Oh, come on. Believe it or not, the HTML standard is one of the biggest
Incorrect. Standards are extremely important, for reasons that you
apparently do not realize or understand, and Tim apparently does not either.
Let me see if I can explain. I'll start with a bit of history.
Back when HTML was first developed, the WWW could probably have been
accurately dubbed the "Wild West Web." There were standards for the most
basic types of things, like network protocols, SMTP, NNTP, and HTTP, but
that was about it. HTML, which relies on the HTTP transport, is still an
HTTP message. The markup used, based on SGML (Standardized Graphics Markup
Language), was a brand-new invention, developed with very little
forethought. Nobody imagined how popular it would be, what it could
potentially be used for, or what could be done over the Internet. HTML was
simply a markup language which could be used to graphically format
heretofore plain text messages in static documents. It was a great idea that
was poorly thought-out.
It became *extremely* popular in a short period of time, and soon, everybody
and their brother (or sister) wanted to get online and surf. Now, all that
was necessary to view HTML documents was a piece of software that could read
and interpret HTML, and, due to its popularity, a whole slew of software
companies started writing browsers to interpret and display it.
The popularity of it quickly fueled the demand to be able to do more with
it. Humanity was not satisfied with static documents, and competition being
what it is (a fact of life), HTML began to be extended. Unfortunately, as I
mentioned earlier, it was not designed with extensibility on the scale that
was demanded in mind. New tags sprang into existence. Who developed them?
Why, the software companies that manufactured the browsers, of course. After
all, competition being what it is (a fact of life), every browser
manufacturer wanted their browser to be able to do more than every other
browser manufacturer's did. JavaScript reared its ugly head, and now HTML
could do all sorts of tricks. Again, who determined what the Document Object
Model (a brand new concept at the time) would be, and how JavaScript would
work with it? You guessed it: the browser manufacturers. And so began the
infamous "Browser Wars" of the late 1990's.
Those were bloody times indeed. Not only were the manufacturers competing
against each other with every available weapon at hand, including the U.S.
Federal Court System, but there was horrible collateral damage as well.
Users all over the globe were bewailing the fact that certain things didn't
work in their favorite browser. HTML developers were crying out in pain over
having to study all sorts of documentation in order to make their web pages
work in all browsers (at least the most popular ones). Their clients were
wailing, and asking *why* the web sites they paid good money for looked so
much different in different browsers, and of course couldn't understand the
technical reasons given them by their contractors. And all the while,
competition being what it is (a fact of life), new technologies were
proliferating like rabbits; ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, CSS, ActiveX, Shockwave,
Java Applets, the list is too long and frightful to write.
Meanwhile, a consortium of professionals, who realized that if the situation
got much worse, the "Powers That Be" would start to meddle in the affairs of
the Internet, decided to work out some standards, which would level the
playing field somewhat, and provide some semblance of sanity for all those
poor AOL users and Couch Potatoes who had enough trouble filtering all their
SPAM and cleaning out all the viruses they caught from their flirtations
with porn sites and other less-reputable districts of the WWW. Nobody wanted
any "Imperial Interference" from the "Powers That Be" to destroy what was
arguably a really good thing, in the way that only the "Powers That Be" are
capable of.
And so, these Standards organizations were formed, in a truly egalitarian
spirit. Anyone could participate. Everyone would agree to leave their
lawsuits at the door. And the Five Families of the Internet came together
and formed a "Cosa Nostra" for the WWW.
Fast forward to the present.
We are now in a "transitional phase" as a result of all this. The Five
Families have agreed in principle to adhere to these standards, for the good
of everyone. After all, there are plenty of other ways to compete, without
making all the soccer moms bawl their eyes out, and having to make a
plethora of lawyers wealthy instead of spending our money on new
technological toys to play with.
But these things take time. In fact, the invention of XML, and all of its
derivatives, has led to some really promising possibilities. XML is
self-describing, extensible, and simple. The permutations of it are complex
and infinite, but the language itself is a thing of simple, but strict
beauty. It is cross-platform compatible, since text is text (at least since
Unicode, another *gasp* standard, came out). Eventually, HTML will quietly
fade away, along with all of our memories of the browser wars, and all that
brou-ha-ha.
In the meantime, though, we still have some issues to deal with. But we may
remain confident in the knowledge that things are getting better. As a web
application developer, I can say that this is truly a *good* thing!
--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Complex things are made up of
Lots of simple things.
