Website Development

And now, a special peek into the lifeblood of The Karcher Group: the email thread. This one in particular was sparked by the article A Preview of HTML 5 by Lachlan Hunt. What follows is a lively discussion of how waiting forever for this will suck, and how everything will still be awful in the end. Forgive us; it is winter in these parts and optimism is hard to come by. I would also like to take a moment to christen this as officially the best blog entry I have ever posted – it is actually related to Web development and I didn’t have to write it.
 

From: Chad
Check this out…
http://alistapart.com/articles/previewofhtml5

From: Chris
ten to fifteen years ouch!

From: James
Yeah, I can’t wait. Search engine marketing is going to be so much more effective when the search engines can index the “content” of the page now based on the tags it’s contained in instead of everything.

From: Given
 With the and tags, it almost looks like browsers will finally be rendering XML. 

From: Josh T.
 10-15 years for it to be released… another 5-10 years before browsers support it.  I will be 50 before we can code in this

From: David
Whoa… 50 years.
GREAT SCOTT!
 (Editor’s Note: Original includes picture of Doc Brown. You had to be there)

From: Josh M. 
True, but hopefully that will give them enough time to actually get the browser standards close to equal so we don’t have such a hard time with cross browser equality.

From: Given
Cross-browser equality? I don’t think that’ll ever happen.

 From: Josh M.
 I think that it will well worth the wait.  Looking at how far it has come from the previous version is a tremendous feat in itself!  I am very excited to apply this to sites along with the new version of CSS.  It will be a great day when we can ingrate the two together.  This will make it a lot easier to make semantic and accessible sites.  It sounds like it will be dang near dummy-proof perfect for me!  Let’s go W3C!
(Editor’s Note: He might sound smart, but he is a Michigan fan and as such his opinions are suspect)

From: Patrick, VP of Development
 Seriously, stop flooding my inbox and get back to work
(Editor’s Note: This email didn’t actually happen, but I like to pretend that it did)

From: What I would have written if I had been at my desk to reply at the time (and if the above message had actually been sent)
Yes, some of us are trying to…. Oh who am I kidding, just try to use smaller words so I can follow you

From: Chad
 I’m tired of waiting for people to play catch up. I say we force it upon them. If Microsoft can force me to download an update or view a site in IE then we should have the power to force people to update their old browsers. As for it being released, we just need to lock those developers up and keep them under the whip!
 
FYI: do not google image “whip”

From: Dan
…………
(Editor’s Note: Dan is actually at home this week with his wife and beautiful new daughter, but this is where he would typically chime in with something to defend Microsoft. It would probably be highly technical and carry a razor’s edge of sarcasm)

From: Josh T.
All software should come with a programmed self destruct button.  After IE6 is 10 years old, it would just disintegrate into nothingness and the user would be forced to upgrade

From: Chad
This idea is great.

From: Josh M.
 I would love to apply that thought but it will never happen. Clients would loose too much money.  It would be like car companies not making car parts for the year-old models because they have the new model out. 

From: What I would have written if I had been at my desk to reply at the time
 People probably wouldn’t mind if they got the new car model for free like they do the updated browser.  And Michigan sucks.
(Editor’s Note: Zing!)

From: Chad
Force always works. (Editor’s Note: Chad then goes into a deep and culturally-sensitive lecture about the founding of the Americas. I have removed it because it was too funny and made my own jokes appear lame by comparison. He ended with the following…  ). MANIFEST DESTINY for the web! Take up your arms and prepare for battle!

From: Chris
First off:… wow.

Second: The web has evolved very fast. I doubt the next major evolution of the web will wait 20 years for the next version of HTML.  Look at Ajax + PHP + xHTML, that’s where things are headed - mash-ups.  Flash, Flex, Air, Silverlight, Director (shockwave),  it is through these technologies as well as others like them that will define the next generation of the web.  HTML 5 will be a dinosaur by the time it would be adopted by a browser in 20 years.
 
Private companies pumping out proprietary browser plugins are moving faster than the W3C on this.

From: Chad
I never said it was pretty.