[whatwg] Provding Better Tools (was: Re: 9.1.2.1: trailing slash and atheism)

[Mike Schinkel]

Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> C, Java, Python, Perl, C# and Ruby attract developers who 
>> are capable of creating libraries. These languages already 
>> have library ecosystems in place. 

Forgive me for being so blunt, but that is an incredibly naïve view.  Until
earlier this year I ran a business for 12 years that was a reseller of
components first to Visual Basic developers, then also to ASP developers,
and then also to .NET developer in general.  Without *ONE* standard public
domain implementation, the reality is that NO MORE THAN 10% of web
developers (on the Windows platform) WILL USE ANYTHING. Do you know how hard
it was to just get access to do an HTTP request on an hosted ASP website?!?

As for LAMP, my gut tells me that best case adoption would be 50% because
people already know string concatonation.

The reasons are not the least because of host web hosts being unwilling to
install component software on their servers that is not required by
standards or the vendors. I'm primarily speaking more about the Windows
world, but they comprise a large percentage of websites on the Internet.
However, even on LAMP different web hosts choose different implementations
because with competition there end up being too many varying implementations
for a piece of middleware that really, really needs to be common. And if you
think all implementations will be compatible, I'm be laughing (a sad laugh,
though.)

>> I am not sure if I have understood the culture of VBScript 
>> right, but it may be a problem in terms of emergence of 
>> libraries without a master plan.

AHA; you have it!  Without a master plan, you are headed for chaotic
incompatibilies on a global scale, MUCH WORSE than what you lament today.

-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/