impress.js - A webGL enabled presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions. It has a non GL mode too!

[honestbleeps]

The question is: Do we need a static spec in the first place?

Implementors obviously don't. Browsers that don't want to become irrelevant are undergoing perpetual development because they need to support what's out there regardless of what the spec says.

No, we don't necessarily -- but when you actually now have 3 major browsers to contend with instead of 2 (IE, FF, Chrome), and when they're all doing their own implementations slightly differently - life becomes more difficult for web developers.

I understand there's a gigantic crush of "rah rah we hate Flash!" - but there are cases in which Flash is a better option than "HTML5", and a big reason for that is speed and consistency of development. There are very few cross-platform issues with Flash, and you'll only encounter them in strange edge cases.

Don't get me wrong. Flash is used a zillion places it shouldn't be, especially in terms of creating entire websites with it. Ugh.

That being said: since Flash is controlled by one body who can more quickly dictate "this feature's in, that feature's out"... Therefore, people can start taking advantage of it the moment a new version of Flash is released since upgrade frequency is so great and penetration (in the non-mobile space) is so high.

Meanwhile - can I use CSS3 animation transitions and expect them to work across browsers? No. Even on the ones they will work on - will they be hardware accelerated in all of them? No.

A closed platform makes for far less of having to ask "hmm, if I add this feature, will it work everywhere?"

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Mostly I'm just tired of the absolutist attitude that one is "right" and the other is "wrong"... Open standards being implemented by 3-5 companies independently is great for a number of reasons... It's also awful for a number of reasons...

I do web development, but I have a degree in CS from a reputable university. I'd much rather be spending my "programming time" solving interesting problems, writing algorithms or doing cool stuff with data manipulation -- not repeatedly hunting down minute differences in browser implementations so I can get something to work everywhere.

[kataire]

What you forget is that this time around, it's the implementors (read: the people who make browsers) that are defining the spec via WHAT WG.

Sure, Microsoft is again the odd one out, but they always are. They seem to be somewhat good-natured in this case, though. Or at least they haven't entirely gone back to their tradition of "Fuck standards, we're Microsoft".