Simon Willison’s Weblog

I think the Web community has spoken, and it’s clear that what it wants is HTML5, JavaScript and JSON. XML isn’t going away but I see it being less and less a Web technology; it won’t be something that you send over the wire on the public Web, but just one of many technologies that are used on the server to manage and generate what you do send over the wire.

— James Clark # 2nd December 2010, 6:48 pm

I’m renaming the book to “Dive Into HTML 5” for better SEO. This is not a joke. The book is the #5 search result for “HTML5” (no space) but #13 for “HTML 5” (with a space). I get 514 visitors a day searching Google for “HTML5” but only 53 visitors a day searching for “HTML 5”.

— Mark Pilgrim # 8th June 2010, 8:48 pm

No part of HTML5 is, or was ever, “blocked” in the W3C HTML Working Group -- not HTML5, not Canvas 2D Graphics, not Microdata, not Video -- not by me, not by Adobe. Neither Adobe nor I oppose, are fighting, are trying to stop, slow down, hinder, oppose, or harm HTML5, Canvas 2D Graphics, Microdata, video in HTML, or any of the other significant features in HTML5. Claims otherwise are false. Any other disclaimers needed?

— Larry Masinter # 15th February 2010, 9:31 pm

At this point all I could honestly tell you from the point of view of the editor of several of the HTML5 documents being held up is that the W3C have said they’re won’t publish without the objections being resolved, and that the objection is from Adobe. I can’t even tell what I could do to resolve the objection. It seems to be entirely a process-based objection.

— Ian Hickson # 15th February 2010, 7:38 pm

HTML has always been a conversation between browser makers, authors, standards wonks, and other people who just showed up and liked to talk about angle brackets. Most of the successful versions of HTML have been “retro-specs,” catching up to the world while simultaneously trying to nudge it in the right direction. Anyone who tells you that HTML should be kept “pure” (presumably by ignoring browser makers, or ignoring authors, or both) is simply misinformed. HTML has never been pure, and all attempts to purify it have been spectacular failures, matched only by the attempts to replace it.

— Mark Pilgrim # 3rd November 2009, 7:20 am

Turns out, a lot of people are saddened by the loss of a spec they don’t understand, and if they did, would not bother using.

— Assaf Arkin # 6th July 2009, 9:02 pm

Yes, it’d be nice if everyone kept up to date on the progress of the various W3C working groups. They don’t. There are a lot of people who asked what professional markup looked like and were told (right or wrong) that XHTML was the future. So they went ahead and learned XHTML, built their websites and chose watching a DVD or spending time with their kids over watching Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby do battle over Postel’s Law. Now all of a sudden they’re told XHTML is dead. Some wailing and gnashing of teeth is to be expected. What’s needed is less “boy aren’t I smarter than them” snideness, and more Hey, here’s what’s up.

— Alan Storm # 4th July 2009, 12:51 pm

We did some studies and found that the attribute was almost never used, and most of the time, when it was used, it was a typo where someone meant to write rel=“” but wrote rev=“”. To be precise, the most commonly used value was rev=“made”, which is equivalent to rel=“author” and thus was not a convincing use case. The second most common value was rev=“stylesheet”, which is meaningless and obviously meant to be rel=“stylesheet”.

— Ian Hickson # 14th April 2009, 4:34 pm

The HTML5 parsing specification contains rules to transform any possible sequence of characters or bytes into a standard document object model. From conversations with Ian, I believe this was one of his primary goals for the initial HTML5 specification.

— Benjamin Smedberg # 15th January 2009, 10:19 pm

Someone asked for onbeforeunload, so I started fixing it. Then I found that there was some rot in the drywall. So I took down the drywall. Then I found a rat infestation. So I killed all the rats. Then I found that the reason for the rot was a slow leak in the plumbing. So I tried fixing the plumbing, but it turned out the whole building used lead pipes. So I had to redo all the plumbing. But then I found that the town’s water system wasn’t quite compatible with modern plumbing techniques, and I had to dig up the entire town. And that’s basically it.

— Ian Hickson # 19th December 2008, 1:58 pm

Draconian failure on error is not the answer problems of Postel’s law. Draconian error handling creates an unstable equilibrium in Game Theory terms —it only lasts until one player breaks the rule. One non-Draconian XML5 implementation in key client product and the Draconian XML ranks would break. Well-specified error recovery is the right way to implement the liberal part of Postel’s law.

— Henri Sivonen # 20th March 2008, 2:43 pm

For the record, my site is valid HTML 5, except the parts that aren’t. My therapist says I shouldn’t rely so much on external validation.

— Mark Pilgrim # 10th March 2008, 2:01 pm

My “why move away from SGML?” reason is the way that every time I have to explain to someone that their Mozilla bug in invalid because HTML is actually an SGML application [...] I finish up by saying “if you want to see the actual spec that I’ve been told says that, you can buy a copy for 230 Swiss francs.”

— Phil Ringnalda # 14th April 2007, 10:21 am