Design By Attrition
Dave Orchard: I still have hopes that the HTML5 working group would listen to Sam Ruby and the TAG and add namespaces in HTML5. Maybe MSFT’s features will prompt the group to start working on namespaces.
Indirectly, and when there are fewer good options to choose from, it eventually will happen. But not because the HTML5 working group picks up this effort.
That WHATWG has consistently made it abundantly clear that the W3C is but one of many sources of input for HTML5. What IE actually implements is another source. Both clearly view namespace support as important. Yet the WHATWG seems to assign no urgency to this issue. The prevailing attitude is one of YAGNI.
So when will it happen? When there is demand for it. And, by that time, customers will have coded to IE’s quirks. Quirks that will allow some demos of competing standards to work, but will cripple others. At that time, the seductive calls of Don’t Break The Web will again be heard.
The WHATWG needs a Pastor Niemöller.