Re: CSS is doomed (10 years per version ?!?)

On 7/1/05, Laurens Holst <lholst@students.cs.uu.nl> wrote:
> Orion Adrian wrote:
> 
> >This is where trust comes in. It really is all about trust. You don't
> >trust them and I trust them, but why that is is depedant on the
> >interactions we've both had with the company.
> >
> I trust for Microsoft to not re-invent the wheel, and stick to the
> standards. You claiming that you wouldn't mind for Microsoft to develop
> competing proprietary technologies makes me feel uneasy.

I guess this comes from the perspective that standards aren't an end,
but mearly a means. Honestly I don't think most people care about
vendor lock-in as long as things work.

Money has come up a lot in this argument and I, for one, feel it's not
a real issue. For example most people have credit cards that have 18%+
interest rates. Anything over 12% used to be considered
usery/loansharking. People pay 5 and 6 times what the original product
cost in interest rates and you think they're going to sweat over $300
in OS and office software?
 
> Also, not everything Microsoft does is automatically good, or working
> well. XAML for example is a great way to develop desktop applications
> and a big improvement from how it works now, but for use on the web it
> lacks severely.

Hardly. But their turn-around is closer to 5 years, not 10. And yes,
there is a long time between when CSS 1.0 was released and CSS 2.1 was
released. I trust the iterative nature they have.
 
> I think you're greatly overexaggerating things. There are *many* things
> in CSS that are a Candidate Recommendation already, but have not been
> implemented yet in most browsers. Look at the completed CSS3 modules,
> and even parts of CSS 2.1. It's not as if browser development will be on
> a standstill while the CSS3 specification is being developed further in
> the coming two or three years.

This was a majorly good thing. I liked this a lot. Though the fact
that CSS3 is a monstrosity that will never be actually implemented in
full is another story. Who needs all those properties?

> And it is not different for proprietary technologies. They also take a
> long time to be specified, receive input from various internal working
> groups, e.g. for localisation. Look at XAML, it's taking a lot of time
> for it to be developed, and I can assure you that isn't all pure coding
> time.

Are we talking XAML or Avalon. XAML was developed very quickly if my
understanding is correct. Avalon is taking time, but then again I
expect 1.0 versions to take a long time. You're allowed because nobody
knows about you. It's the revisions that have to come relatively
quickly.

> Proprietary technologies also don't have a functional implementation any
> sooner than standards have. Decent CSS3 support will also be in a single
> browser (e.g. Mozilla?) sooner than in 5 years. However, fortunately the
> browser market isn't monopolised anymore, and there are competitors as
> well, and for a technology to be usable on the web, it needs to be
> supported by a sufficient number of user agents and the broad majority
> of users.

Here's the point I'm trying to make from the public's view. For the
public to be happy things have to work for the majority of users, not
user agents. It is the value of competition that makes people wish for
diversity.

> So the only difference really is: it is proprietary. With all the
> disadvantages that carries.

And all the advantages it carries. There are some you know.

> Microsoft creating a proprietary alternative to CSS would absolutely not
> improve my confidence in the company. Microsoft making sure that they
> have a decent implementation of CSS3 by the time the specification gets
> finalised will.

Yeah, but they will. XAML/.Net competes directly with
HTML/CSS/Javascript. I hope everyone here sees that.

> If Microsoft wants to add things to the standards, they can make
> proposals to the W3C through their working group members, and in the
> meantime implement those additions to CSS with an -ie- prefix, just like
> Mozilla and all the other browser vendors are doing.
> 
> So I hope you can see the truths I speak, and from now on don't defend
> proprietary technologies that compete with public standards :).

Let me be clear, I don't value standards. I value the user. I see
standards as a way to benefit the user. That's why I'm here. If I
didn't think standards could help, I'd be brushing up on my XAML.

By the way, how many Working Group members remain from Microsoft? Apple?

Orion Adrian

Received on Friday, 1 July 2005 14:34:45 UTC