Browser Shenannigans
Sorry, that was a cheap usage of the word ’shenannigans’ - although it is a fantastic word.
Er, right, what was I going to write about. Oh yes, HTML.
Apple is proposing extending HTML. The latest betas of their Safari browser contain four (count ‘em) changes to HTML, including a new <canvas> tag, which basically allows DOM-scriptable access to a 2D drawing layer in the browser.
Yes, you read that right. Apple wants to allow developers to script (most likely in Javascript) drawing on an “HTML” canvas. *Sigh*. Basically you define your <canvas> tag, then you can call getContext() on it to access it through the DOM. Then they give you a whole load of 2D drawing APIs, so you’ve got your own lovely Microsoft Paint-alike. In your browser. And you draw through Javascript.
Have these people not heard of SVG? This is exactly the kind of thing SVG was designed for! God, why not do it properly?? Extend XHTML to allow XSLT to generate embedded SVG!
Oh, and did I mention they’ve forked their own standards body, so all this stuff is being developed outside the W3C?
This really pains me, when people have spent years trying to standardise the Web and prevent forking…