Categories
Technology

Then and now in standards: What’s different

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Update I am aware that Hard Rock is using Deep Zoom, based on Microsoft’s HD Photo technology. The equivalent open source version of the same functionality is JPEG 2000, which, hopefully, someday will have a wider implementation. My tiny test was not a challenge to Hard Rock, but to the statements made about open source technologies being incapable of smooth animations—not without causing the CPU to spike badly. My test was focused specifically on these two qualities. I would hope that people would grant me a few more hours if I were to attempt to re-create the Hard Rock, which is based on proprietary technologies, and took the team a month, I believe it was, to create.

I did want to address something else that Mr. Ellis wrote:

They seem pretty sophisticated right? In short AJAX is a kludge of various technologies that were never intended to work together in this manner. It can work, but AJAX development is a pain. It gets even more complicated when you start to mix in other aspects of the “free and open” Web like SVG or CSS. It is anything but a cohesive set of technologies.

The real weak spot is in the development tools for “free and open” technologies. There are no AJAX development environments that can compare to the tools available for Flash and Silverlight, and the latter has only been out for one year. It is so bad that people made a big deal over a framework to make AJAX development a little easier.

Actually, the technology behind Silverlight began several years ago. The underlying markup, XAML, was first released in 2003 (or sooner). Yes, while IE6 lay dormant, Microsoft was building Silverlight, except that the infrastructure was called Avalon and Chrome and probably a host of other names. In fact, you could say it took Microsoft close to seven years to create Silverlight. And if you think I was the first person to write about the similarity between XAML and SVG, on the contrary. Check out the following:

And one last clarification: I don’t care that Microsoft built Silverlight. I do care that the company spent time building this proprietary infrastructure while leaving the rest of us to deal with broken browsers and broken promises.


Luckily the article I wrote for NetscapeWorld in August 1997, was still preserved at the Wayback Machine. In the article, titled A Web Developer’s Guide to the new Cross-Browser Issues, I wrote:

Developers are more likely to have compatibility across vendor implementations of an application if one vendor dominates the market and their implementation becomes the de facto standard, rather than being derived from a specification released by a non-profit standards organization. The only exception to this is for standards that are machine-specific, such as the DVD format, and even then the implementation of one vendor probably acted as a seed to the standard. Microsoft has what is the dominant user interface operating system, Windows, with the Mac being a secondary standard. Based on this, you have a plethora of products compatible with one or the other or both. A GUI derived from a standards committee would never have this same impact.

This would seem to contradict what I wrote yesterday about the importance of open standards and the W3C. However, what’s different between then and now is the concept of symbiosis.

Twelve years ago, Netscape and IE were neck and neck when it came to quality and what each offered. As each browser version was released, the companies would implement their own innovations, and the world would either flock to the new browser release or run for the hills. The browser companies would then submit their innovations to the standards organizations, and based on the reactions of both users and developers, these organizations would either incorporate the innovation or not. Though the ride was bumpy at times, the innovation-standard-innovation cycle ensured a consistency across browsers (standards) without costing progress (innovation). There was a symbiotic relationship between the innovative and the standard in those early days, and the end result of the symbiosis was that best browser became the de facto browser, at least at the time, and both standards and innovation marched in tune.

The same cannot be said of today’s browser environment. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the most used browser for most sites today, but its prominence is not based on it being the best; it’s based on inertia. Microsoft includes IE6 as the default browser within its operating systems, and many individuals and companies just went with the default and stayed, stuck like bugs in amber. No one, not even Microsoft can say that IE6 the best browser today. However, even Microsoft would be hard-pressed to say that IE8 is the best browser if you measure its conformance to existing standards as a component of its overall worth.

The days when the best browser winning, “best” being measured based on both innovation and standards support, are gone; leaving behind not a race to the bottom, so much, but a disinterest, especially in corporate America, in rising to the top. This is not a healthy state to be in. This is actually a far worse state to be in then when I wrote that article for NetscapeWorld in 1997.

What Microsoft has done is broken faith with the standards community. It’s fractured that delicate symbioses between standards and innovations. It did so by implementing those standards it finds useful and ignoring everything else. The company is taking a gamble that people have become indifferent to standards enough that it can do an end run around the standards organizations, like the W3C, but still maintain top billing.

Microsoft didn’t stop with ignoring what we now consider to be “standard”. The company made sure that the symbiotic relationship between standards and innovation was irretrievably damaged with its release of Silverlight. Microsoft seemingly made a business decision that the competitive threat it faced was not coming from a browser or browser company. No, the threat Microsoft perceived was coming from Adobe. It needed a Flash clone, and it created one or is trying to create one, with Silverlight.

Silverlight isn’t just a Flash clone, though. It is a policy statement about standards. Silverlight is innovative, true, but it is an innovation that can never be shared as a standard because it is a destructive innovation. By using a XML-based vector graphics language that is not the same XML-based vector graphics language that forms the standard, SVG, Microsoft has ensured that the innovative elements incorporated into Silverlight can never be added back to SVG. More importantly, by not implementing SVG, the company has made a statement that it will never “share” its innovations with the standards community. Oh we may if we’re willing to accept the company’s licensing, use Silverlight, but it will never be a part of the community, it will always be Microsoft’s.

Make no mistake, there is nothing in SVG that would be counter to the innovations necessary to create Silverlight. Microsoft could have chosen a different path, to innovate on SVG with the risk that its innovations would be rejected by both the community and W3C. However, those aspects of SVG that are basic to both the standard and Microsoft’s implementation of Silverlight would at least be compatible across browsers. Now what we, who are promoting a standard vector-based graphics system in browsers, are left with, is a four-legged stool, with one leg missing.

To add salt to the wound, Microsoft also used its own version of a Canvas element in which to create its displays and animations, but it is not the same Canvas element implemented in the other browsers and currently being incorporated into HTML5. That’s two specifications that Microsoft has subsumed into its own proprietary functionality. Two specifications that, unless something drastic happens, will never be compatible across browsers.

Yesterday, Paul Ellis decided to educate all of us on how Silverlight is a superior product, and how it’s the W3C’s fault the web is going proprietary because the W3C is slow. The W3C, like any standards organization, is cautious, true, but the SVG specification has been out for years, and as far as I know, nothing has held Microsoft back from not only implementing SVG but innovating on SVG if the company so desired. As one person commented, why create new standards if the existing ones aren’t implemented?

Mr. Ellis also pointed out the superiority of the animation demonstrated in the Hard Rock Cafe’s Memorabilia page, implemented in Silverlight 2. Nothing like this, he proclaims, could be done with open standards.

Mr. Ellis is incorrect. True, JavaScript animation can be a bit jerky at times, and if not managed properly, can cause one’s CPU to spike. However, I think if he were to see the Hard Rock’s zooming animation separate from the other elements of the application, he might not find it to be as smooth as he thinks it is, or as friendly to the CPU. The perception of how good that application is is dependent on operating system, machine, graphics card and so on. I found that the Silverlight animation caused my Windows XP machine to spike when I opened the animation using Firefox; it barely worked with Opera. At the same time, my own (admittedly quickly coded and not performance tweaked) zooming example implemented with JavaScript did not cause any CPU spikes at all, even on my pre-Intel Mac, which can’t run a Silverlight 2 application. Of course, Mr. Ellis would say that my JavaScript animation isn’t as smooth and it is true that JavaScript-based animation can have jerky movements based on the timer and the action and so on; at the same time, if the animation was incorporated with other events, such as an end zoom artificial bounce, as well as sideways motion, we might find that the zooming action is more than acceptable. Additionally, Opera, Firefox, and Safari are always working to improve their JavaScript engines, not only for animations but for all processes.

However, if we never find a JS-based animation to be as “smooth” as an animation based on Silverlight, we can use SVG and SMIL, which is a declarative form of animation, to create the same zooming effect, at least for Opera and Safari, and eventually Firefox. In fact, if we were to look at the functionality to zoom in Silverlight, compared to the same in SVG, we would find some remarkable similarities. Enough so, that I believe that we could completely emulate Mr. Ellis’ Hard Rock Cafe application in SVG and have it perform the same as the Silverlight effect, or close enough to make differences difficult to perceive. Naturally, the Hard Rock effect wasn’t done in an hour, so Mr. Ellis will have to forgive me if my own example isn’t identical.

The real issue, though, isn’t that Adobe has Flash, and Microsoft has Silverlight, or that JavaScript can’t create World of Warcraft; there’s nothing wrong with having additional tools based on plug-in architectures, and more power to the companies that provide them. In fact, if Microsoft wanted to implement SVG as a plug-in architecture, I think most of us would have found this choice to be acceptable. Where the failure lies with Microsoft is that the company shattered the symbiosis that existed between standards and innovation, and created a schism between the community that values standards, and the community that values innovation. It has generated a gap between people like myself and Mr. Ellis and forced each of us to choose “sides” at a time when we should have a common goal—a better browser, a better web experience. Even if someone were to create an SVG wrapper using Silverlight, the fracture between standards and innovation will only be bandaged, not healed. It’s not the standards implementation we’re missing; it’s the missing commitment to standards that is causing the harm.

Microsoft has forgotten that nothing stands alone on the web. The only way the company will remember this important lesson is for us to succeed in those areas where the company has tried to generate failure; for all of us to continue to celebrate standards, which form a stable platform for change, in addition to innovation, which ensures that standards remain a living work.

Categories
Weather

After the floods

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The Great River Road is re-opening in Illinois, much to the relief of folks in towns like Grafton, which are dependent on the summer tourist trade. In fact, if you’re looking for a summer activity that doesn’t require you to drive too far, a visit to some of the towns cut off because of the flood would not only be fun for you, it would help these towns recover the losses they’ve suffered the first few months of summer.

Not every place is ready to open for business. The folks on the Missouri side, at Winfield, are asking for donations of cleaning supplies, drinks, and snacks at various local firehouses in the St. Louis area. Cash donations are also accepted if you don’t live in the local area. Energy drinks would be particularly welcome, as the weather is hot and humid, and when you sweat a lot, you have to replace the lost potassium and electrolytes. If you plan on donating supplies, you might want to call, first, to find out what is most needed.

The Missouri Humane Society is really hurting for cash, and needs donations. The organization has already overspent its budget rescuing critters from the floods, and providing temporary housing for pets of flood victims. In addition, the Society is overrun by cats and dogs (and other animals) that now need a new home. Summer is actually not a bad time to adopt a new pet— you have plenty of time to become acquainted

Categories
HTML5

Blaming the W3C for a proprietary web

I hope my last post on the W3C processes does not come off sounding like I’m jumping on to the “Down with the W3C” bandwagon advocated by others in the web development community. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, I would not be as frustrated if I wasn’t such a big supporter of the W3C and its work. I certainly find the W3C’s effort to be more open than anything put out by Microsoft or Adobe.

In particular, I found Paul Ellis’ A Propriety Web? Blame the W3C to be disingenuous, at best.

He writes:

This may seem like a forgone conclusion to many of you after seeing the W3C’s development timetables, but the real reason Flash and Silverlight exist is because the “open web” people dropped the ball. HTML simply can handle what Flash and Silverlight can do. It has become increasingly stale for modern web development needs.

Here is some perspective, HTML5 has finally added a tag for handling video. Flash 6 came out with video support in 2002! Where is the HTML version of Line Rider? It is in Flash and Silverlight now. If you want to see something really interesting check out Hard Rock Cafe’s memorabilia page (Silverlight 2 required) and tell me if you’ve ever seen something like that with HTML.

The best response to this bit of criticism came in comments to the post, by a person named Paul, who wrote:

SVG had a video tag since at least 2004. But SVG is stalled in its development in large part because a major plugin developer (Adobe) and a major browser developer (Microsoft) are uninterested in it. So the slow evolution of web standards is a result, not a cause, of the big company’s wish to dominate the web.

In fact, there is no chapter in the Bible that says that the only two options are W3C and totally proprietary. If Microsoft were truly frustrated with the W3Cs pace (and not its openness) it could just call up Adobe, Mozilla et. al. and start another standards body. But Microsoft and Adobe do not want to co-operate on Web technologies. They want to compete, and use their dominance of certain other industries as levers that will allow them to define the platform unilaterally.

The man got it in one. The slow progress of the web can be laid exactly at the doorstep of a company like Microsoft, which refuses to implement most standards we’ve had for years in the interest of developing its own proprietary crap. Proprietary crap, I might add, which is competitive with the other proprietary crap being developed by Adobe. Why do something like Silverlight, which is based on XML, when there is something like SVG, also based on XML and implemented in the other browsers? The W3C did not “force” Microsoft to take this route—this is Microsoft doing what it does best: trying to own the technology.

In the meanwhile, the W3C has released specifications such as SVG, CSS, RDF, XHTML, and so on, in addition to ECMA’s work on JavaScript 2.0, all of which could provide all of the functionality we need, and more, and all of it free to use by everyone for everything. Oh, no, how evil. Instead, let’s praise companies for re-implementing all of this functionality in their own little plug-ins and browsers, leaving the rest of us web developers to scramble to learn how to implement their adorable, playful, and proprietary “enhancements” so that the applications work on all browsers and all operating systems.

Blame a proprietary web on the W3C!? In what universe?

I do think the W3C needs to change. I think the recent issue with the SVG interest group shows that the organization is too fixed in a bureaucracy no longer compatible with today’s way of doing business. However, we don’t have to wait on the W3C passing new specs in order to have the web of the future. If all the browser companies implemented all of the specifications that have been released, or are under final consideration, combined with the JavaScript we have today, we could do all that Flash and Silverlight and any of these proprietary technologies do…and more. If Microsoft were to implement these specifications in IE8, and encourage companies to move on from IE6 and IE7. If we didn’t have to depend on Adobe’s plug-in. If tools that generate content actually generate content correctly. If the WaSP returned to actually demanding tool makers adhere to standards, rather than become apologists for companies like Microsoft, and it’s cute little meta tags of the week.

Another commenter to the Ellis post wrote what good does it do for the W3C to push out more specifications when browser companies aren’t implementing the ones that already exist. That’s the key to this issue: the W3C can’t force implementation. Only we can force implementation, by using these specifications and leaving other browsers out in the cold. We’re certainly not going to get an open web if instead of punishing companies who are holding all of us back, we give in, lay on our backs, and think of Silverlight.

Categories
People

The Word

Earlier in the year I wrote a post about women and weblogging, and based on the old John Lennon song, used the phrase, “Women are the niggers of weblogging”.

People were offended at my use of the word, delinked me, unsubscribed, etc. etc. The fact that I was unsubscribed because I used the “word” didn’t bother me. What did bother me is that my writing didn’t inspire either deeper thought on the subject, or a healthy debate. I failed with that writing and it wasn’t because I used the “word”; it was because I used the “word” badly.

If you’re going to do satire, if you’re going to walk the edge with what you write, how you write, and the words you use, you better make sure that you have the skill to pull it off. I obviously didn’t.

This relates to today’s brouhaha, regarding Loren Feldman, the man who bills himself as a funny man, but who is primarily known for those instances where his “humor” has backfired. Feldman had his own failed “satirical” moment with a show he billed as “TechNigga” over a year ago, and got blasted to smithereens by all but a few buddies. Buddies, I might add, who have a lot of clout within this environment.

Feldman has since lost a deal with CNet, and today, the last of his clips were “refreshed” out of Verizon’s mobile service supposedly because of protests from those offended at Feldman’s old clip.

I’m not sure whether the protests by small but vocal groups were enough, or if Verizon found out what many of us have discovered: the man really isn’t funny. Not outside of a small group of weblogging insiders, which doesn’t translate into an audience for 15 year old text messaging girls, Verizon’s primary customers.

Some are bitching about “freedom of speech”, but I think Dare Obasanjo had about the best response to these claims:

People often confuse the fact that it is not a crime to speak your mind in America with the belief that you should be able to speak your mind without consequence. The two things are not the same. If I call you an idiot, I may not go to jail but I shouldn’t expect you to be nice to me afterwards. The things you say can come back and bite you on butt is something everyone should have learned growing up. So it is always surprising for me to see people petulantly complain that “this violates my freedom of speech” when they have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Feldman is no Lenny BruceRichard PryorGeorge Carlin, or Whoopi Goldberg. These are funny people on the edge, funny people who actually defined both the edge, and what it means to be on the edge. They paid a price, and willingly, for both their humor and their courage.

Feldman wants the glory, but without the cost. He just doesn’t get it.

Categories
Just Shelley

47 Million. And One.

The pain was sudden and intense, a band across my chest, taking away my breath. I had been bent over, lifting several books from a lower shelf, and the pain hit as soon as I straightened up. I dropped the books and fell back into my chair, clutching my hand to my chest, just like they do on TV. Heart attack. I was having a heart attack. I was home, alone, having a heart attack.

I grabbed my phone to dial 9-1-1 but then stopped. If this was a heart attack, I should go to the hospital. However, if this was not a heart attack, the paramedics would still want me to go to the hospital. The hospital would want to do tests, and tests cost money. In my mind, I started adding up charges…probably 250.00 for an ambulance, a couple of thousand just for entering through the emergency door, EKG, saline drip, that test with the paper and squiggly lines

Let’s just stop for a moment, and re-evaluate the situation. Consider the circumstances. I had been bent over in an awkward position, and the books I was lifting were heavy. I imagine heavy lifting could cause a heart attack, but heavy lifting can cause other things, too, like a muscle strain. I felt the pain, trying to gauge its location. Yes, yes, the pain was focused in the right side, not the left. That’s good. I mean, that’s good.

The pain was still intense, though, making it hard to breathe. I grabbed the phone, but instead of calling 9-1-1, I called my roommate. I told him what happened, how I felt. Are you going to the hospital, he asked? I’m not sure, I replied.

Is the pain on your left or right? Right, I answered. Is it persistent? I thought about it, doing a mental check, and responded affirmatively. Are you having a hard time breathing? Y-e-e-s, I replied, though hesitantly, because by this time the band seemed looser, less urgent. Breath in. Hurt? Breath deeper. Hurt more?

Of course, I said to him, if I were having a heart attack, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. True, he said. What were you doing, anyway? I told him I was lifting books from a bottom shelf. Well, does it feel like you pulled a muscle? I don’t know. It just hurts, hard to breath. Try lifting something, he said.

I picked up Zoë, and felt a twinge, in my right shoulder and chest. I put Zoë down, and it seemed like the pain was less. I picked Zoë up again. Yes, the pain was more intense. Zoë was happy, though.

I think I’ll live this time, I told my roommate. That’s good, he said. That’s good you’ll live, this time.

Zoë just purred.