Buzz Archives for August 2002
Building A Better Lizard
Mozilla 1.1 has been officially released, and now stalks the countryside spreading improved support for CSS, HTML and DOM. In addition to a number of DHTML-targeted performance enhancements, Mozilla sports a suite of cool developer tools (like the ever-improving Venkman JavaScript debugger and DOM Inspector) and welcome user interface ...
By Scott Andrew LePera | Filed in Browsers
- But it will be unexciting and I will lose customers…wrong!
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The W3C QAIG released a useful set of talking points for dealing with recalcitrant standards opponents.
By Steven Champeon | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- W3C to Write Clearer Guidelines?
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Yesterday, August 26, 2002, the Quality Assurance (QA) Working Group released a Working Draft of the specification guidelines for QA Framework. The goal of this document is to provide a framework for all Working Groups within the W3C to write "clearer, more implementable, and better testable technical reports." Will this honestly ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in W3C/Standards Documentation
- BT Does Not Own the Web
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The lawsuit filed by British Telecom, claiming it has a patent on hyperlinks, has been kicked out of court.
By Steven Champeon | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- 4.6 out of 100 W3C Members Comply
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Do W3C member organizations follow W3C recommendations? Marko Karppinen wanted to know. Six months ago, Marko tested all 506 W3C member sites and found that only 18 used valid HTML or XHTML. Put another way, only 3.7% of W3C members followed W3C recommendations. Put yet another way, 96.3% of W3C ...
By Jeffrey Zeldman | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Opera 7 all new engine? “Better” DOM support?
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That's what Paul Festa reports in his August 20th article, Opera casts off legacy code for speed. Many of us have hoped that Opera would listen to the numerous complaints about lack of DOM support for their otherwise very good browser. Many developers out there may feel that Paul's article ...
By Shirley Kaiser | Filed in Browsers
- Hotmail Versus Mozilla
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Justin Skolnick points out that Hotmail, or more properly, Passport, is rejecting Mozilla (gif) as not being a "current Web browser". Funny, you'd think that after four and a half years, Microsoft would have heard of Mozilla by now. Or maybe they're just upset about the whole AOL/Mac thing...
By Steven Champeon | Filed in Browsers
- AOL now with Gecko!
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AOL released a new version of their software that is based on Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine, for the Macintosh. A good sign for those who want to build a single site that works in AOL and in standards-compliant browsers.
By Steven Champeon | Filed in Browsers
- Bank Idiocy
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At home in Canada I bank with a perfectly respectable institution called CIBC, been a customer for a while, even use their online stockbroker. Until now. I've switched to a Macintosh and none of the browsers on OS X (IE, Mozilla, you name it) can get into the online trading ...
- The Webmonkey Talks Standards
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Paul Boutin has written a wonderful new article for Webmonkey: Web Standards for Hard Times. In it, Paul makes the case for using standards (it actually saves time and money!), explains the ins and outs of the the DOCTYPE declaration, and preaches the importance of validating your markup and CSS. ...
By Eric Costello | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Bobby Bought
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Bobby, the accessibility validator created by Cast.org, has been acquired by Watchfire, maker of web management solutions. (Hat tip: Tiffany Brown.) [Update: Bobby is now WebXACT.]
By Jeffrey Zeldman | Filed in Accessibility
- CSS 2.1
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As if XHTML 2.0, XHTML 1.0 2/e, and the prospect of tableless search portals was not enough for you, now there is a new version of the CSS 2 Recommendation for your perusal.
By Steven Champeon | Filed in CSS
- XHTML 2.0
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The W3C has published the XHTML 2.0 Working Draft. No DTDs or Schemae yet, but they say they will be forthcoming once the language stabilizes. It is worth noting that the introduction explicitly states that it is not intended to be backwards compatible with the earlier versions of HTML and ...
By Steven Champeon | Filed in HTML/XHTML, W3C/Standards Documentation
- New Zealand Promotes Web Standards
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New Zealand's e-government initiative has published its Web Guidelines, which include an endorsement of the use of standards such as CSS, XML, and the WAI, the Web Accessibility Initiative. Thanks to Richard Hulse for the pointer.
By Steven Champeon | Filed in Accessibility, Web Standards (general)
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One of the common complaints about building Web applications (either client-side or those that use both client and server as platforms for development) is the difficulty that comes along with debugging them. In the cover story in this month's New Architect, this correspondent discusses some tips for managing the debugging ...
By Steven Champeon | Filed in General
- Ars Technica Reviews Mozilla
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Ars Technica has released a detailed review of Mozilla, not just from the perspective of whether it is good enough to make you finally switch to a browser that understands and supports Web standards, but also discusses whether it is a success as a product of their original mission. Contains ...
By Steven Champeon | Filed in General
- XHTML 1.0, Second Edition
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XHTML 1.0 Second Edition has left the building. It’s not a revision to XHTML, but simply the latest version of W3C’s official documentation about the XHTML 1.0 standard. Among other things, this version finally includes a warning about the optional XML declaration that wreaks havoc with many browsers old and ...
By Jeffrey Zeldman | Filed in HTML/XHTML, W3C/Standards Documentation
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
Our Work Here is Done
By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.
When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.
Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.
Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:
- A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
- HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
- W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
- WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
- Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
- Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.
The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.
Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.
Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)
More Buzz articles
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Call for action on Vendor Prefixes | Rachel Andrew |
| An End to Aging IE Installs | Aaron Gustafson |
| Beyond the Blue Beanie? | Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis |
| The Sherpas are Here | Aaron Gustafson |