The Web as An Ecosystem
Author(s) and publish date
- By:
-
-
Karl Dubost
-
- Published:
Don’t you feel sometimes you are in the middle of an action movie and when you have time to rest a bit, you realize that you were running all along. Then the action is restarting. It never stops.
So let’s see. First a kind of “revue de presse”
- 1st May 2007 HTML and version mechanims
- 2th May 2007 Browsers will treat all versions of HTML as HTML 5
- 7th May 2007 Help keep accessibility and semantics in HTML
- 8th May 2007 Weiterentwicklung von HTML kommt voran (German)
- 14th May 2007 Another look at HTML5
- 15th May 2007 A call for clarity in standards specifications
- 20th May 2007 Xtech 2007
- 28th May 2007 HTML5 and the canvas element
- 7th June 2007 Thoughts On HTML 5
- 8th June 2007 Authoring HTML 5 - A Call to Web Professionals
- 10th June 2007 Forget cookies!
- 13th June 2007 À propos de HTML5… (French)
- 13th June 2007 How to contribute to W3C work? Tutorials
- 14th June 2007 RIP WWW (Russian)
- 14th June 2007 HTML5 and XHTML1.1+ MUST stop for now
- 15th June 2007 WCAG, HTML, and CSS: Maybe the standards need a break
- 15th June 2007 Fixing the Web… Together!
- 15th June 2007 Stop the Web We Want to Get Off
- 15th June 2007 Fixing the Web!
- 17th June 2007 Whither W3C?
- 18th June 2007 Web standards, the three-legged race
- 19th June 2007 So How Do We Fix the Web, Really?
- Marathon 2.0
These are parts of all the things I have read this last month related to HTML 5 work, among other things. Many of these posts express valid concerns, sometimes misunderstandings and passions for the Web. It is not only about the posts themselves but also the comments left under these posts.
Variety and diversity of opinions, antagonistic statements from people with different kind of background make the development of HTML 5 a very challenging topic. The Web is an ecosystem, with all the complexities, it implies. (Ecosystem, Wikipedia)
An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro organisms in an area functioning together with all the non living physical factors of the environment.
I will try in the next days to come back on some of the ideas which have been expressed and trying to make a link in between these communities. Keep in mind the goal of all of this is to make people talk together. Keep in mind that people have different opinions about what should be done.
Dubost--
Am greatly looking forward to your ideas, comments and analysis.
I do want to make one small point regarding ecosystems and the metaphor to the Web. Please do NOT construe it as nitpicking.
An ecosystem consists of your referenced definition but includes divergent biologies and physical factors that create a system were balance exists and/or is created.
The key is that divergence is a key in creating balance.
I believe that perspective may be of importance.
Yes, diversity is important in an ecosystem. It means also that often this diversity helps the ecosystem to be at the equilibrium by answering different needs. For example, if we strech the metaphor a bit too much. XSL and CSS are two technologies with similar goals but addressing two different topics. RDF and XML as well.
In the same way, there are Web developers, browsers implementers, Web designers with different goals and different actions on the ecosystem, but if we want the ecosystem to survive we must have a cooperation on both sides.
Yes, the web seems like an eco-system but the main reason of that is that it is only a numeric representation of our real world with all its complex, numerous, causal effects between each entities.
But the web is developing more faster than the real world as we could compare a year on the web with a "dog year" in a real world, i.e. 7 years ;)
We should consider that facts...
You provoked me into finishing off my pet peeves on problematic (X)HTML from the perspective of building a content management system.
http://www.kirit.com/Annoying%20HTML
As you can see I've been working on it for more than 6 months. All I can say is I'm a slow typist :(
It seems like an eco-system but the main reason of that is that it is only a numeric representation of our real world with all its complex, numerous, causal effects between each entities