I've spent the last couple of days resting-up [when not working] trying to stick to my new sumo wrestler diet [without the beer] and doing some maths. That was the plan for tonight too.
Before I get started with work it is my wont to do a wee bit of displacement activity [like this!] So I was perusing my feed reader when I noticed that a lot of standardnistas were posting—something had happened.
[Probably the best description of the problem is here...]
I don't do much [creative] web work any more, but it was where I started OU-wise and I retain a love for and an interest in it. I'll certainly create sites in the future, so my first thought was what does this mean for me? Not-a-lot; most of the features they're talking about I don't use. I don't use them because of exactly the problems they are talking about. Then I had some other thoughts.
- I do sometimes use these when I writing javascript CSS.
- I will probably have to use them when I re-design the nonsense this summer for mobiles [the current plan].
- The main thrust of the argument is that this might lead us back into the type of browser lock-in hell that we had with IE6
Three is the clincher here. If it is the problem.
I'm not sure that there is a big problem in allowing webkit to create de facto standards. Most bleeding-edge web stuff uses webkit [doesn't work anywhere else]; in many ways it's what's driving the web forward. Mozilla and the rest are chasing the game.
Then we have the total mess that are web standards. Nobody seems to be able to agree on anything. [Although I should stress that that isn't CSS3, which is what the current stushie is all about. Although HTML5 seems to have become the new web 2.0; a catch-all term for a whole load of different things.]
Here's something else[about accessibility] that I read today, something that I totally agree with. [Again a totally different specification; same mess though.] If we can't get that right [and there's some pretty basic stuff there]?
Perhaps we'd be doing ourselves a favour letting the browser vendors drive the web forward? Especially if they agree to support each others implementations? [Although I might not have completely understood that bit, it seems a little too good to be true and I worry anytime IE is in the mix.]
In the end we coped with the mess that was IE6 and we have a better browser gene-pool nowadays. Do we really have anything to worry about.
There also seems to be a bit of browser-sniffing going on here, which is always evil and should never been done in anything that you intend for the open web.