of every HTML5 feature. How long do you expect this to take?

      It also involves writing a test suite to ensure that this is actually happening. Contributed any tests to tha recently?

  • Just in time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @07:31AM (#41409539) Homepage

    Just in time for the first HTML6 browsers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JackAxe ( 689361 )
      HTML6 is the future! :)

    • Re:Just in time (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sarten-X ( 1102295 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @07:52AM (#41409671) Homepage
      It doesn't matter what version of HTML you're using. Someone will always want the <blink> tag.

      • Someone will always want the <blink> tag.

        As I see it, the <blink> element is presentational and should ideally be implemented with CSS text-decoration:blink or with a CSS animation on an element's opacity. It could gain a retconned semantic meaning, just as the <b>, <i>, <s>, and <hr> elements did in HTML5, but I don't see what that meaning would be.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by trevc ( 1471197 )

          As I see it, the <blink> element is presentational and should ideally be implemented with CSS text-decoration:blink or with a CSS animation on an element's opacity. It could gain a retconned semantic meaning, just as the <b>, <i>, <s>, and <hr> elements did in HTML5, but I don't see what that meaning would be.

          Lets debate it for another couple of years.....

        • The hr element may lack semantic meaning, but as far as I'm aware no semantic equivalent has been proposed (which is a shame!).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        Someone will always want the <blink> tag.

        I don't want the <blink> tag, but I do wonder why they deprecated the <font> tag.

        • Because it serves no purpose that p or span won't already do?

        • Because that's what CSS is for.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

            Style sheets are for the ability to redesign an entire site by rewriting one document, the style sheet. IMO the CSS implementation should have been added while not deprecating the font HTML tag. Style sheets shouldn't be mandatory and neither should CSS.

            • What exactly would be the purpose of keeping around a redundant tag that breaks the separation of content and presentation style, when you can embed CSS right in the HTML tag that contains the text?

  • I wonder if it will even matter anymore?

    With everyone willingly giving up everything to go into walled gardens, and the obvious superiority of native code applications*, is HTML5 a dead end?

    Discuss! (ha)

    * Not saying that pretty much all apps on smartphones I've used aren't buggy, featureless, poorly designed piece of shit--they are--so much so. And I love the openness of using web sites and never having to need to update my software. I love it. I'm just saying they have the *potential*.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      I wonder if it will even matter anymore?

      With everyone willingly giving up everything to go into walled gardens, and the obvious superiority of native code applications*, is HTML5 a dead end?

      Discuss! (ha)

      * Not saying that pretty much all apps on smartphones I've used aren't buggy, featureless, poorly designed piece of shit--they are--so much so. And I love the openness of using web sites and never having to need to update my software. I love it. I'm just saying they have the *potential*.

      Many "native walled app" are wrappers around html5. If you want something to run cross platform, and don't have any taxing performance requirements, it is an easy way to go.

      • If you want something to run cross platform, and don't have any taxing performance requirements, [HTML5] is an easy way to go.

        So how should an HTML5 app on current devices access the device's camera or microphone?

        • Using HTML5's GetUserMedia() [html5rocks.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            Media Capture API not yet implemented

            Using HTML5's GetUserMedia()

            Which is undefined everywhere but Opera [caniuse.com].

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Lennie ( 16154 )

              Even the page you pointed to has Chrome listed as supporting it.

              Also Firefox will be rolling it out soon, as they are busy implementing WebRTC.

              IE seems to be interrested in supporting WebRTC too, so they'll have to roll it out too.

              And Apple is usually very quiet about what they will.

              • Even the page you pointed to has Chrome listed as supporting it.

                Then the page I pointed to must be wrong. I visited this demo [shinydemos.com] in Chrome for Android (version 18.0.1025308) on my Nexus 7 and got the error message "Your browser doesn’t support all required features: WebRTC getUserMedia". I visited the same demo in Chromium Browser for GNU/Linux (version 18.0.1025.168) on my computer and got the same error message. Might it have something to do with the message "Requires this prefix to work" that I get when I hover over Chrome's entry?

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Altanar ( 56809 )
                  The desktop version of Chrome supports it. Chrome for Android is 3 versions behind the desktop release.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by tepples ( 727027 )

                    The desktop version of Chrome supports it. Chrome for Android is 3 versions behind the desktop release.

                    Apparently, the version in Ubuntu is still 1 version behind. Today, Update Manager offered me the upgrade from Chromium Browser 18 to Chromium Browser 20. But ultimately the situation is still the same: no mobile browsers included with smartphones or fondleslabs support getUserMedia().

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Eraesr ( 1629799 )
      Mozilla is still giving HTML 5 a shot with FirefoxOS, but unless major phone manufacturers pick up on that it's DOA as far as I'm concerned.
      • Doesnt seem likely.. Firefox market share has been dropping since the beginning of 2010 (lost almost 1/3rd of its market share), telling us that more and more people are not satisfied with the browser. Why would people want to adopt an entire new OS built on something that they are growingly not satisfied with?

        ChromeOS has much more of a chance, and by most people estimates, that chance is somewhere between slim and fat.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Lennie ( 16154 )

          Really I don't think desktop market share of Firefox in the last few years matters all that much for mobile OS development. They share in the desktop market is big enough that many recognise the name.

          They have backing from some large telcos in certain countries, we'll have to see if Mozilla and other developers can deliver.

          If they do they'll have a cheaper phone with similair functionality than what others are delivering.

          Then they might have a chance.

    • Discuss!

      I always get the urge to punch people in the face when they end postings with that.

  • Browser vendors decide the specs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eraesr ( 1629799 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @07:45AM (#41409623) Homepage
    So basically it's the browser vendors that eventually determine what goes in and what stays out? How much of an influence will Internet Explorer have on this?

  • Good idea (Score:3)

    by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @07:57AM (#41409727)

    Finalize the things that we already have, this long-stretched process is already hurting the web.

  • The reality... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pointyhat ( 2649443 )

    And by 2019, all the browsers on the market may actually support it consistently, just like they did with HTML2, HTML3, HTML4! (that was sarcastic for the sarcasm challenged).

    Seriously, the world wide web and HTML itself are just a series of horrible bits of sticky tape which no longer stick to anything and string that is very frayed. It's like a train in India (most of the passengers on the outside). It only works by some remarkable coincidence of the same order of magnitude of how life managed to evolve

    • Re:The reality... (Score:5, Informative)

      by VGPowerlord ( 621254 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @08:20AM (#41409949)

      And by 2019, all the browsers on the market may actually support it consistently, just like they did with HTML2, HTML3, HTML4! (that was sarcastic for the sarcasm challenged).

      Are you making fun of the fact that Firefox still can't center the text in a table using the <col> element 14 years after HTML 4.0 came out? :|

      • No specific browser problems. They are all as shitty as each other.

      • Actually the problem is worse.

        I am trying to do a startup that cateers to business users. How many percentage wise support HTML 5 ... I mean at all today? 5%? They all use IE 8. I plan to ignore IE 6 support as it will be phased out in 2014 and it will be a year anyway before it debuts so these corpos will be spending $$$$ upgrading to which browser? If you guessed IE 8 you are correct.

        In 2019 they still will be using IE 8 as it was such a pain to move to IE 6 and are terrified of the prospect of doing it a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lennie ( 16154 )

      Actually, you might not have noticed, but if you follow the rules then the last few years browsers have become more and more consistent across the board, yes proper cross browser support of more and more features, behaving the same way. Even the newer releases from IE. It is only the old IE-versions which are the biggest problems.

      Also if you look at the HTML5 standard it now defines how bad HTML should be handled.

      They have described very clearly how the parsing of HTML should be handled and how it should fa

  • Can we get rid of Flash, now?

    • What format for vector animations, such as the Homestar Runner short films, are you proposing that is superior to Flash?

      • Nobody cares. People watch animations on Youtube now. It's 2012, we have the bandwidth.

        • People watch animations on Youtube now. It's 2012, we have the bandwidth.

          Not necessarily. It's 2012, people are watching on laptops and tablets, and mobile broadband plans are still limited to 5 GB per month on the whole. Even some home Internet providers, such as HughesNet and WildBlue, still have caps (or "fair access policies") that amount to single digit GB per month. I tried converting an SWF to a video, and it became ten times bigger. This means if you can watch x number of SWFs on Newgrounds on a 5 GB/mo plan, you'd need a 50 GB/mo plan to watch the same SWFs converted t

          • What we need is another codec that is streamable, bufferable, and highly compressed like SWFs? Then it can be included. I have a feeling if we do not write one the MPAA or Microsoft will which will be patented and DRMed into an oblivion leaving non Windows users out in the dust and will raise the cost of every computing device to pay for the patents.

    • No... you can't. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HerculesMO ( 693085 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @08:28AM (#41410039)

      And this is a huge problem for me as well, as I'm working on a project hoping for something better out of HTML5.

      Streaming video with sensitivity to bandwith is something not available in the HTML5 spec at all. It's a simple "video" tag, which offers very little flexibility. h.264 will be the standard, VP8 is effectively dead. And that's fine, but when you have a situation where you want to auto adjust the quality based on bandwith (ala Silverlight "Smooth Streaming" or Flash), you can't do it in HTML5.

      There's a project in works called MPEG DASH to do something around this, but that project is moving slower than molasses. I think people are content to keep using Flash or Silverlight, but in reality.. developers really want better options and HTML5 is already an archaic standard in a lot of senses.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Max_W ( 812974 )
        By 2014 a fiber-optic Internet access will be a norm, and the question of bandwidth will be irrelevant.

        We do not have dial-up now, do we?
        • Who's "we"? And no, fiber optic internet access will not be a standard all over the world in 2014. Web standards aren't built for urban areas in first world countries only.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Max_W ( 812974 )
            Yes, vinyl disks are still in use. And CDs too. But I would say the standard is MP3 and the likes. The same is about dial up, ADSL, and fiber optic.

            Why to worry about, say, vinyl disks' issues? 45 or 33 rpm, nobody really cares, except some connoisseurs of retro.

            • First you say norm, then you say standard.

              There is NO WAY that fiber boradband will be sufficiently widespread by 2014 to be considered the norm. Heck, I live in London and there's no scheduled date for when I'm going to get upgraded from my 3-5 mbit/s ADSL link to fiber. They upgraded the exchange, but haven't laid fibers to my area yet and seem to have no plans to.

              It's the future and will become standard, but not in 2014 it won't.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Max_W ( 812974 )
                Fibre is from plastic. It is similar to a fishing line. Not like copper cable, which is very expensive.

                • You have any idea how much it costs to dig up someone elses land, lay permits, pay some union guys $25 an hour for 30 feet of cable per pipe at a time 2,500 miles from east to west coast! That is just one trunk linke. What about every block? What about farmers in Iowa? Even if you wired all of Chicago for free how fat is the pipe leaving it to the rest of the net?

                  Do you think the telephone monopolies will like this? Cheap bandwidth devaluing the costs of their G4 and other services?? AT&T will scream bl

            • Fact check!

              1/3 of the US still does not have highspeed internet access or anything above 256k per second. This includes farming communities in the midwest, rockies, and the south. Dialup is still popular in Missouri and Tennessee! These are the users with ancient versions of IE too who are not corporate users. It takes too long to download a browser on 56k not to mention the updates are way fucking too big so they have 100 exploits too on their systems. G3 is starting to come in but it is highly capped and

        • Yeah I thought that would fix everything to until they pulled fiber in my neighborhood. They upgraded all fo the exipment and left use with the same speed we had before. Oh we have to option to get much faster interent but they want to charge twice as much or make you go with a bundled service to get it. so ow insted of slow speed created by the equipment and transmission medium i am limited by a piece of software saying i can't go faster.

        • Mobile devices still need native apps, which is something I truly dislike for something as simple as video.

        • I tell ya, this new generation who doesn't care to optmizing anything. Lets just write the crappiest software we can and throw more money at the problem...

          And no, not everyone will have fiber to their home. They may have 20mbs internet via copper but they won't have fiber unless everybody chips in $1000 per home (Not even sure that would cover it)

      • Streaming video with sensitivity to bandwith is something not available in the HTML5 spec at all.

        Well kinda yes and kinda it's not up to the HTML 5 spec to do that, since prefectly good specs exist already. IIRC the video tag requires a URL, but that is all: it doesn't specify the protocol. In other words, the video tag could just as easily accept rtp:// or rtsp:// as it chould http:/// [http] and in the former cases, all the problems are already solved.

        The question is whether the browsers will actually do someth

      • Streaming video with sensitivity to bandwith is something not available in the HTML5 spec at all.

        Why not? I may be misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but if not I'm pretty sure I could whip up some Javascript to do that in about thirty minutes. Have the javascript test the bandwidth (probably a better way, but you could just time an image download or something) and modify the source of the video tag accordingly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CODiNE ( 27417 )

        I think Darwin streaming server will do that bandwidth compensation stuff. The videos are saved in chunks and it will swap to higher or lower quality based on congestion while playing. If you're already using H.264 you're halfway there.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • HTML5: (Score:5, Funny)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... il.com minus cat> on Friday September 21, 2012 @08:13AM (#41409875) Homepage Journal

    The Duke Nukem of markup languages

  • just in time when w3c will declare it obsolete in favor of the new one, HTML6.

  • uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by archen ( 447353 ) on Friday September 21, 2012 @08:37AM (#41410141)

    I'm really worried. I've actually said the W3C should do everything they're going to do. It's not like the world is gaining sanity, which means I'm the one going insane.

    I'm wondering what they'll be doing for the doctype declaration though, since it doesn't indicate any version (which is short sighted in my opinion)

  • If these people we would have college age newborns!
  • I'm not up on this stuff, but is there a way to "require" the browser makers to conform to the W3C standards? Or is it strictly voluntary in so much as they want to appeal to as many people as possible? Is the only "punishment" getting lambasted by Web developers and seeing a down-tick in usage?

    • Yeah that worked so well a decade ago when the web stopped working for any W3C compliant browser except for IE 6.

      Even with Firefox you would get error messages saying Netscape is not supported. With 88% of the web using just that one browser with its own standards the webmasters did not care as they did not wnat to loose revenue.

      Sadly this the difference between 1990s and now. No one but slashdotters want to use HTML 5. No one is ashamed for leaving out HTML 5 for IE 7 support as the web now is about making

  • ... why doesn't the W3C make a browser (or a rendering engine) that implements 100% of the spec 100% perfectly? (No, Amaya [w3.org] isn't quite it.)

  • I just wish they could agree on something. I spent 30 minutes the other night on the phone with my father who was trying to register some new space heater, and the website wasn't written properly, and the java script never would display properly. Once I closed out his browser and opened a different one, it then worked properly. Either that, or ban java script....Some sites, I have to work between 3 browsers, depending on which one works with a certain site.

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