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Technology

A time of great movement

Michael Bernstein sent me a chain of links that went from pyjamas to the pyjamas sample page on the canvas element to the canvas tutorial at Mozilla to the Mozilla animations demo page to this charming use of the canvas element.

The example just referenced doesn’t use Flash. It does use one of the elements in the proposed HTML 5, input of which is being currently sought by at WaSP, 456 Berea Street and elsewhere.

This is addition to the new effort to reactivate the HTML effort in order to act as a bridge between the older HTML specifications and the newer XHTML efforts currently underway at the W3C.

Not to mention Adobe’s open sourcing it’s ActionScript virtual engine into the Mozilla effort, in a project called Tamarin.

So what do I think of all of this? I think it’s exciting, I love the canvas element and I’m interested in many of these other innovations, it’s good to revisit HTML, but I wouldn’t be me if I also didn’t note concerns: HTML element bloat; confusion as to direction of standards and where people should be heading; vastly incompatible web pages as browsers desperately try to keep up with all the changes; frustrated web page developers and designers also trying to keep up with changes; and a growing dominance of Mozilla/Adobe in regards to JavaScript and whether this could lead to a non-neutral ECMAScript 4.x, which does no one any good.

Still, it is nice to feel excited about web tech again. I’m not sending up fireworks, but I am pulling the end off of a Christmas cracker in celebration. Now, excuse me as I go push around that cute little blob.

Update Michael also sent me a note about this weblogger, Joshua Ellis who has started a micropatronage drive to travel to Africa. Joe Clark, from the last post. also mentions him as an example of successful micropatronage. I don’t know him from Adam, but I do know Michael and Joe, so am passing on the link to the weblog. It’s the FOAFy thing to do.

Besides: I want to go to Australia … someday…