On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Jewett, Jim J wrote:
>
> My definition of "small" is one person in his or her spare time.
>
> That isn't realistic for a new desktop browser -- but there haven't been
> many of those in a while.

Oh, well, sure. Web browsers now are basically application platforms, like
graphical operating systems or macro-capable office suites. They thus have
a similar level of complexity.

Sure, it's unfortunate that this means that one person can no longer write
a Web browser. But I don't think it would be viable to simplify Web
standards to the point where one person _could_ implement one, simply
because it just wouldn't be capable of doing what people want from
browsers now.


> And to be perfectly honest, if the standards are really only aimed at
> multiple-full-time-developer projects, then why bother to standardize?
> "What MSIE does", maybe coupled with "what Mozilla and Netscape do"
> would be just as useful.

The CSS working group (for instance) consists mainly of people from the
Safari, Mozilla, IE, and Opera teams. It effectively _is_ "What MSIE does
couple with what Mozilla does", except that we agree on what should happen
_before_ we have to copy another browser's bugs.

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
U+1047E                                         /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                          `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'