Yahoo! for the future

09 Mar 2009, Chicago

Doug Crockford has it out for me! Less than a week after I submit to our friend HTML5, he declares war! Off with its <HEAD>, says he:

…the HTML5 project is misguided… It is trying to do too much without a clear mission that defines the problems it is solving. I think the project needs a reset.

Oh, say it isn’t so, Doug! This is the guy that named JSON and gave him a home; the guy that prescribed us minification. This guy figured out which parts of JavaScript are good. He risked his life for us and lived to tell the tale ($29.99 list).

Then again, Old Doug also wrote JSLint, and let’s not even get into that one. Let’s move on. That’s what he’d want us to do.

No need to be bitter. Douglas only wants the best for us. Really. It’s just tough love from a stolid, fatherly figure with salt ’n’ pepper whiskers and a gentle grin.

But we already have XHTML, you may be quick to say. Where strict is cool! So what’s the deal with 4.2? More of the same? This document offers some clues.

Where’s the glitz, though? The dazzle? What can an artist do without a canvas? We could have audio and video, and no plugin! You won’t miss my congratulatory advertisement this time. You deserve to know. And to know the joy of SQL, finally, in the browser. Forms with placeholders and validations built-in! Vectors! details! And the semantics, oh the semantics! What’s a poor old Google to do, parsing through divs and spans when it could have nav, article, and aside? Won’t somebody please think of the robots?

But let’s leave the HTML argument be, for now. We can at least agree that CSS is in a wonderful place. JSON’s little half nephew is doing all right.

This next one’s for you, Crock.¹ (Safari 4 or equivalent required; just hover over the image.)

stephencelis

Yahoo! for the future

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