A Brief History of Web Standards

vitamin AN EVENT APART a brief history of WEB STANDARDS PRESENTED BY VITAMIN T & AN EVENT APART Oh, how the web has grown up. It's hard to believe what began as couple of computers communicating through phone lines now forms the foundation for our jobs and allows even our mothers to be bloggers. But none of this would be possible without The Web Standards Project fighting to persuade browser makers to support common standards. Please enjoy this look at the past, present and future of Web Standards, and feel free to share it or have your mother blog about it. Even if she still uses IE6. COMPUTERS HAVE Ted Nelson coins term ARPANET 24KB "hypertext" to describe 1962{ 1965 established, lays "nonsequential out network that OF MEMORY. writing-text that branches will eventually and allows choice to the be called the Impact, released in 1965 Eurostile, released in 1962 reader, best read at an internet interactive screen." Domain name server (DNS) 1972 1978 1981 { system developed, eventually making the world safe for apple.com, amazon.com, and ITC Avant Garde ITC Garamond Arial, released in 1982 microsoft.com. released in 1970 released in 1975 Apple Macintosh ushers in 1982: THE FIRST First public demo of Jobs and Woz take "desktop publishing," the internet. Apple public, empowering citizens to become SMILEY launching the PC designers with mixed, but Papyrus, released in 19 EMOTICON IS revolution. sometimes wonderful, results. INVENTED. 1989 Tim Bray and others Droro co-found Open Text, the first internet search engine. Trajan, released in 1989 Wingdings, released in 1990 NUMBER OF WEBSITES 1993 In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a young scientist at DEC '90:1 CERN, invents the World Wide Web, rooting the idea in hypertext. Bermers-Lee also develops a Georgia, designed in 1993 DEC '91: 10 "web browser" on his NEXT machine. DEC '92: 50 JUN '93: 130 Marc Andreeson and Eric SEPT '93: 204 OCT '93: 228 Bina invent a point-and-click graphical browser for the co GODWIN'S LAW O web. It is called Mosaic. DEC '93: 623 CREATED IN 199O 1994 { Andreesen hooks up with Jim Clark to form a company around his Netscape web browser. Netscape introduces proprietary tags (IMG, EMBED) that are not part of HTML. These tags catch on as web development initiates the biggest, most disruptive technological changes since Gutenberg and indoor toilets. Meanwhile, Tim Berners-Lee founds the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international Comic Sans, released in 1994 non-profit think tank dedicated to providing a rational roadmap for technological evolution of the web. THE AVERCH SPEED Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1 are introduced as a 28.8K W3C Recommendation. The Netscape browser, with } 1996 80% of the desktop browser market share, does not support CSS. Netscape introduces JavaScript, a "simple" programming language that enables web pages to become far more interactive. JavaScript is a proprietary Verdana, released in 1996 invention, not a standard. Microsoft Internet Explorer 1995 2.0, a minority browser, does not support JavaScript. FF Din, released in 1995 BROWSER POPULARITY 1996 1997 1998 N. David Siegel brings design to the web with "Web Wonk". Meanwhile, Jakob Nielsen begins publishing articles calling for a conservative, rules-based, Amazon starts selling stuff on the web. Microsoft 1997 { user-focused approach to web Internet Explorer 3.0 begins supporting CSS. It also development. Nielsen calls his supports a reverse engineered proprietary version of approach "usability." The rift between JavaScript, which Microsoft calls "Jscript." HTML for Dummies is published. The web now brags 19.5 million hosts, one million websites, and 71,618 newsgroups. designers and usability experts will Facelift, created in 1996 not heal until the mid 2000s. Netscape introduces Netscape browser. The open source 4.0, which supports advanced project for the Netscape JavaScript, and supports some Navigator source code is CsS extremely inaccurately. named Mozilla. The US Netscape 4.0 also supports Department of Justice begins }1998 "JavaScript Style Sheets," a an antitrust lawsuit against Netscape invention. Internet Microsoft for bundling its IE Explorer 4.0 supports more browser free with every c1,9%- CSS less inaccurately than Windows PC and withholding Zapfino, released in 1998 Netscape 4.0 but does not Windows from PC support JavaScript. Netscape manufacturers who try to OF THE WORLD POPULATION goes open source, inviting include Netscape or Opera on IS USING THE INTERNET. developers around the world to their machines. These dubious 147 MILLION PEOPLE. help create a newer, better marketing techniques make IE version of the Netscape the market leader. co THE PRICE OF1 GB 1999 { Microsoft announces that its upcoming 5.0 browser for the Mac will fully support two key web standards and provide "90 percent support" for others. They also $229 expose the XMLHttpRequest object, a proprietary invention that will go on to become a standard and Movies, released in 1999 form the core of Ajax, Web 2.0, and accessibility barriers galore. $3.88 $0.88 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 Internet Explorer 5, Macintosh Edition, is the 2000 first mainstream browser with near-perfect support for HTML5, CSS1, and JavaScript. It 2001 Gotham, released in 2000 also supports DOCTYPE switching, a mechanism that will ultimately rescue CSs from implosion. Netscape 6 supports XML and Archer, released in 2001 the W3C DOM as well as the standards supported by IE5/Mac. Opera 5 supports HTML, CSS, XML, WML, ECMAScript, and the Taking Your Talent To the Web is published W3C DOM. Eric Meyer publishes CSS: The and describes an approach that completely overthrows the HTML table and spacer GIF Definitive Guide, explaining in detail how CSS 1 BILLION hacks with which the web has been built. lets developers separate a web page's structure from its presentation. Todd Fahrner publishes the first CSS method PAGES ARE INDEXED ON GOOGLE for setting font sizes without creating accessibility problems in Internet Explorer. Fahrner then quits the web to open a bicycle shop. Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 6.0, 2002 2003 which folds a great many standards fixes and upgrades into its DOCTYPE switching. For the first time, developers who had held off Romantiques, released in 2002 Chopin Script, released in 2003 implementing standards-based design because "IE doesn't support it" taste the possibility of writing CSS that is truly The CSS Working Group Apple releases Safari, a Webkit-based cross-browser-compatible. publishes the first draft browser which will quickly become the of CSS2.1. Position Is most standards-compliant in the world, Everything, or PIE, the inspiration behind Google Chrome, begins documenting and the power behind the iPhone and METHODS OF CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET IN 2004 the existence of and Android. Jeffrey Zeldman writes Designing MOBILE fixes for numerous CSS With Web Standards, which brings DIAL-UP bugs, browser quirks, standards awareness to an international ADSL BROADBAND and common layout audience. It has been translated into 13 problems. languages and is in its 3rd edition. Using style switching and more than a dash of marketing savvy, Dave Shea creates The CSs Zen Garden, a demonstration of what can be accomplished with CSS in design. Suddenly hundreds of thousands of 2004 { designers who assumed "good design" on the web was synonymous with the use of Adobe Flash understand that they can also create beautifully designed sites with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Firefox 1.0 is released. Google purchases Blogger and redesigns its templates using valid XHTML markup and CSS for Carnivalee Freakshow, layout. Millions of entry-level bloggers suddenly own sites designed using some of the most sophisticated released in 2004 standards-compliant layouts on the web. A group of browser engineers dissatisfied with the speed of invention at the W3C, splinter off to form the WHAT Working Group, which will eventually give us HTML5. 2005 50 CSS Mastery is published by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and 2006 Cameron Moll; and Web Dearest Dorthy, released in 2004 Accessibility by a stellar collection of experts. The former continues the momentum of CSS practice Collegiate Heavy Outline, released in 2006 Jesse James Garrett coins the while the latter brings much- O PETABYTES O term "Ajax" to describe using needed clarity to an area of THE ENTIRE WRITTEN WORKS OF JavaScript to post bits of data practice not always understood. MANKIND, IN ALL LANGUAGES. to a server, get bits back, and dynamically update pages. This neat bit of naming gives massive momentum to an Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone. Millions of consumers begin already-growing trend in web experiencing rich web-standards-created experiences on their 2007 development. Eric Meyer and phones. In many cases these experience vastly exceed the quality of Jeffrey Zeldman launch An web experiences on these consumers' office desktop browsers Event Apart, the design constrained by hidebound IT departments. Consumers start The Quiet Scream, conference for people who released in 2007 experiencing more and more of the internet on their phones, and less and less at their desktops. Advanced web standards compliance is baked into their new mobile experience. make websites. co THE NUMBER OF DEVICES CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET EXCEEDS THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE ON EARTH. O Internet Explorer 8.0 gives Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera their 2008 first web standards competition in over a decade, and someone turns the lights back on. The W3C quietly kills XHTML 2.0. HTML5 2009 Museo, released in 2008 explodes into community consciousness. A combination of new elements and attributes, it is the first major markup advancement Chunk, released in 2009 in years. Pundits and other observers begin to openly discuss With its usual sense of whether Flash will disappear from the web. Type designers agree to timing, Netscape Navigator is the standard WOFF web font format. Suddenly, the long-deferred permanently discontinued. dream of using any font in web design becomes reality. BROWSER POPULARITY 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Steve Jobs kills Flash in favor of HTML5. Adobe immediately pipes up to say it's not dead yet. The next day, Happy Cog's A Book Apart 2010-2011 publishing house releases HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy 270,000 Keith. Books that follow include CSS For Web Designers, The Elements of Content Strategy, and Responsive Web Design. CSS2.1 Bebas Neue, released in 2010 finally becomes a full W3C Recommendation. In a manner WORDS PER MINUTE WRITTEN ON BLOGGER reminiscent of HTML5, this version of CSS2 is intended to describe the CSS that browsers actually implement. Our c PREDICTIONS 2. Web sites will become more and The power of HTML5 and related People will continue to complain more context-responsive as we technologies will explode much that the W3C moves too slowly come to grips with what that like the original web did, and that browser vendors make means and collectively figure pushing Flash into a specific stuff up lly-nilly. out best practices. More and niche or two. Adobe will ship more people will internalize the tools that make authoring rich fact that The Web Ain't Print (to HTML5 experiences as easy as quote Ian Lloyd) or any other those they have for making rich medium, for that matter. Flash experiences. DISCLAIMER The data and information on this infographic all came from the World Wide Web. If you find something that is incorect, please contact the Internet immediately. The logos, brands and trademarks featured or referred to are the property of their respective trademark holders. 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