HTML 5.x, why?

Pardon a bit of a provocative approach (I’m just getting increasingly
concerned), but what is the exact reason for the W3C, or us, to work
on HTML 5.x?

Specifically:

* What is the benefit of shipping versioned specifications in the
first place, given that the opposite works better with the very *same*
spec at the WHATWG, or CSS and other standards at a W3C level?

* What is the benefit of shipping specifications that *contradict*
what we have at the WHATWG? (Consider only `dialog` or `menuitem`,
HTML 5.1 remnants that really only do one thing, confuse people.)

* And, who does at all benefit from the current approach? I fail to
see any beneficiary—implementors seem to lose, developers lose, users
lose, even spec writers appear to lose (I cannot imagine the group
here to enjoy rewriting a most complex spec every other month just to
see it outdated the month after).

Unless I overlooked something really important, can we please put
whatever other reasons we have for this (especially political ones!)
behind and work together on one spec—or at least look closely at
what’s happening?

In the humble hope that this would prove more useful for us all—

 Jens.

-- 
Jens Oliver Meiert
https://meiert.com/en/

Received on Tuesday, 20 February 2018 14:43:15 UTC