You’d think folks writing the HTML spec would know the difference between an HTML attribute and inline JavaScript but you’d be mistaken and that’s why we can’t open a modal dialog without client-side JavaScript in 2024.
🤷
PS. What would be great to have is:
<dialog modal open></dialog>
So that a modally-open dialog can be streamed from the server without requiring client-side JavaScript to trigger it open when it loads.
Google wants to make it harder to block ads. Thought experiment:
If, instead of ad blocking per se, we used browser extensions that blocked all tracking, prevented execution of arbitrary code, and made fingerprinting devices impossible, but also left all ad content visible, would Google (and the rest of their industry) still be opposed?
The answer tells you everything you need to know about why it is moral and ethical to use ad blockers.
We used to have this, when most ads used to be displayed as an <OBJECT> element, which was diligently eliminated by the WHATWG when they were drafting HTML 5. Before #HTML5 you could easily block any <OBJECT>.
It was easy to see then, as it is easy to see now, that HTML5 wasn't 100% driven by the lofty goals invoked at the time, even if upright individuals did great work as part of it, that was certainly not the primary goal of the companies that sponsored the work of the #WHATWG.
The W3C, founded in 1994 by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has quit X and declared the fediverse to be their primary social media channel. Follow them at: @w3c
@fluepke#W3C has pretty much become a rubberstamp for the #Google-led cartel that is the #WHATWG. An organization that doesn't give smaller browsers like #PaleMoon, #LadyBird, and #Lynx a voice in the writing of specs for web standards like #HTML5 and #CSS3 does not deserve support, and should not be seen as an ally of the #openweb.
@f09fa681 Issue #552 of whatwg/html pretty much explains for itself what it means for contributions which don't get "enough implementer interest" in the #WHATWG despite having a significant #webdev grassroots support.
This obsession in making sure at least two "implementers" have the feature baked into their codebases is frankly bull and is one of the factors of why we have such a #Google-biased #web. Theoretically it's there so that every feature would be certain that there are players backing and seeing that feature being useful and good for the #openweb, but in reality it has become Google's veto in most cases, with the popular being one of the victims here. It has been a standard for quite some years, yet Chrome's developers seem to have an extreme case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome and decided not to implement it for whatever reason. Maybe they really don't have an interest in it and are therefore in "patches welcome" mode like a corporation would do in #opensource. Or maybe, they saw it as a threat to their Google #WebComponents because it pretty much satisfies most of the usecases their toy project #ShadowDOM is designed to solve, and web developers don't want to deal with such a complex feature just to limit the scope of their #CSS. Whatever the reason is, this should not kill a feature that has been long-awaited by many web developers to be supported in their #browsers and is backed by a well-maintained and developed #browser (which is #PaleMoon in this case).
Allowing comments in GitHub issues is ultimately useless if the final decisions are made by a closed cabal of big "implementers" who as history has shown has been pretty much Google's lapdogs most of the time.
Ian "Hixie" Hickson editor of #WhatWG HTML specification for 10 years, in January 2023 criticises the use of #HTML, #CSS, #Javascript for intricate #Web applications, and proposes an alternate approach based on 4 lower-level #OpenStandards:
I don't think people appreciate the role that #OperaSoftware played in fostering the #OpenWeb and #IndieWeb during the first #browserWar (when the #OperaBrowser was still built on their proprietary #Presto engine), and a fortiori the role it had in their demise (when they switched to being “just another #WebKit/#Blink skin”), despite their browser never even reaching a 3% market share.
In the five years between the creation of the #WHATWG and the switch from Presto to WebKit (and then Blink) by Opera, their role within the working group was essential as an independent standard implementor. Anything that was supported by two out of three (at the time, Apple, Mozilla, Opera) vendors meant different engines implemented the standard. Today, three out of five implementations agreeing is meaningless, since they are most likely just WebKit and its forks.