News this week that the World Wide Web Consortium has advanced an important Webpage development standard portends a major evolutionary step for the Internet. When implemented, the standard will relegate static content to the past.
On Tuesday, the consortium, known as W3C, published the near-final version of the so-called Document Object Model. The specification will help give fluidity to the text and images of Web pages, allowing developers to more fully exploit the medium.
The news has developers cautiously optimistic.
"I would like to think that [both Netscape and Microsoft] realize that it's in both their interest to make sure this gets supported," said Web builder George Olsen. "Otherwise developers will be reluctant to use it."
Among its anticipated features, DOM 1.0 could make way for graphics and text that react and change instantaneously; fresh display text could swap in as new content becomes available. Mouse movements could trigger the appearance of new photographs alongside a scrolling story. Simple scripted instructions by Web developers could trigger a much more intelligent and interactive page.
The need for better standardization across different browsers led to the formation earlier in August of the Web Standards Project. It aims to send a message to Web-cruising products of all shapes and sizes: Write to standards so we can develop one site that looks the same to all comers. Currently, Web-site developers have to do their job twice -- once for Netscape and once for Microsoft.
But while browser vendors Microsoft and Netscape embraced the advance of the standard, the promise for developers of a next-generation Web is still over the horizon.
DOM 1.0 "is a foundational step toward developing a rigorously documented object model," said Todd Fahrner, a Web design "technologist" for Studio Verso and a founding member of the Web Standards Project. "But it's not like if you support DOM 1.0 everybody's HTML will work the same everywhere."
Back when every Netscape development defined browser and Internet standards -- JavaScript is one memorable example -- the rules of Web development were more plainly drawn. But now Netscape finds itself in the undreamed-of position of falling behind in implementing new W3C standards, partly due to delays in its next-generation layout engine. Microsoft, meanwhile, is full-speed ahead with its Internet Explorer plans, and in the last two years has played up the importance of the W3C and its standards.
Yes, we support standards
Reacting to the pending arrival of a standardized object model for Web pages, Microsoft was able to point to specific plans for a specific version of its browser.
"In [Internet Explorer] 5.0 we have support of the core DOM as listed in the proposed recommendation," said Dave Wascha, Microsoft product manager for platform marketing. "The core is the most important part."
Highlighting the state of divergence, however, Netscape isn't officially committing DOM to a pre- or post-5.0 release of its browser. "You are going to see full support of the DOM from us," said Eric Byunn, Netscape's group product manager. "We haven't announced features sets for our 5.0 product yet."
Byunn would only promise that "elements of the DOM will certainly be supported" in Communicator 5.0.
Comparing Microsoft's specifics on DOM support to Netscape's, Byunn said Redmond is simply further along in its "PR cycle" than Netscape. "So far, they have not shipped their implementation." A beta version of 5.0 and specifics on feature support will be announced by the end of the year, Byunn said.
DOM's problem
Explaining why only partial support of standards makes it into browser releases, Microsoft's Wascha said an approved standard does not always mean a mature one. DOM "is a young standard and there are many things that it does not address that [the Web Consortium has] indicated it will address in subsequent versions."
If browser companies wrote strictly to support DOM, he said, some primary features couldn't be added because they don't exist in the current standard.
"The DOM is about a year old and they're moving as fast as they can," Wascha said of the W3C's efforts. But meanwhile he said developers are looking for the features so Microsoft provides them, standard or no.
Netscape's problem
Where exactly Netscape is on standards support -- and its devotion to keeping its software state-of-the art -- is a growing question for many developers.
Netscape's work on the standards front is in fact tied to a complete overhaul of the page-rendering "engine" in its browser. As the heart of the software product, it is responsible for laying out pages containing features like DOM and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which centralize a developer's control over the appearance of many pages at once.
The new browser brains are called NGLayout, for next-generation layout, and have been slated for completion later this year. Like much of the other code behind the Communicator software, the NGLayout code will be "checked in" to the code being developed as part of the Mozilla open-development effort.
In addition to improved performance, Netscape is strongly supporting DOM as well as CSS -- the fourth version of the hypertext markup language -- and other major technologies advancing the Web.
The destiny of NGLayout is therefore closely tied to the destiny of Communicator's standards support. In the current unreleased version of NGLayout, DOM is in fact implemented Microsoft-style -- with most of the Level 1 Core interfaces.
So what's up with this apparent solution to Netscape's standards woes?
"They planned to ship NGLayout and reconquer the world," said Fahrner, the Web designer. "[Now] NGLayout has fallen behind schedule badly -- for whatever reasons." Netscape indicated in online discussions of the Mozilla development project that current plans don't incorporate NGLayout until after the release of 5.0.
Meanwhile, frustrated developers watch as Netscape's interim releases devote resources to unrelated features, such as Smart Browsing technologies, while hooking in the software designed to funnel users to Netscape's major new Web portal, Netcenter.
To Fahrner and others, the strategy is at best a temporary shot in the arm for the flagging browser software. Without addressing the core technology shortcomings of their software, Fahrner maintains, Netscape will paint itself into a corner.
Microsoft, meanwhile, can tout its fuller support of some standards -- CSS, for example -- and offer a clear road map for its next browser. By supporting W3C standards more readily than Netscape, Microsoft can also take the high road on standards support.
"I understand where they're coming from and I agree with their goal," said Microsoft's Wascha. "We definitely prioritize implementing the latest Web standards very highly."
In this way, Microsoft is able to legitimately cast itself as an out-front leader of the open standards coming from the W3C, notes developer Ready.
Once the standard bearer, Netscape has fallen behind -- which has developers beseeching the company to get back in the game with its next browser release, not a later one.
"I've been haranguing folks [at Netscape] not to ship 5.0 before NGLayout," Fahrner said. "They'll be a lot better off than stepping into the ring [without better standards support] and getting clobbered -- which they will."
