IMPORTANT NOTE: The following article is my personal opinion and is not written to express myself or my boss.
Although I now believe that web standards are worthy of attention, until I learned about the subject of web standards, I had no interest in web standards and was unaware of the existence of the issues I discuss below. And these questions are the real reasons why everyone should care about web standards and the role they play in high-tech products and services.
1. W3C meeting
On June 1st and 2nd, 2004, I attended a W3C meeting at the Adobe group headquarters in downtown San Jose (USA). (Sitting next to me was Donna, a friend who is new to the Adobe community, and she was surprised that most of the people attending the W3C meeting were women. Good question, she just looked at the room as being filled with women.) If you have the time to take a few minutes to read through the rally notes, you'll notice that Tantek Celik and Hakon Lie are both here, as well as representatives from major companies like Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Nokia, Sony, OpenWave, and many more Independent consultants and other firms participate.
Along with many interesting presentations, the discussion during the conference was more about the current state of web standards and how they are evolving. The focus of the discussion is more on how to use web standards in the next generation of web applications. I was very eager to stand up and make my two points, but I restrained myself. During a break in the meeting, I expressed my views to Dean Jackson and Jon Ferraiolo. They agreed very much and suggested grabbing the microphone for me, but I stopped them. Maybe I'm afraid of people recognizing me from my RTFM rant, who knows? At this point, I guess all I should do is sit and listen.
2. Some background information
Before we get to the main text, let me reminisce.
Last month, I wrote to a group asking whether it was worth the effort to establish a "web standards promotion day." On this day, as many blog sites as possible are shut down at the same time to enhance the effect, and at the same time, the same page is placed on the home page to explain the real goal of web standards. And let's be clear: Microsoft is unwilling to modify its IE to create a unified baseline platform so that developers can build lightweight code that works across multiple browsers such as IE, Safari, Mozilla, Firefox and Opera. ---This will at least draw attention to the content on the home page.
This proposal is still undecided and may or may not happen, we'll need to see how many people are interested in doing it. Leave this aside. There are actually many good articles and discussions about the benefits of web standards. If you haven't seen it, here's a quick list of links:
The Business Benefits of Web Standards This site has been translated
About Web Standards
Web Standards ROI
Web Standards for Business
An Interview With Mike Davidson of ESPN
Eric Meyer Interview on Web Standards
The Way Forward with Web Standards
Developing With Web Standards
Embracing Best Practice
Of course, Zeldman's "Designing with Web Standards" is the best book on this subject, explaining the application and technical points of web standards very easily.
All articles discuss the benefits of web standards: simplifying code, speeding up development, compressing file sizes, increasing download speeds, better usability, gaining more users, easier maintenance, and multi-platform compatibility. These benefits only stay at the technical level, and there are also some discussions on ROI.
The above are all correct and very important points about web standards. I assume you have heard and understood them before.
3. Summary
For the sake of this discussion, I hope you will temporarily forget about all the technical benefits mentioned in the above article; forget about the dream that your content can be compatible and lightweight across different browsers, operating systems or computers, and mobile devices; forget After high-tech giants support standards 100% (instead of 90% support), how much time and money can developers save by adopting standards. Those are the perfect goals that can be achieved through standards, but they're not the real reasons why web standards really matter to the world.
Generally speaking, standardization means application pressure on enterprises. They need to change their behavior to benefit not just shareholders, but everyone.
Ultimately, the most important purpose of a standard is rarely achieved through code, ROI, or day-to-day debate. When you start to think about it, you realize that companies that are constantly innovating and competing with each other in business, such as Microsoft, Sun, Adobe and IBM, essentially need to survive in a free market. If these companies don't think it's important that they follow a standard, especially if the standard is developed by an unofficial organization within their sphere of influence, will they follow it? Expecting these companies to change who they are is as unrealistic as expecting carnivores not to hunt when they are hungry.
In fact, you can easily find examples of companies that have refused to adopt standards and been very successful, especially when you think about it from the perspective of companies slowing down innovation (many times alluding to the perspective of Microsoft). No one who lives and works in a free economic system would think otherwise.
The real reason standards are important to all of us is because they are expected to create a universally accepted level of behavior that balances the interests of all parties, whether you like it or not. Especially those who are working far away from the standard, smart engineers. (Even though these specifications, which are named "standards", have been established for 10 years).
4. Microsoft and standards
You might ask what was Microsoft thinking in the late 1990s and early 2000s? Why does it ostensibly promise to start on the road to standards, when in fact it may only follow 80% to 90%? The question is simple. Microsoft's adoption of web standards in IE4 to IE6 browsers is nothing more than a market ploy. At that time, IE's implementation of standards meant surpassing rival Netscape's Navigator browser. On the surface, we feel that Microsoft's approach is correct. In fact, Microsoft is only driven by the essence of business interests (corporate DNA): web standards mean innovation.
Once Microsoft gets what it wants, it has no scruples and continues to intensify its efforts, even going further and further. For example, Microsoft is now starting to develop a new proprietary technology, XAML, on the new operating system Longhorn. As some have pointed out, Microsoft is dividing the market again, just like it did in 1995. This is not surprising; Microsoft's behavior stems from the nature of its business interests, and its behavior in the past and today is logical. More importantly, it will not change unless there is strong pressure from the outside.
5. A lesson from Asimov
This may be an inappropriate metaphor, but I'll stick with it. This metaphor comes from Isaac Asimov's science fiction work "Foundation Trilogy". In the first book, it is described that there is an independent planet in the universe called the Base, which becomes the only source of technology for the entire Galactic Empire. Everything was going great at first, until one day, the Galactic Empire attempted to control the entire base. So when the Galactic Empire sent out spacecraft to attack the small planet, all the machines, tools and computer systems of the Galactic Empire failed at the same time. The Foundation prevailed with only technology and forced the Galactic Empire to allow it to exist independently.
In the books, the Galactic Empire is evil and corrupt, on course to plunge the universe into the Dark Ages again. We have to worry about similar situations happening in reality. We must clearly consider that a company like Microsoft is likely to have "base"-like capabilities.
In the modern network, the business community has become overly dependent on Microsoft technology--at least during this period, our common operating systems and main content transmission devices are similar to HTML rendering engines (not limited to IE browsers, but also web browsers). content windows application). Everyone should take a look at Google’s trending page statistics.
A very timely point is that the actions of a few can have a profound impact on the many. In such an environment, in order to protect themselves, the majority of people must establish a mutually restrictive balancing mechanism to prevent the mistakes, greed and power buying and selling of the minority. Without this balancing mechanism, the minority will abuse their rights, ignore the needs of the majority and sacrifice the interests of the majority, and the majority should not be surprised by this.
We have our own check and balance mechanism, which is the web standard specification provided to the world by W3C. However, this norm is meaningless if it is not followed 100%. 90% compliance is not enough, and 99% compliance is not enough. (As Hakon commented at the W3c meeting, the specification has been developed, and we are now just waiting for Microsoft to fully implement it.)
Dear Microsoft, the company has sounded a wake-up call to the business community: Microsoft Office's security measures are pitiful and terrible. The security loopholes in it allow a 16 or 17-year-old hacker to invade the entire system and paralyze it with extremely simple virus code. People hope that the business community can put more pressure on Microsoft to fully comply with the standards set by the W3C.
If our business and political leaders don't put pressure on Microsoft, don't be surprised at what the future may turn out to be. More importantly, if we (including all developers, programmers, designers, and content creators around the world) don't do our part to "educate" those business and political leaders, we will suffer for the consequences. blame.
6. Practical steps
Finally, if web standards are truly taken seriously and become a means to establish a level playing field and balance the interests of all parties (lowest common denominator), this is close to the point I wanted to say out loud at the W3C rally. . Toward the end of the second day of the conference, there were a few suggestions that the W3C needed to move forward boldly. Dean (W3C researcher) looked a little hesitant. You'd better read this note yourself.
From my point of view, before worrying about the development of the next generation of Internet, what W3C needs to do is the following, focusing on web applications:
1. Merge and organize current specifications
When I look at an XHTML or CSS specification, the most important thing I want to see is that I want to see the current standard, not the past standard or the future standard that is being developed. Organize standards to make them easy to implement and follow, and also provide users with an independent, up-to-date document for easy access to critical information.
2. Determine which set of specifications should be followed by the current stage of web development
Here is a discussion related to the W3C part. I initiated a vote to propose a two-list method: the first specification list describes the specifications that the world should follow today or next year. The list only contains the current W3C approved specification versions, including XHTML, CSS and DOM; the second list of specifications will include XHTML, CSS, SMIL, SVG, XForms, ECMAScript and DOM. Once our content publishing system can handle 100% of the specifications in the second list, then we can discuss the next level what will be. By that time, I believe many specifications regarding web applications will be included in the discussion.
3. Create two sets of documents
We need a set of specifications specifically for developers and creators of user agents (similar to Microsoft); we also need a set of specifications specifically for designers and web developers. The current standards are mixed together, making it inconvenient for various users to access the corresponding knowledge when applying the standards.
4. Refocus the current W3C home page
There is currently only a small amount of information on the W3C homepage explaining why it is important to use and pay attention to web standards. The page is filled with specifications and links, which is a typical "bureaucratic" design that violates the most important design principle: if all the information on the page is important, then all the information is not important. It’s time for a change. The focus of the W3C homepage should be on how to make it easier for people to browse the specifications, rather than how to make it easier for the bureaucracy to operate.
7. What can you do in this situation?
Give web standards more opportunities and limit Microsoft's power. This doesn't seem to be something an ordinary person can do, which may or may not be true. They say that democracy is every vote. If the power of one vote is insignificant, then I think it is enough to gather every vote that supports web standards. Maybe a "web standards day" is needed. If enough voices speak out about the importance of web standards and protest the current situation, then perhaps enough of the right business and political leaders will pay attention and give Microsoft the pressure we need.
I've already done this.
I'm also pleased to see that John Allsopp's campaign on his Web Essentials 04 site has generated enough interest. This event in the United States and Europe promises to significantly advance web standards.
The truth is out? One of my claims is that Microsoft should never do anything with IE again unless they are pressured to change their approach. To be honest, if all developers used the same platform, the same set of APIs, and the same set of standards, the world would be a much simpler place.
That's really it, in fact, many companies are already doing this (giving web standards more opportunities, limiting Microsoft's power) and just worrying about Windows and IE usage, as we all know. I've done this myself at several companies in the past, just out of ethics and responsibility.
Who says the only specification shouldn't be set by Microsoft? This may make things a thousand times easier (such as learning HTML, CSS and Javascript code), and may allow us to only work on one browser, one operating system or one platform. Who says it's wrong to allow Microsoft to develop specifications like that? Who said it was wrong for Microsoft to put XAML or other extensions into .net's CSS and HTML? What's wrong with us writing all web content and code according to Microsoft specifications? Why can’t we rely on one company for all our technology?
Maybe Bill Gates is really Hari Seldon of the Asimov Universe Base (Hari Seldon: trying to shorten the subsequent dark ages by establishing hidden bases in the corners of the galaxy). Maybe it was all a plan to help the world survive the dark ages that followed and we just didn't know it?
Don’t care about web standards?
Be careful, you may get something you don't want.