I’m kinda over the W3C. Not jumping on a bandwagon, I don’t think. The consortium irritates me because they take so damn long. In an instant internet the group responsible for standardising how we interact with that network is the slowest slug on the road. That makes me giggle in a way anime girls do just before they burst into tears.

I know the W3C just writes the standards and it’s up to the browser developers to implement them, I know. But have you looked at how long it takes for something to go from Working Draft to full-on recommendation? Years… Let’s take a look at CSS 2.1. If you look at the section titled Status of this document you’ll see that it’s just a Candidate Recommendation and does not in fact even imply endorsement by the Consortium. Close reading will also reveal that it should be a Proposed Recommendation as of 2007 Dec 20. It still isn’t.

Why does that matter? Well, a browser developer can continue to drag their feet *cough*Microsoft*cough* citing the recommendation as being incomplete. The retarded bit? If you look at the criteria for exiting Candidate status you’ll see that criteria number 3 reads The CR period will be extended if implementations are slow to appear. That’s rather ambiguous if you ask me. Things like that just make ya foam at the mouth, ya know?

Oh, and if you think I’m being a little nit-picky about the Proposed Recommendation date being 2 days passed as of this writing then I suggest that the next time you set a deadline you instead say something like “on or about” or “in the neighbourhood of”. And no, you can’t use the “but it’s Christmas, we’re busy” excuse. You knew that in July.

Also, don’t forget that once CSS 2.1 reaches Proposed Recommendation status it’s still not a Recommendation endorsed by the Consortium, just a proposal. As though you could turn it down but keep the ring.