I have actually been following the HTML5 mailing list for a while. I would provide feedback there, but I get the feeling that my approach/philosophy might not jive with what’s going on there and I would hate to be counter-productive and waste people’s time. If I find something helpful, I’ll be sure to pipe up!

In response to XBL2 and IE databinding - I actually really like the concept of XBL2, but the syntax seems very clunky. (Not only that but it hasn’t actually been implemented so its kind of hard to play with) Let’s put it this way - I would love to have it as an option, but if there was if there was a choice, I would probably steer it in another direction. As for the IE databinding, that is a pretty sad implementation in comparison to something like what Flex or JavaFX provides. I can see why it didn’t gain much ground.

HTML5 is definitely not enough. It’s just one part of a much bigger picture. We have to start somewhere!

For example, custom components are possible with XBL2. Data binding hasn’t had much demand — IE has supported it for years, but it got basically no usage. (Contrast with, e.g., or XMLHttpRequest, which took off so much that other browsers were forced to implement them.) HTML5 is getting implemented pretty fast; some parts are already in most browsers with shims for the others (e.g. canvas).

If you have any feedback on HTML5, especially regarding what’s missing, please do let us know. See http://www.whatwg.org/ for details on how to take part.

I guess I’m showing my Swing background here, but most desktop systems have some kind of explicit layout management system. Basically a layout manager is a way of explicitly defining how elements inside a container are automatically laid out. Right now, css allows most of the tools needed for layout management, but provides them in a way that can be awkward and difficult. CSS3 will make some things better, like the new template layout, but having explicit layout managers could make a lot of simple things simple again.

Here’s a really simple example:

#my-container{
layout-manager:horizontal;
}


No floats, no clears, just a simple horizontal layout. I think that css provides a lot of lower level layout functionality that I would never get rid of, I just think a higher abstraction layer would be very powerful and helpful. Just imagine:


form{
layout-manager:form;
}


for simple pretty forms.

Concerning your third point, I’m not understand I understand the layout manager idea (admittedly this is likely due to my inexperience). I absolutely agree with your critique or current css though. It seems like it puts such a a strain on developers to do the simplest things which could easily be alleviated with variables. Though at what point does css stop and javascript take the reigns, or do you see this ambiguity as a strength?