In a previous post I reported on the crisis within the web standards community, and in particular the controversy surrounding the W3C CSS Working Group. It seems the criticism levelled by Andy Clarke and others has not fallen on deaf ears, because a movement for change is now being led from within the Working Group.
On December 14th, one of the key members of the CSS Working Group, L. David Baron of the Mozilla Corporation made an announcement:
"I’ve informed the CSS working group that I am no longer participating in member-only mailing lists or meetings. I believe the member-confidential nature of the group hurts the future development of CSS by making the group:
- fail to accept the contributions of many who would like to contribute to CSS and
- get mired in debates and stalling tactics that companies would not be comfortable using in public.
"I still intend to participate in any discussions that take place on www-style, public-css-testsuite, and other public forums.
"I support rechartering the CSS working group as a public group."
Although there have been few public follow-ups, representatives of Microsoft and Google expressed their support. It seems like change within the CSS Working Group is coming, but like everything the Group does, it may not happen quickly.
Related posts:
- Just Do It! 5 Ways to Get Over the Fear of Working for Yourself Fear of the unknown can be paralyzing, especially with a...
- What’s So Bad About CSS Frameworks? Standards-aware web developers often feel conflicted about using CSS frameworks....
- 12 Ways to Keep Sane While Working from Home Because working from home means that your work and personal...
- How to Override Inline CSS Styles Inline CSS can be applied to any HTML element using...
- Design A Successful Coming Soon Page The Coming Soon page lets your visitors know that you...
blog is taking a lotta time to download…. came in to the site for something else.. any way Take care..
January 4th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Kevin, what’s the benefit of learning JavaScript to accent my web pages if I already know Java and can create applets and I can use CSS to design the aesthetics of a site? Maybe what I’m asking is what purpose does JavaScript serve in comparison with the others and I want to know if it’s a waste of my time to spend time learning the language?
Thanks and Happy New Year.
January 5th, 2008 at 2:56 am
I might be able to offer an answer there, Martin.
They are quite different vehicles. Applets are self contained and fundamentally separated from the page and HTML. JavaScript is most often used as an extension or enabler of the HTML and CSS.
Perhaps if you wanted to build something like an online game or a weather widget you might choose between JavaScript and a Java Applet to accomplish it.
But for the majority of tasks that JavaScript is used for — stuff like form validation, menus and Ajax — you would almost never choose an applet to perform those task in preference to a JavaScript. There are simply no real upsides, and plenty of downsides.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:16 am