Re: Next Web Focus

On Jan 24, 2014 5:31 PM, "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/24/14 4:50 PM, Ambrose Little wrote:
>>
>> Honestly, I don’t think we should be arguing about separation of content
>> and style at this point/in this group, nor semantics from structure.
>> That feels like a long dead horse, as far as the Web is concerned. And
>> the focus should be on what comes next for the Web. How can we build
>> upon, tweak, and improve the groundwork we have to facilitate rapid
>> application development? What do we need in the framework? What do we
>> need in the tools and how can the framework enable those?
>
>
> Yet again, I'm puzzled.
>
> I thought this group was focused on polyfills and extending the browser
using the tools available within it.

The aims of this group are, yes focused on advocating and discussing
polyfills and prollyfills - and advocacy that enables this, for significant
reasons and in ways described on extensiblewebmanifesto.org.  Very key
among these is that it provides an evolutionary model forward rather than
allowing a browser to stymie efforts or prompting big bets on radical
change which, if they fail (and many do), stall forward momentum on the
current platform.  Actually, i would say the majority of work has been
applying this advocacy in existing WGs to prioritize efforts in this
direction as a guiding philosophy.

There is a significant amount of new magic being discussed in the CSS WG
aimed at advancing the goals I described in the post I put to the group.

There are also  members of the WG attempting to explain the existing magic
and create a more extensible system where this sort of experimentation can
take place outside and follow a more evolutionary path without a big bet.
Since there are wholly lacking primitives or explanations necessary to
provide the level of separation that they seek, this is substantial.  One
of these (Regions) is attempting to at least explain the newly proposed
magic in many of them. The majority of the regions draft attempts to lay
out the fundamental primitives that can be used to explain the rest.
Debating the appropriate primitives is fair game, but there has been little
of that actually.  I'd love to see more.  In any case, the one major issue
that a lot of people seem to have is that it recognizes something about the
fact that the DOM is, indeed, involved in rendering today - and that as
such, in order to do something practical today the only box that is
pragmatically useful until those other ones come about is the one that is
there now.  This is fine for many, but met with reproach by some who prefer
something purely more in line with their aims, which, as I say introduce
some pretty significantly new things at a high level.

It seemed significant to me and that we ought discuss in terms i thought
relevant.  That seems to have gotten a little off in the weeds.

> From my perspective, the very separation of concerns this derides as a
dead horse is what makes polyfills and browser extensions possible without
infinite tangles.

> Based on this message, though, it seems like the "next web" perspective
is something much more severe, leaning toward throwing over the things that
have worked in the past in favor of rapid application development.
>

I am beginning to worry that we have some significant communication barrier
going on here.  My comments and aims, and it reads to me like those of
others as well are all around minimizing the severity of change to the
standards in platform at once and create an environment in which we can
prove out and improve before we invest years or even decades into
significantly new very high level abstractions in standards.  Where new
magic is necessary, explain it such that continued work and improvement can
harness significant mindshare and be proven out.  I really don't see how it
could be taken otherwise.

> Is that really the purpose of this group?
>
I hope i have clarified my original intent in posting this to the group.
If not, I'm happy to have a more rapid exchange directly if you feel that
would be  more helpful and we can always loop it back in if we come to any
form of resolution.

> Thanks,
> --
> Simon St.Laurent
> http://simonstl.com/
>