“Please correct me if I am wrong here..”

You got it! See below.

“the w3c define standards well after browsers implement them.”

I don’t know. Others probably have better information on that than I do.

“And considering that ie is by far the most popular browser, making the smooth running of the web heavily reliant upon it…”

IE has been the most popular for some time, but that is changing due in part to its manifold and serious security problems. I subscribe to a number of business magazines, and it’s always interesting to read what they have to say about computer/Internet issues. In the last year or so, I’ve seen several columnists strongly urge readers to convert to Firefox in order to avoid the viruses, worms, and other beasties that come through on IE. For that reason, I wouldn’t say the Web “runs smoothly” on IE; quite the opposite.

“why then do the w3c always appear to create standards that run contrary to the implementation chosen by ms.”

More horse-in-front-of-cart-ness here. Microsoft promised way back at version 5.5 they would make IE standards-compliant; then they released it and said (figuratively speaking) “Nyahh! We lied! It’s not standards compliant after all!”

As another poster pointed out, Microsoft has been represented on the W3C for some time. They presumably go to the meetings and certainly, being the 800-pound gorilla they still are, would be listened to on any issue they cared to bring up. I think it’s more a matter of MS going its own way no matter what than the W3C deliberately creating standards that conflict with MS implementation.

“In most cases, to my uneducated eye, there appears to be neither a right or wrong way to implement a standard, most being a matter of semantics…”

I’m not entirely clear what you mean here, but I think you’re probably wrong. By definition, a “standard” is a precisely-defined “right” way of doing something. (Well, pretty much.) Dictionary.com says standard is “An acknowledged measure of comparison for quantitative or qualitative value; a criterion.” Definitions aside, I’ve found from my own experience that if I code pages exactly the way the W3C tutorials tell me to, it looks pretty okay on all the Gecko browsers and usually Opera too. It breaks, as often as not, on IE.

I won’t list all the advantages of using standards-based code, even though it means using hacks for IE, but this is hardly a “semantic” issue; there are real consequences involved.

“Yet by implementing standards which the greatest percentage of current websites in operation are not programmed to render correctly, the w3c appears to be waging a war against itself.”

The W3C doesn’t implement anything. It merely suggests and recommends; browser makers are the ones doing the implementation. It would be more correct to ask why browser makers wage war against the W3C standards.

1 - I concur with coffee-ninja’s comment, “I suppose the popularity really is the only standard that matters, unfortunately.” In my experience, businesses will use whatever software their clients/partners are using, good or bad, to avoid compatibility issues., i.e., “Microsoft is the standard”.

And that’s why we have major market players delivering IE-only sites/software, and why I have had DSL and cable support reps tell me they don’t “support” email applications other than Outlook and Outlook Express.

2 - What is most likely to get the blame when a web site fails to render properly? The web site, not the browser. Hence the headaches, multiple browser testing, and hundreds of “work-arounds” site designers must contend with. Been there, continue to do that.

3 - Finally, after mucking about with computers and software for nearly 40 years, I have come to the conclusion that standards compliance can be compared to world peace - we are not likely to get there.

People do something innovative. If other people like it, then they will imitate it. And then the standard is written. The failed W3C standards are the ones that tried to do it the other way around.

Example: Microsoft invents XMLHttpRequest. Mozilla says “hey, neato!” and implements it too. Then Opera jumps on. Now the W3C writes it down into a standard that everyone can reference, instead of blindly toying with everyone else’s implementations.

Example: Apple invents the canvas element. Mozilla says “hey, neato!” and implements it too. Then Opera jumps on. I’m betting the W3C will write a standard on this sometime soon.

Example: With XForms, W3C tries to invent a standard before there is a marketplace implementation. XForms has been largely ignored for the past 3 years.

It’s PERFECTLY FINE for browsers to come up with nonstandard extensions. If it’s good, then people will imitate, and the W3C will write down the minimum subset–the lingua franca–that everyone needs to understand to successfully communicate.

With the Web 2.0 hype and all the AJAX fun that everyone’s rushing to have, it’s a good time to get everyone on the same page before someone gets the idea that they should somehow pull in AJAX applications with .

As we have strayed OT (sorry about that) here are a few things I would like to see: more original work being promulgated first through standards bodies before they get implemented independantly; requirements to also create reference implementations and conformance test suites for each standard issued; a clearer mission that puts more focus on tractable technologies that are already in wide use (or rapidly emerging) and less on the purely speculative and heavily research oriented projects that are incubating (I’m looking at you countless specs concerning the semantic web). Don’t get me wrong — those are important areas to develop I am sure; yet I say let those later technologies leave the research field before they enter the oversight of a standards body since speculative research and standards making don’t quite seem like a workable fit to me.

while the W3C is a defacto standards body for the web I personally don’t see why they are more qualified to decide some of these issues than any other group—including Mozilla.

The W3C is at least partially democratic - Microsoft and Mozilla both have representation in the W3C, as do a lot of other organizations. Unfortunately, democracy is not a catalyst for innovation…

Standards are things that arise after a period of common usage; traffic laws, language/gramatical rules, legal concepts, are all examples of things that come about ~after~ (and because of) the experiences of normal people demonstrates a need.

Standards are not imposed from on-high, they arise from common experience and need.

Just to further the discussion a little, I’ll posit that the sentiment in that quote is not necessarily accurate, at least in software. In fact, this seems to talk more to defacto standards — the very type that aren’t that helpful in software just because they tend to lead to vendor lock-in and fracture.

XML was standardized before it was in common usage but it sprang from a rich tradition of text processing so wasn’t borne out-of the void. Most technologies, though are much like this.

Why has it taken so long for XMLHttpRequest to be ratified (it still is not — which is odd because it is really a straight-forward technology and nearly trivial extension when you already have a network browser) I’m a little worried that it is just because it was introduced by Microsoft. MS created a defacto standard in that case but to demonstrate fracture, competing implementations varied from MS’s implementation. Perhaps this was for legal reasons, perhaps for technical reasons but one thing is for sure, no other vendor was compelled to follow Microsoft exactly just because there has been no working group to address this (actually, there was, but they sat on their butts waiting for wide-spread adoption which is odd since it has been available in nearly 90% of all browsers for YEARS now).

The interesting thing is that if a technology like this does not arise from a clear standards body that will be accepted by all vendors, then the first large vendor (ie: large distribution channel) to implement has a very good chance lock the technology for a long time. Does anyone think that XMLHttpRequest would be a big deal if it was only implemented in Firefox and not at all in IE? I hazard to say it would not unless a larger standards body proposed it first and in a way that compelled all vendors to implement the standard.

I’m no Standards Nazi but I do believe that we would all be better off if all vendors at least made an attempt to work together before implementing. I don’t really expect the likes of Microsoft to play fairly in that regard but though it may be naive, I think it would be of great benefit to all if the likes of Mozilla behaved this way.

Greetings.