You say you want a revolution:
embracing a living system
@briankardell
Once upon a time...
- TIMBL: HTML is an application of SGML (20 tags)
- No images, forms, scripting or formatting
- No Standards Body
Here's what we need...
~1990
Number of Websites: 1
Number of Browsers: 1
Number of Standards Orgs: 0
Implementation as per spec
Not implemented
Implementation differs from spec (unique )
Implementation differs from spec (interop)
Other colors indicate vendor feature
caniuse if it existed ~1990
Those were heady days...
1992
22 websites and 7 Browsers
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 92 16:52:50 +0100
From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@www3.cern.ch> Message-Id: <9212011552.AA01907@www3.cern.ch> To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch Subject: Lets keep the web together - CERN distributes a WWW protocol/parser library. - Tony Johnson is extending the MidasWWW code the other protocols. - Dave Ragget is writing a completely new browser. - Jim WhiteScarver is "going beyond the scope of WWW". - So are lots of others. - Dan Connolly is writing a definitive HTML engine for the new spec, - Dan was also making a parallel version of Midas. - At CERN, somone (else) is making a modified viola, - Pei Wei works on a new Viola with completely new parts. This is all great, except for two things: consistency and support. Getting the protocol code and parsing code right and tracking bugs and external changes will be some work, I feel that it is important that we do end up with common code. I know what it is like to have to maintain code on lots of platforms. You have to write the code specially. There are W3 code style guidelines in the web which say what we found out to be necessary. It's a pain. Noone is going to support 8 parsers on 12 platforms. I am therefore a little worried about the proliferation of implementations. (I know, I'm rather pleased about it too! :-) I would like to see one or maybe two definitive libraries around (two, so to test the first one for self-consistent bugs), but not four. I feel that if there are too many, then there will be cases of little things which work on one but not on the others, because there is not enough support effort for each. And we want to keep the quality high, in terms of reliability, conformance, and portability. The smarts are all very well. So could I encourage everyone with a bit of motherhood and apple pie. If you are thinking of a smart extra to EITHER HTTP or HTML then please define it and discuss it here on www-talk. Don't try just to get it out before the next guy. He is probably doing it too, a different way, and theese are all exciting ideas which benefit from being hacked around on the net. When the idea has come out, we can put it into a tentative "future" spec for comment and everyone can work from it. There is more than plenty of work for everyone out there! With all this drive we are going to accomplish some incredible things over then next few months. We don't need to be over-competitive, and we need to try to get things right first time. Jim's comment system is neat, and I'd like to adopt it here too. Tim http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/1992NovDec/0134.html
Unsurprising:
This is how things evolve and communication really happens
1993
130 websites and 12 Browsers
1994
- Websites: ~2800
- Browsers: 16
- Standards Orgs: 1
Let's rein it in guys...
Before
After
So many people
Wow.
Look what I can do!
- Selection by authors makes pages
- Selection by users makes audience
- Selection by audience creates demand
- As in nature, selection of DNA is by effect.
Standards Body...
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
University of Research
Agency on Beauracracy
Aim:
Bring together
diverse interests to
work on a common
problem
Initially they had so many raw materials...
So many people
Wow.
Look what I can do!
Standards Body Innovation
Giagianticus Corp
Proposal: Let's do X like this.
Day 1
RE: Proposal: Let's do X like this.
No, how about like this.
Warez 'R' Us
Day 2
Standards Body Innovation
Warez 'R' Us
Giagianticus Corp
Day 2000
Standards Body Innovation
University of Research
Day 2001
RE: RE: RE: "Proposal: Let's do X like this" is dumb
Just getting caught up.
This isn't meta enough, humans can potentially still understand it.
What about obscure use case Z?
Standards Body Innovation
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
University of Research
Agency on Beauracracy
YAY
WE HAVE A STANDARD
"XWTF"
Day 8041
Standards Body Innovation
Web Developer
(reading news)
YAY!
Web Developer
(reading details)
(I think...)
Web Developer
(reading spec, trying to use)
ummm...
Web Developer
(spent a long time trying to use)
!@#$%#
Let's use HTML, REST & JSON
Meanwhile
Not quite a standards body
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
Aim:
Bring together
important interests to
work on a common
problem without
getting too crazy
about it
The Decider
Giagianticus Corp
Proposal: Let's do X like this.
Day 1
Initially they had so many raw materials...
So many people
Wow.
Look what I can do!
The Decider
I did N like this...
Megacorp
No one asked us, we refuse.
re: I did N like this...
Unimpressed
~2011: We're doing it wrong.
Web Developer
Web Developer
Web Developer
Web Developer
Web Developer
Man, this is broken.
Step 1
Discover the DNA
(...and chromosomes and genes)
"Fundamental Primitives"
Look for answers in the existing platform.
Variance and Selection are features
the problem is that it is baked in
How do we tap into the ultra important "selective powers"
"Tighten the feedback loop"
Prollyfills:
Introducing mutations
in natural fashion
But where do they come from?
How can you manage this at scale?
Chapters:
Model A More Natural System
working pilot in place
VT
NY
US
CA
AZ
London
Paris
Vienna
Local groups of people
Let's look at a proposal
Faculty
Practitioners
Standardistas
It's noisy but has
real world value
to participants
Students
- How hard is it to understand?
- What do you think of the idea?
- Is there a prollyfill?
- Can we build one? Submit it?
- Can we add tests?
- Can we use these in our real lives?
- What information here can we distill?
- Noise is managed
- Education happens
- We can collect hard "selection" info
- We can make the ecosystem better