Coding In Paradise

New SVG Web Release: Gelatinous Cube

2009-11-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Thanksgiving is another SVG Web release. Our tradition is to name SVG Web releases after monsters from D&D just to increase the geek factor, so in that spirit our release name this time is "Gelatinous Cube":

The Gelatinous Cube is a truly horrifying creature:

A gelatinous cube looks like a transparent ooze of mindless, gelatinous matter in the shape of a cube. It slides through dungeon corridors, absorbing everything in its path, digesting everything organic and secreting non-digestible matter in its wake. Contact with its exterior can result in a paralyzing electric shock, after which the cube will proceed to slowly digest its stunned and helpless prey.

Fun times.

Highlights of this release, thanks to many many people helping with patches, bug testing, and more:

Loads of important bugs fixed
Performance improvements
You can now dynamically create new SVG root tags
All the namespace aware functions now implemented: setAttributeNS, getAttributeNS, etc.
You can now clone SVG nodes (cloneNode)
You can now right-click on the SVG when using Flash to view the dynamic updated SVG source
Running getElementsByTagNameNS scoped to a particular node now works, such as myGroup.getElementsByTagNameNS(svgns, 'text')
and much much more

The full list of issues fixed:

Issue 358: Opera throws exception on patch to currentTranslate
Issue 413: Implement node.getElementsByTagNameNS scoped by container node
Issue 401: currentTranslate.setXY does translate the svg, but doesn't affect currentTranslate.getX or getY
Issue 201: Support cloneNode
Issue 385: Implement getAttributeNS
Issue 384: Make sure ownerDocument defaults to 'document'
Issue 386: Implement hasAttributeNS and hasAttribute
Issue 387: Implement removeAttributeNS and removeAttribute
Issue 202: Programmatically Creating the SVG node
Issue 383: QA on Firefox 3.6 Beta
Issue 335: Specific SVG file crashes browser when used with SVG Web
Issue 364: onload event does not fire when image url is a security error
Issue 362: dynamically applied color should cascade
Issue 349: gradients with bounding box cooordinates are positioned wrongly on circles
Issue 371: Linear gradients incorrectly start at left of screen rather than each circle
Issue 367: Flash blend mode used for groups is a performance problem and can be avoided generally
Issue 331: Animations based on events not implemented; problems with transform animations
Issue 275: Add View Dynamic Source to context menu
Issue 297: Aspect resolution of viewBox not honored on resize of browser
Issue 238: SVGImageNode.as should absorb exceptions due to invalid image URL
Issue 337: https generates insecure warning with IE6 (FIXED for IE7 and IE8)
Issue 388: Cannot Add USE elements dynamically
Issue 361: Text label is stealing mouse click

Our featured SVG Web project this release is the work Michael Neutze has been doing which he shipped last week:

Today the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (think census bureau
or national statistics) published their latest population projection
for Germany until the year 2060 and updated their animated population
pyramid. It had been ASV3 only when it was first introduced in 2003,
then in 2006 it was ASV3 plus native browsers (Firefox 1.5+, Safari
3+, Opera 9+) and now it uses SVG Web.

Apart from supporting Internet Explorer SVG Web was a great choice for
mixing SVG and HTML. Population projections only make sense when you
know the assumptions and those can now be displayed side by side with
the population pyramid using standard HTML and CSS. New in this
release is also the ability to switch between four different
scenarios.

SVG Web's small size (only three files), minimal requirements on the
server-side and the ability to use standard markup were the main
selling points.

Check it out for yourself, it is available in English, French, German
and Russian at
http://www.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/

Watch a short screencast in english to see all it can do
http://vimeo.com/7687560

Learn more about SVG Web:

About SVG Web and SVG:

SVG Web is a JavaScript library which provides SVG support on many browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Using the library plus native SVG support you can instantly target close to 100% of the existing installed web base. SVG itself stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, an open standard that is part of the HTML 5 family of technologies for interactive, search-engine friendly web vector graphics.

Saying Goodbye to Dojo

2009-10-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Dojo has been good to me. I remember in 2005 when I was a whee JavaScript programmer hacking around with weird stuff like AMASS to do client-side storage when Alex Russell contacted me and asked me to port the work over to Dojo. I was blown away; what an opportunity! I had heard of Dojo but never thought I would get the chance to contribute.

Being a part of the Dojo project has been an amazing opportunity for me. Dojo Storage helped legitimize the idea of doing client-side storage, and the experience working on it helped shape parts of the HTML5 Local Storage API when it was being developed. Creating Dojo Offline went from crazy prototype idea to real shipping code thanks to SitePen and Google, and led to my involvement with Gears and also helped shape aspects of the HTML5 Offline work.

And what an awesome community Dojo is! I got a chance to meet fellow JavaScript hackers who had a mad gleam in their eye on trying out some interesting new scheme to try out in the browser. I consider many Dojo-ites close friends and colleagues and continue enjoying meeting up and scheming strange browser ideas.

The last year and a half, though, I really haven't been able to be a part of the Dojo community, and I don't see that changing. Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline are being used by real users and real sites but I simply haven't had the bandwidth to fix important bugs or add new functionality. There comes a time when an open source programmer has to admit that they simply can't juggle so many balls in the air at once.

I've essentially left the Dojo community the last year and a half but consider this blog post more formal. Other things have swept me up and forced my time. I can no longer maintain Dojo Storage and Dojo Offline. This is a great chance for the users and developers who use both of these packages to step up to maintain them and continue developing them; I pass the baton to you. You won't be sorry being a part of Dojo; I know I haven't.

I wish I was good at everything; I'm obviously not ;) The particular thing I'm good at is coming up with some strange new idea, then doing several passes of engineering and work to make it real and bring it to a shippable state and get it past the 'giggle factor'. I've done this with things like Really Simple History, coworking, and more. I'm good at the 0.1, 1.0, and 2.0 phases. Past that, I'm not particularly good. I guess the wisdom of 'old age' is accepting your strengths and weaknesses ;)

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

New SVG Web Release: Beholder

2009-10-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

Yowsers! It's another release of SVG Web, this time code named Beholder:

According to the classic D&D Monster Manual, the Beholder is an "aggressive and avaricious spherical monster that is most frequently found underground." In other words, you don't want to bump into this guy in a back alley.

This release, roughly about 1 month of work, has contributions from many users and developers. We've knocked out a bunch of bugs and features. The full release list:

Issue 327 : Patching currentTranslate in causes error in Wikipedia Pan and Zoom tool
Issue 326 : Update config.html tool to test for SVG MIME type
Issue 316 : Background SVG is not being re-drawn on secondary pages for some browsers
Issue 307 : Window resize handler can sometimes throw exceptions on IE if Flash not ready
Issue 308 : Implement currentTranslate and currentScale and have it be a fast path
Issue 312 : For Shelley Powers: Odd error when using within XHTML document: works with Firefox, does not work with any other browser
Issue 176: Document Makefile dependencies
Issue 233 : (regression) inconsistent size, spacing, flow of rendering
Issue 304 : tspan-tag ignore s coordinates of upper text-tag
Issue 305 : Changing shapes and paths from 'hidden' to 'visible' does not work.
Issue 306 : Regression in test_js1.html: Text that should be hidden is not
Issue 311 : Summation of transform causes shaking and invalid transformations.
Issue 254 : Lamb Animation Sample Doesn't Look Correct
Issue 315 : Reduce the number of Sprites created per Node to increase performance
Issue 321: Support for animating path "d" attribute (except interpolation)
Issue 325 : Support data: URL scheme for object tag
Issue 329 : in flash renderer, images get cropped if they are moved programmatically
Issue 330 : in flash renderer, fill with image pattern does not work (programmatically)
Issue 293 : Position of image differs in native vs flash
Issue 207 : Doing transform on image dynamically throws exception
Issue 343 : Support on* events in SVG "use" element.
Issue 344 : Cache image requests for same file

Download the new release, read the Quick Start guide, and visit the SVG Web home page.

Open Web Developer Network IRC Meeting for September 16th, 2009 Summary

2009-09-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

We had another IRC meeting for the Open Web Developer Network (owdn.org) today. Here's a short summary for those that missed it:

This was a work meeting, with people working on owdn.org while in IRC. Initial focus for 0.1 will be Doctype (reference section); View Source (demos + cookbook section); and State of the Open Web (initially an aggregator section). Chris Messina is working on mockups of the home page, Doctype, and View Source. One tension in terms of design is that Mediawiki is ugly and difficult to skin; once we have a design Brad has volunteered to do the actual coding. The Mediawiki Foundation was going to host our wiki, but there is concern on their part in terms of the customization we want to do and hosting third-party code within their cluster. Brad will continue to investigate commercial Mediawiki options and might set up an instance on his web host and point owdn.org to it for now. Brad will also begin to create sample content for View Source to understand what is needed there. Next meetup will be a few weeks after the SVG Open conference which is in two weeks and which will keep Brad occupied for the next two weeks. Scheduling for the next meeting will happen after SVG Open (beginning of October).

Full IRC log at http://groups.google.com/group/openweb-group/web/IRCSeptember16th_2009

Current proposal: http://groups.google.com/group/openweb-group/web/openweb-org-proposal

New SVG Web Release: Umber Hulk

2009-09-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

Hear ye! Hear ye! The SVG Web team has pushed out another release, code named Umber Hulk:

Umber Hulk: "A human-shaped creature with gaping maws flanked by pairs of exceedingly sharp mandibles. Despite their bestial appearance, umber hulks possess a significant intelligence and language of their own."

Notable highlights of this release:

Having Chinese characters in SVG filenames now works
getCTM, currentScale, and currentTranslate are now supported, making dragging easier
Inline on* style events (onclick, etc.) handlers directly in markup is now supported for SVG OBJECTs
Several fixes for IE 8
Several fixes when the DOCTYPE is specified
Lots of fixes around resizing an SVG image based on resizing the browser and it's container
Fixes to help Shelley Power's Burning Bird site
Fixes to help the Wikipedia SVG Zoom and Pan too
Fixes to help Michael Neutzes' German Atlas work
Fixes to help other developers in the community

and much much more. Special thanks to the many people who helped with this one:

Rick Masters
Jeff Schiller
Michael Neutze
Shelley Powers
Ciaranj
Felix Buenemann
Le Roux Bernard
Glen Bremner Stokes
Bradbury.e
Richbk
Fangqq

Full list of bugs knocked out in this release:

Issue 299 : Tip of subversion (r855) throws error for demo.html on IE 7
Issue 292 : For Wikipedia: Fix SVG OBJECT creation bugs discovered
Issue 285 : For Wikipedia: Be able to host bulk of SVG Web on a different domain
Issue 271 : When using uncompressed-svg.js the data-path attribute on the script element is ignored
Issue 140 : SVG OBJECT.contentDocument does not work when DOCTYPE specified inside of HTML file itself
Issue 272 : Fetching contentDocument on SVG OBJECT does not work in IE 8/Standards Mode [INVALID]
Issue 249 : flash renderer svgobj.contentDocument breaks if svg contains DOCTYPE declaration
Issue 148 : QA in IE 8 with standards mode on
Issue 186 : test_js2.html has issues on some IE 8 instances with compatibility mode on
Issue 135 : Help functionality on blocks_game.html issue
Issue 236 : wrong URL encoding for UTF-8 Chinese characters
Issue 250 : svgweb init fails in internet explorer 8 when using object embedding
Issue 260 : The full-color-prof-01-f.html in the test suite 1.1 is broken
Issue 262 : Remove onWindowResize handlers when page unloaded and when object removed from page
Issue 263 : Click on root svg element does not work in IE8
Issue 276 : Fix resize issues with Shelley's Burning Bird site
Issue 277 : Disappearing text
Issue 279 : Define evt variable in onload="" handler script code
Issue 283 : getScreenCTM needs to include object position and ignore browser zoom
Issue 286 : 100% w/h SVG Root in 100% w/h Object in a DIV given in px � Flash size wrong
Issue 290 : Referencing an "svg" object with "use" causes flash error
Issue 294 : Support getCTM, currentScale, currentTranslate for drag and drop
Issue 53: Support on* style event handlers directly in markup [for OBJECT tag only]

Please keep in mind SVG Web is still in alpha.

Learn more:

New SVG Web Release: Owlbear

2009-09-09T16:24:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone, the SVG Web team has another release packed with lots of goodness.

Starting now we are giving releases not only a date stamp but also simple names, taken from the classic Fiend Folio D&D monster manual. Why? Because the world needs more cheesy release names.

Notable highlights of the svgweb-2009-09-09 release, also known as the Owlbear release ("Terrifying: the body of a bear... the head of an owl"):

* View source - You can now right click on an Flash SVG image and view the SVG source
* Huge improvements to the resizing code - the size of SVG objects on the page now change based on the zoom factor, resizing the window, etc.
* Performance improvements
* The demo.html file is much more robust now
* getScreenCTM, matrix inversions, createSVGPoint, and SVGPoint.matrixTransform are now implemented
* The internal JavaScript architecture has been cleaned up and simplified for Internet Explorer

Please keep in mind SVG Web is still in alpha.

Learn more:
* Full release note details
* svgweb-2009-09-09-Owlbear.zip Download
* SVG Web Home Page
* 1 Minute Introduction to SVG Web
* Quick Start Guide

About SVG Web and SVG:

SVG Web is a JavaScript library which provides SVG support on many browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Using the library plus native SVG support you can instantly target close to 100% of the existing installed web base. SVG itself stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, an open standard that is part of the HTML 5 family of technologies for interactive, search-engine friendly web vector graphics.

Turbotax and Intuit Just Lost a Customer

2009-04-12T20:58:00.001-07:00

I've been a huge fan of Turbotax for years, including it's maker Intuit. I've always considered Intuit a master at making customer-friendly and usable software, and putting the end-user first. I've used the online Turbotax to file my returns for about the last decade, always happy with the result.

This is why I was especially surprised this year to see what must basically be price-gouging by Intuit. In years past I ran my own business and therefore paid for a much higher priced option. Now that I no longer work for myself I need to use a lower-priced version (the price difference is significant). Turbotax and Intuit give you a way to _upgrade_, but no way to downgrade. In fact, you have to literally delete your account and create a new one (with none of your years of tax return info carried over) in order to choose a lower priced Turbotax option. Here is their official answer in the help section:

"Can I Switch Back to a Lower-Priced TurboTax Online?
Updated: 1/22/2009
Article ID: 2659

Once you've started preparing your tax return with TurboTax Online, you can upgrade your TurboTax Online product to Deluxe, Home & Business or Premier to take advantage of the extra features and tax guidance available in those products. After you've upgraded to one of these versions, your tax information will transfer to the upgraded version automatically. However, to switch back to a lower-priced version, you'll need to start a new return with a different User ID, as there is no option to switchback to the previous version once you have upgraded your product.

Important: If you decide to start over in a new return with a different User ID, you will not be able to transfer previous year's returns over to the new account."

This is so a conscious price gouge. Especially in this economy where folks job situation can change it's especially surprising.

Congratulations Intuit! You've turned a loyal decade-long customer into someone now looking for other options. Yes, I'm going to pay the higher price this time because I don't want to lose my data and am running out of time around my taxes, but don't expect to see me around next year. I tend to be a pretty loyal customer, but this is so blatant that it surprised me.

Has anyone else run into these issues?

SVG Has A Posse... and his name is Doug Schepers

2009-04-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

One of the great aspects of working with the SVG community has been meeting some of the cool folks inside of it. I got a chance to meet one of these people, Doug Schepers, recently. Doug is great and alot of fun. He got involved with SVG a few years ago and then spent thousands of dollars out of his own pocket in order to join the W3C as an individual and influence its direction in a positive way. Now he is fully helping to define and steward SVG as a W3C Member, such as with the recent CSS + SVG work going on to use CSS in order to apply SVG effects that Safari submitted.

Doug is like the posse for SVG, making sure it goes in good directions. This inspired me to mockup that SVG has a posse, with Doug's image:

I wrote it in SVG of course, using Inkscape. Click through it to see the SVG file. This is of course based on the famous Andre the Giant Has a Posse posters by Shepard Fairey.

So Moved - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-03-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

So Moved - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog - NYTimes.com: "The 4th biggest city in Brazil, 2.5 million strong, votes by direct ballot on the city budget. The city provides training and the budget process and some tens of thousands participate. As a result they've eliminated hunger and illiteracy. Why not NYC and Omaha and LA. Let's get busy and spread the word. And just in case you're skeptical, keep in mind that the idea of electing leaders would have seemed quite absurd not all that long ago in history!"

Absolutely fabulous graphical blog entry on that page as well.

Good Quote on Innovation Vs. Standardization

2009-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ajaxian: 3D APIs are coming to the Web in force: "...it's completely silly to say that browser vendors have given up on advancing the open web through standards. For one, they're doing that in W3C right now, but what they do in TKG and in a number of other places (e.g. OMTP) - just because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean they're not building standards - is also that. The open web is being advanced through standards more now than ever, and I think we've now more or less figured out the experiment-specify loop in a way that makes the ancient innovation vs standardization debate antiquated."

Garfield: 'Chaos Scenario' Has Arrived for Media, Marketing - Advertising Age - News

2009-03-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Garfield: 'Chaos Scenario' Has Arrived for Media, Marketing - Advertising Age - News: "For sheer poignancy, though, it's hard to beat The New York Times. With a $400 million May debt payment approaching like a runaway cement truck, the Times is selling 75% of its shiny new headquarters. More alarmingly, it has suspended its stock dividend and borrowed $250 million at usurious rates from Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim, whom a Times editorial not long ago condemned as a 'robber baron.' And if not Slim, who, Gazprom?"

After newspapers die, regional TV and radio next + possible plan for newspapers

2009-03-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Lots of gloom and doom these days around the newspaper industry. Here's a bit more gloom and doom for regional TV and radio.

I think we will see the death of regional TV networks soon, with probably a destabilization of the big three TV networks into a new model. I think regional radio will last a bit longer, just because most TV is consumed in the home whereas radio is consumed while mobile. Centralized broadband into the home will hasten the crumbling of regional TV, whereas the cellular networks can't stream digital radio well currently. However, the recent rapid acceleration of advanced smartphones like the iPhone, Android, etc. are accelerating the growth, speed, and general affordability of cellular data networks, making regional radio probably the third thing that will fall. As soon as we see cars that have digital radio receivers that tap into the Internet we will know the end is nigh on that front. I would expect to see them show up in high-end cars first, like the Lexus.

Here's one thing the big newspapers can do (I don't think regional TV or radio can do anything -- I think they are doomed, though they have probably 5 to 8 years):

1) Attempt to accelerate the commoditization and availability of magazine sized, full-color eInk displays. These are rapidly entering the marketplace, but color displays are probably 5 to 8 years out. If you can get the price of color down faster with a Manhattan style project, this could give you a platform necessary for high-quality ads. The tricky thing is you need to drive mass commoditization in the next 3 years, as that seems like the timeline for newspapers these days unfortunately.
2) As I mentioned above, digital cellular networks/Wifi are already falling in price pretty fast. Help spur this trend along; I predict that in 3 years digital data plans will be mainstream and quite fast.
3) The most important part: have a common billing platform and device subsidization program so that users can subscribe to newspapers on the eink devices without having to have many of them.

In all likelihood the cellular carriers themselves would become that common billing platform, doling out devices such as these. However, the carriers are kinda dinosaurs when it comes to innovations around these things unfortunately, so it will probably either be Apple or Amazon that becomes that common billing platform + device manufacturer. If only a consortium of newspapers could have made it to that point sooner...

The "Wierd" Programming Language

2009-03-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

Somehow stumbled on this while Googling for something else:

Wierd - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Wierd is a graphical esoteric programming language developed by Chris Pressey, Ben Olmstead, and John Colagioia, in 1997...In Wierd, there are only two symbols: [Whitespace] and everything else. Non-whitespace characters are followed in lines (starting in the top left corner, going southeast), and instructions are given by every turn made to the right"

Re: SVG Feedback on HTML5 SVG Proposal from Robin Berjon on 2009-03-11 (public-html@w3.org from March 2009)

2009-03-18T01:58:00.000-07:00

Re: SVG Feedback on HTML5 SVG Proposal from Robin Berjon on 2009-03-11 (public-html@w3.org from March 2009): "For one, one very important use case for SVG is inside an HTML document. That implies that SVG should look as natural and as local as possible, ideally completely, inside HTML. Furthermore, there is a shift in the type of people who use SVG. When it was only XML geeks and people who understood mobile constraints some things could be asked of the SVG constituency that are different from what can be asked from Joe PHP Hacker On A Deadline. Joe's smart but in a hurry, and anyway being smart he's also lazy. If it doesn't Just Work like HTML, then whipping out Flash, while annoying, will be simpler. Finally we are getting to a situation in which an implementer can grab a specification (or a library) that'll give him interoperable parsing in an HTML context. XML is a fine option for syntax-level interoperability, but it's not the only one and SVG has no reason to be married to it. SVG isn't about XML, or even syntax, it's about sassy, sexy, wicked cool graphics that make you go wow."

SVG Feedback on HTML5 SVG Proposal from Doug Schepers on 2009-03-10 (public-html@w3.org from March 2009)

2009-03-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

SVG Feedback on HTML5 SVG Proposal from Doug Schepers on 2009-03-10 (public-html@w3.org from March 2009): "These are some of the opinions of the SVG WG on the topic of SVG-in-text/html, for consideration by the HTML WG. The opinions of individuals within the SVG WG differs; some favor a pure-XML approach, and some are more predisposed to a looser syntax, but in general, this is the state of our group consensus."

The Overton window

2009-03-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Overton window - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after its originator, Joe Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. It describes a 'window' in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue. Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous 'outer fringe' ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable. The idea is that priming the public with fringe ideas intended to be and remain unacceptable, will make the real target ideas seem more acceptable by comparison."

JavaScript/Ajax Bootcamp

2009-03-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

My friend and colleague Matthew Russell is putting on a JavaScript/Ajax Bootcamp that looks awesome; I wish I was in Atlanta so I could drop by and check this out! Take a look at it:

"JavaScript/Ajax Bootcamp:
Javascript/Ajax Bootcamp is designed specifically for anyone who wants to learn how to build advanced web applications, whether a novice to the arena or an experienced developer who needs to modernize his/her existing skill set.

This course uses the Dojo JavaScript Toolkit, but the skills learned can be used with any of the standard JavaScript libraries.

Upon completion of JavaScript/Ajax Bootcamp, the student will:

Be able to demonstrate extensive knowledge of DHTML (JavaScript, HTML, and CSS)
Understand the Dojo Toolkit with emphasis on building slick, interactive, advanced web applications
Understand how to use Dojo's powerful JavaScript standard library as protection from the bare metal of the browser
Be able to create custom widgets that work on all of the mainstream browsers
Be able to put Dojo's extensive collection of accessible and internationalized turn-key widgets to work
Understand how to use Dojo's build system to minify and consolidate JavaScript files and templates so pages load lightning-fast
Be able to write good unit tests for web apps -- even interactive ones -- and be able to effectively test in all mainstream browsers
Understand how to animate content and perform 2-dimensional drawing in web appliations -- all without Flash!
Have a library of tips and techniques for production settings"

Make sure to check out the Syllabus as well on the page which looks really cool.

The Two Central Questions Confronting EOT Web Fonts

2009-02-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

There's a big debate happening about EOT vs. TTF fonts for the web. I see there being two central questions:

If EOT was the right approach, why haven't we seen any deployment by users, developers, or font vendors, even though it's been available for 10 years across 80% of the installed base of the Internet? It's been a failure, for users, developers, and the font foundries themselves who have made no money even with the pseudo-DRM scheme that EOT currently has. It's time to try something new, and TTF is that new way.
Why should fonts be treated differently than any other resource on the web? We currently don't have access controls for JavaScript files, HTML, images, text, MP3 files, etc., leaving that to legal mechanisms and technical systems out of band. One out of band solution to this is to use the HTTP Access Control spec; a font foundry could require you to use HTTP Access Control plus your TTF file through a legal contract. I already go through having to follow legal contracts when I use commercial stock photography, for example, or a Creative Commons image in a presentation or web site.

Chris Wilson is right that neither EOT or TTF are standards of any kind; they are both defacto standards, with the CSS Web Font mechanism being the real standard that all browsers now support. However, until the EOT camp can come up with answers to the two questions above (EOT has had 10 years -- why no adoption? and Why should web fonts be treated differently?) the debate about TTF versus EOT is over, with TTF having the clear verdict on the direction to move forward.

Killing the Golden Goose

2009-02-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

Alex Russell: "The [mobile phone] OpCo's fear anything they don't own. They'd rather kill the golden goose than have an open market in golden eggs from which they'd be the
main benefactors. They're deathly afraid of becoming "dumb bit pipes"
(although that's exactly what they are). As a result, they're driven
to distraction by any hint of openness that isn't strictly in their
favor, leading them to become *stupid* bit pipes. They've made
generation after generation of walled-garden play with no discernible
positive outcome other than to continue to lock up users thanks to lax
regulation (in the US).

Competition is changing the dynamic slightly. The device vendors
loathe the OpCo's (and vice versa). They're only in this shotgun
marriage due to the oligopolistic economics of how devices are sold
and who sells them (at least in the US). But a little bit of
competition by folks with different motivations (Apple, Google, etc.)
is changing things in favor of the handset vendors."

ADC - Fundamentals Of SVG

2009-02-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Nice new article on the Apple site around using SVG with Safari 4; sums up some of the nice reasons to use SVG, including drastically smaller size and better image quality, with some cool demos of it on the iPhone:

ADC - Fundamentals Of SVG: "The advantages for using SVG for graphing and visualization applications are clear. Not only is it more efficient in terms of file size to use SVG, it also scales better, looks cleaner, and is easier to build because libraries are not required to create the XML. If what you want to do is create charts and graphs to display data quickly on the iPhone, SVG should be one of your tools of choice."

Shirky: The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview

2009-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Shirky: The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview via Sam Ruby: "There is a list of technologies that are actually political philosophy masquerading as code, a list that includes Xanadu, Freenet, and now the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web's philosophical argument -- the world should make more sense than it does -- is hard to argue with. The Semantic Web, with its neat ontologies and its syllogistic logic, is a nice vision. However, like many visions that project future benefits but ignore present costs, it requires too much coordination and too much energy to effect in the real world, where deductive logic is less effective and shared worldview is harder to create than we often want to admit."

Bug 478665: HTML5 spec without all the new features

2009-02-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

An interesting discussion is happening on Mozilla's bugzilla about subsetting HTML 5, kicked off by Robert Sayre:

Bug 478665: HTML5 spec without all the new features via Sam Ruby: "Robert Sayre: I often say there should be an HTML5 spec without all the invention. I used my spare time today to press the delete key for a bit. I'm just using this bug to keep track...

My document is roughly 1.7MB at this point. Ian's version is about 2.6MB.

I'm sure there are many dangling references. In particular, the removal of
WebForms2 is not complete. Here is a list of changes I've made so far:

1.) Cut most of the introduction. Use one similar to HTML 4.01.
2.) Eliminate most of the conformance requirements section. It was very
repetitive, sometimes contradictory, and contained enough loopholes to make it
ineffective.
3.) Remove Communication Section
4.) Remove Command APIs
5.) Remove Drag and Drop API
6.) Remove Datagrid API
7.) Remove Structured client-side storage
8.) Remove Undo history
9.) Remove Rendering
10.) Remove "Things that you can't do with this specification..."
11.) Remove Time microsyntax in preparation for deleting all features that
depend on it
12.) Remove DOMStringMap and dataset
13.) Remove video and audio elements, media elements, source element
14.) Remove MathML and SVG sections from Embedded Content
15.) Remove figure element
16.) Remove img element examples and alt text guide. Author's guide would be
good for this.
17.) Remove section, nav, article, aside elements
18.) Remove header/footer element
19.) Remove "headings and sections" and "creating an outline"
20.) Remove time element
21.) Remove progress and meter elements
22.) Remove the mark element
23.) Remove details and datagrid elements
24.) Remove command and bb elements
25.) Remove DOM Feature Strings
26.) Remove "Features defined in other specifications"
27.) Remove "Common conformance requirements for APIs exposed to JavaScript"
28.) Remove DOMTokenList and relList and classList
29.) Remove "Common Grouping Idioms"
30.) Remove the dialog element
31.) Remove the output element
32.) Remove hyperlink auditing (ping)
33.) Remove autofocus attribute
34.) Remove sandbox and seamless
35.) Remove registerProtocolHandler, etc
36.) Remove hidden attribute
37.) Remove Constraint Validation
38.) Remove History section"

Ian Hixie:

"HTML5's scope description is here:
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#scope

Basically, it's about taking the Web platform forward and making HTML5 suitable
for more document and application types, merging the HTML, XHTML, and DOM HTML
specs into one coherent design.

It's hard to review your document without a better sense of where you're
heading (for example, where you're heading determines whether or not having the
rendering section is necessary). From the way you responded to the questions
above it almost sounds like it's just "HTML5 with Rob Sayre's pet peeves
removed", which is probably not the most useful document! I think there is
definitely a need for a document that is either HTML4-done-right or
HTML5-without-new-features. I'm not sure it makes sense to have a mishmash,
though."

Me:
I agree with the idea of making HTML 5 smaller; however, it feels like Robert is cutting out all the good stuff. I want an HTML 5 that lets me embed video; tells me how to use SVG in normal HTML; gives me better semantic elements like ARTICLE; gives me client-side storage; let's me throw away the Really Simple History library I wrote by giving me proper Ajax History support; let's web apps be first-class citizens with protocol handlers; helps the web to compete with Flex by having a first-class datagrid element; etc. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water :)

I do have to say, though, that if this becomes essentially HTML 4.1 + Canvas as someone proposed on the bug, I think it will be a failure unfortunately. We need to learn from the XHTML experience: if you don't have significant new features or a compelling set of needs to adopt a spec, it will not have significant adoption just because it 'cleans things up' as an HTML 4.1 spec would do.

Moving past last call for HTML5 from Ian Hickson on 2009-02-19 (www-archive@w3.org from February 2009)

2009-02-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

Moving past last call for HTML5 from Ian Hickson on 2009-02-19 (www-archive@w3.org from February 2009): "Realistically speaking, we'll never have complete consensus on everything in HTML5. At the simplest level, there are contradictory opinions on the very fundamentals of the work -- some people want error handling defined, some don't; some people want a schema, some don't; some people want APIs defined, some don't; the list is long. So consensus -- unanimity -- isn't an interesting goal. The next step down in terms of opinion-based progress is majority agreement, and I am confident that with the exception of things that need changing and will be changed in time for the next milestone, we have a majority agreement on everything in HTML5. Majority agreement in a self-selected community like an open working group is worth less than it would appear, though, because there is a selection bias: only people who are interested in both the technology and in standards development are going to take part. In the W3C working group, there is a further bar: we only allow people who are willing to put up with an inordinate amount of bureacuracy (to join) and noise to be part of the group whose opinion is measured. Statistically, therefore, the opinions of the working group almost certainly don't match the opinions of the whole Web community."

Crossing borders: JavaScript's language features

2009-02-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

Crossing borders: JavaScript's language features: "In this article, I'll explore the features of JavaScript that make it so wonderfully attractive:

* Higher-order functions. A high-order function is one that either takes functions as arguments or returns a function. This feature lets JavaScript programmers manipulate functions in ways that the Java language can't.

* Dynamic typing. By delaying binding, JavaScript can be more concise and flexible.

* A flexible object model. JavaScript's object model uses a relatively uncommon approach to inheritance -- called prototypes -- instead of the Java language's more common class-based object model."

Joyeur: Open, Loving, Just Workingness: The Smart Platform and Javascript

2009-02-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Joyeur: Open, Loving, Just Workingness: The Smart Platform and Javascript: "JavaScript is the natural language for the cloud, it's been existing in a sandboxed virtual container (the browser) for over a decade. It's had to use services (for data persistency, file access etc), its event messaging is the internet. If the Cloud is the Internet OS, then JavaScript is its language (nothing else comes to close to natural fit and breadth)." (Simon Wardley)