Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October, 2011

Please God, Give Me Something New!

"Here... check out this (link). But you have to use the most recent version of Chrome." Sigh. Haven't we been through this already? 15 years have passed and we're headed right back to the same place we started... "Best viewed in <someone's favorite browser>." It's sad, really. Don't get me wrong. Years of standardization work on HTML, JavaScript, the DOM, CSS, etc. cleaned up a lot of messy lose ends and yes it was indeed necessary, but stringent standardization also stifles creativity. And now that HTML5 and friends have loosened some of the restrictions the pendulum has started to swing back in the opposite direction. People have started to innovate again. This time around it's Firefox vs Chrome instead of Internet Explorer vs Netscape. There's a systemic problem that goes beyond browser wars, however. Remember AOL? This time it's Facebook trying to be “The Internet.” Remember mainframes and terminals? After pushing everyt