(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Microsoft partner group manager Paul Cotton and Apple WebKit WebApps team manager Maciej Stachowiak will join IBM’s Sam Ruby in co-chairing the World Wide Web Consortium’s (www.w3.org) HTML Working Group, which works to standardize the language used to build webpages.
“The work of this group is tremendously important to the web. I am pleased that all three co-chairs have taken on the responsibility for working closely with the editor and group to make HTML 5 a success,” W3C director Tim Berners-Lee wrote in a memo about this transition.
The HTML Working Group published a working draft of HTML 5 this week, showcasing new features introduced to help web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.
The HTML Working Group’s crucial work is to make the web a better foundation not just for simple webpages but also for interactive web applications, which have proliferated in recent years. For instance, new provisions could let computers store application data locally when a network connection isn’t available.
As the web browser landscape changes with the addition of Google’s Chrome and the popularity of Mozilla’s Firefox rises, the HTML 5 mailing list is awash with suggestions for new features. Some have even proposed the W3C ought to do away with the concept of monolithic HTML versions altogether, but rather give each feature or group of features its own specifications.
