Re: The Web Browser API Incubation Anti-Pattern

On 3/31/2016 3:26 AM, Anders Rundgren wrote:
> On 2016-03-31 03:34, Manu Sporny wrote:
>> I've just published a blog post regarding the first four months of the
>> Web Payments Working Groups somewhat rough operation. It tries to
>> analyze what went right and what went wrong with the way we approached
>> the creation of the first set of specifications around payments at W3C.
>> 
>> http://manu.sporny.org/2016/browser-api-incubation-antipattern/
>> 
>> We should keep these lessons in mind before we try to launch any more
>> Working Groups via the Web Payments Interest Group.
> 
> 
> IMO, the Web Payment IG, WG, and CG share a common problem:
> 
> A browser is like an operating system which executes potentially very
> different applications. Operating system vendors usually try to limit
> the footprint of their APIs as much as possible by offering a set of
> low-level "primitives" which applications builders can use.
> 
> I never saw a discussion which aimed finding such primitives in spite of
> this being an area where standardization organizations like W3C excel.

I tried to start at least a taxonomy which could be used to bear on this problem [1].  Unfortunately, we have been so consumed with the press of daily business that we have not made much progress, with the exception of the excellent work being done by Dom in Media.

[1] https://www.w3.org/blog/2014/10/application-foundations-for-the-open-web-platform/
[2] http://dontcallmedom.github.io/mediartc-roadmap/

> 
> Web Payments rather belong to the application space and there are very
> few signs of a genuine interest in standardizing such applications.
> Given the field's relative immaturity it is probably way too early as well.
> 
> Anders
>