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Web Forms, Web Apps, and the WHATWG
In 2004, individuals from Apple, Mozilla, and Opera began working on their own
specification, aiming at creating backward-compatible code that could be used to
create web applications. W3C rejected this proposal, and this led to a group being
formed calling itself the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group
(WHATWG).
The WHATWG began working on Web Forms 2.0 and Web Applications 1.0. The
editor for the specifications is Ian “Hixie” Hickson, and issues and ideas are raised via
a public mailing list. Although initially there was work on two specifications, Web
Forms 2.0 and Web Applications 1.0, they have now been merged into one specification,
called HTML5.
XHTML 2 versus HTML5
So, while WHATWG was developing HTML5, over at the W3C, the XHTML 2
specification was languishing. In 2006, the W3C decided that it had made the wrong
decision in abandoning HTML in the previous years, and although it would still
develop XHTML 2, it would once again look at the development of HTML. The
W3C decided to use the work done so far by WHATWG as the starting point for a
new version of HTML.
Although this was positive news, it also led to a confusing state because there were
now currently three different types of markup being worked on: two by the W3C,
HTML 5 and XHTML 2; and one at the WHATWG, HTML5 (notice there is no
space compared to the W3C “HTML 5”). So, with HTML5/HTML 5, the specification
was being developed at the same time but by two groups.
WHATWG operates in a very different manner than the W3C, and it is able to
move at a much faster pace. Because of the public mailing list at WHATWG, ideas
were put forward regularly, and web developers were able to question some of the
decisions made. The specification team was, and still is, able to implement good ideas,
reject bad ideas, and change or remove items of the specification based on community
feedback quickly. HTML5 was developing much quicker at WHATWG than at the
W3C.
After a couple of years of this, in 2009, the W3C announced it had stopped work
on XHTML 2. HTML5 had “won.”
So, where does that leave the specification? Well, it is still being developed primarily
by the WHATWG, while the W3C then takes the specification and puts it through
review.
The process has not exactly been perfect, but there are exciting outcomes.