There is much buzz generated around the so called "web standards", web browsers and the general state of the Web lately. I decided that it is worth adding to the buzz, so that my multi-million reader base will have the opportunity to read my undoubtedly wise words on the subject.
The Beginning
HTML was conceived back in the 80s as a format for DOCUMENTS. This is really important because it is the reason for all the troubles we have today. HTML is relatively good as a document format but unfortunately somebody decided that we need to program in HTML. So, Javascript was introduced to handle programing in the Web. That is the core of all problems. Somebody decided that we should program in a document format. That is like programming doc files. You can program doc files (via VB script for example) but very few people are doing it and only in special occasions. Somehow everyone agrees that we should not program doc but no one notices that we are programming HTML, which is essentially the same. That is where the first problems began to emerge and the First Browsers' War started. Netscape and Microsoft entered a struggle which Microsoft eventually won. Both companies were extending the Web's capabilities while trying to secure lead position and no one thought that the war would leave the Web in ruins.
The First Browsers' War and Attempts to Fix the Web
People wrongfully decided that they could fix the Web by extending HTML. First they invented the DOM. The DOM did not help at all and because it was invented during the First Browsers' War, different implementations brought even further devastation to the battlefield. It was about the same time when someone decided that the problem with the Web were all those "width = 5" attributes, so they decided that it would be best if we CSS-ified the Web. Guess what! That did not work at all and introduced even more problems with different implementations. After the First Browsers' War ended around year 2000, right in the middle of the Bubble, the Web was in ruins and it was evident for everyone that it was broken. Again everyone failed to see that the core of the Web (HTML) was just a document format and was not suitable for multimedia and programming. In the meantime to handle the growing needs of multimedia and programing on the Web it was Flashified (something like Falsified but much worse). At that time a new fashion was emerging – XML. Everyone was excited about XML because it was so cool. Clearly XML was so enterprisey that it was the solution to all problems. According to the fashion the W3 consortium (which is called W3 because it consists of three people who had had nothing better to do one afternoon than to create a web consortium to spread further anarchy in the Web) decided to XML-fy HTML. Of course this only brought more compatibility problems.
The Second Browsers' War
After the First Browsers' War ended things began to settle down. The smoke was vanishing and the Galaxy was under the control of the Empire, which promised years of peace and opportunity to fix the damage from the war. The Web was falling under the non-official standard of Internet Explorer. At this moment Microsoft made a fatal mistake. They disbanded the IE team. They dismissed their army and left their Death Star with no crew. The rebels were regrouping for a new strike. Their leader was Google Inc.* It aimed at stealing the Web from the Empire. The Second Browsers' War was at hand. Right now we are living in the middle of it. Google Inc is financing a dangerous weapon called Firefox. Through their propaganda machine they somehow managed to convince people that Microsoft were to blame for all the problems with the Web and that Firefox is the best Web browser (which it is NOT). However their only purpose is to make their weapon more powerful, so they could be the new masters of the Web. They do not care that the users do not want another war.
The Browsers
Let me make this clear – all browsers today totally suck! There is no way to create a good browser because the problem is that the Web itself is broken beyond repair. Of course, some browsers are slightly less bad than others. However Firefox is not even the least bad browser (that title goes to Opera). Internet Explorer is worse than both Firefox and Opera but that does not matter. The use of so devastating weapons hurts the Web even more. It is better to have just one browser, even if it is the worst, than to have many good browsers. When the three people from W3C invented standards different than the standards in use at the time (i.e. Internet Explorer's rendering engine) they hurt the Web. What did they think? That Microsoft will throw away the Death Star? Which is more, did they think that the users will upgrade to the next Internet Explorer if it stopped rendering the current pages correctly and instead implemented some newly invented standard by three people without anything better to do? But how did Firefox manage to get its user base of about 20% then? It did because it had user related features (like tabs) and not because it implemented the self-proclaimed standards. If Microsoft had released IE7 a year earlier, Firefox would have user base under 2% but thanks to the fact that the Empire underestimated the situation, the money Google Inc. is pouring in their abomination and the pro-Firefox propaganda we are now in the middle of another devastating war. So my appeal is:
STOP USING FIREFOX!
Otherwise you are helping the destruction of the Web. Standards are pure crap and I want to remind you that web pages do not exist because of browsers and standards but the other way around. The purpose of browsers is to show web pages. If a browser does not show a web page, the browser is bad, not the web page. Currently Internet Explorer renders correctly the most pages because it was there before the standards and its developers focus on backward compatibility, instead of implementing bullshit standards. Which is more, IE7 is quite good. It has tabs, it has hundreds of plug ins. In fact, it can do almost 100% of the things Firefox can do. Why to use Firefox then?
How to Fix the Web
If the Web is broken beyond repair what can we do? Well, we can replace the core of the Web. Microsoft are aware of that and have created XAML to replace HTML. I am biased towards XAML but I would not mind anything else to replace HTML. We need something created for the purposes of the Web (programming and multimedia), instead of document format. We need radical change. That could be the good thing about the Second Browsers' War. It can hurt the current Web so bad that everyone can see that we need something entirely new, standardized from the beginning and designed with the Web in mind. If we do not get it Google** save us all.
** Google – the God Being of the Web. The all knowing entity.
* Google Inc. - organization of hypocrites claiming to work in the name of God.