Stop standardizing HTML

It is well past time, though, for the W3C and the browser vendors to stop talking as if they constrain the markup developers can use and focus instead on the many things they can do to make the browsers supporting that markup processing more capable. HTML’s legacy vocabulary is a great foundation on which developers can build their own toolsets. The Web will benefit, however, from letting developers solve their information problems in their own ways, rather than trying to stuff too many things into a single vocabulary.

via Stop standardizing HTML – Programming.

W3C announces plan to deliver HTML 5 by 2014, HTML 5.1 in 2016

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the group that manages development of the main specifications used by the Web, has proposed a new plan that would see the HTML 5 spec positioned as a Recommendation—which in W3C’s lingo represents a complete, finished standard—by the end of 2014. The group plans a follow-up, HTML 5.1, for the end of 2016.

via W3C announces plan to deliver HTML 5 by 2014, HTML 5.1 in 2016 | Ars Technica.

The new HTML 5.1 will be smaller as a number of technologies (such as Web Workers and WebSockets) were once under the HTML 5 umbrella but have now been broken out into separate specifications. It will also have less stringent testing requirements.

WebRTC

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is an HTML5 standard being drafted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with a mailing list created in April 2011.[1][2], and jointly in the IETF with a working group chartered in May 2011.[3] It is also the name of framework that was open sourced on June 1, 2011, which implements early versions of the standard and allows web browsers to conduct real-time communication.[4] The goal of WebRTC is to enable applications such as voice calling, video chat and P2P file sharing without plugins.

via WebRTC – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Proposition to change the prefixing policy

The web is meant to be a universal medium, agnostic in terms of device or UA. Of course, testing in several browsers is needed to iron out bugs. But when authors have to write for one browser, then port to a few other selected ones, something is wrong.

All in all, there is no simple right way for authors to use prefixes as they currently are.

via Proposition to change the prefixing policy from Florian Rivoal on 2012-05-04 (www-style@w3.org from May 2012).

From: http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/05/new-proposal-could-end-the-css-prefix-madness/

CSS vendor prefixes were designed to help web developers by giving them a way to target CSS to specific browsers and use proposed standards before they were finalized. The idea was to move the web forward without rushing the CSS standards process. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way.

Chapter 4 The amazing em unit and other best practices

The foremost tool for writing scalable style sheets is the “em” unit, and it therefore goes on top of the list of guidelines that we will compile throughout this chapter: use ems to make scalable style sheets. Named after the letter “M”, the em unit has a long-standing tradition in typography where it has been used to measure horizontal widths. For example, the long dash often found in American texts (–) is known as “em-dash” since it historically has had the same width as the letter “M”. Its narrower cousin (-), often found in European texts is similarly referred to as “en-dash”.

The meaning of “em” has changed over the years. Not all fonts have the letter “M” in them (for example Chinese), but all fonts have a height. The term has therefore come to mean the height of the font – not the width of the letter “M”.

In CSS, the em unit is a general unit for measuring lenghts, for example page margins and padding around elements. You can use it both horizontally and vertically, and this shocks traditional typographers who always have used em exclusively for horizontal measurements. By extending the em unit to also work vertically, it has become a very powerful unit – so powerful that you seldom have to use other length units.

via Chapter 4 The amazing em unit and other best practices.