REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 8, 2012 —
Web innovations are emerging at a relentless pace, and Web developers
face the daily challenge of finding the accurate information needed to
build great websites that work across the gamut of browsers and devices.
Too often, their quest can feel like a wild goose chase.
Introducing Web Platform Docs
The founding members of Web Platform Docs have already contributed a lot of content to this project, and you can help too.
They search numerous online resources, grapple with conflicting
information, and cobble together what they hope is all the information
they need on the technology or specification. In the worst case, the
information they get is incomplete, dated or inaccurate.
When Robby Ingebretsen, creative director at Pixel Lab,
built a mouse-over animation, he tested it on a number of browsers to
make sure it worked. However, it didn’t work for his client. It turned
out that the client was using a different version of the same browser,
and this version didn’t support the little-used CSS property that the
animation relied on. The browser documentation Ingebretsen checked
indicated that the property worked, but it didn’t indicate on which
version.
“The result was that we had to create a new effect altogether. I lost several days of work over this,” says Ingebretsen.
Web developers are often unsure of where to find a trustworthy
source for information about the real-world status of the Web
specifications they rely on to write maintainable code and build sites
that showcase their talents.
“I want to know what I can use today, but I also want to get a
sense of where things are going and what I’ll be able to do tomorrow,”
says Ingebretsen.
Web Platform Docs
October 08, 2012
Developers
will have an easier time optimizing for multiple browsers with Web
Platform Docs, a central repository of standards and best practices.
Download: Web
Ensuring cross-browser compatibility is another challenge. Erik Klimczak, creative director at Clarity Consulting,
had been using a common trick to make an image uniformly scale, but
found out it didn’t work on a particular browser. After hours of
searching for a solution and coming up empty-handed, he finally
contacted the browser’s engineering team for the answer.
The undocumented solution was an arcane property setting. “The
problem was I had no idea that this existed,” says Klimczak. He adds
that finding “simplified, reliable shorthand methods” would considerably
speed up the writing of code.
Developers are frustrated by the current lack of best practices
and documented shorthand ways of satisfying cross-browser compatibility.
Enter Web Platform Docs,
a new centralized community resource for Web developers who use HTML5,
CSS and other open Web standards to build websites. Web Platform Docs is
the culmination of collaboration among the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), Microsoft and other technology companies, including
browser-makers Mozilla, Google and Opera, as well as Nokia, HP, Adobe
and Facebook.
The site serves as a central repository that provides Web
developers with accurate and timely information on the technologies and
standards that are crucial to their work. Most importantly, the
documentation on Web Platform Docs is comprehensive. It includes
information about a browser’s implementation of different Web
technologies and best practices on a given feature’s interoperability.
Visitors to the site will find published content from the founding organizations, including more than 3,200 topics from the Microsoft Developer Network;
a sample library that takes into account real-world scenarios; and
tutorials that provide guidance on how to use new and existing
technologies.
“With Web Platform Docs, we now have a central place where we can
learn what the standard is, when we can use that particular feature, and
the right way to use it,” says Rey Bango,
Windows technical evangelist at Microsoft. “That’s important to me, and
it’s important to Web developers. They want to take advantage of the
cool stuff — the toys — and they want to do it responsibly. This site
gives them that capability.”
Web Platform Docs Logo
October 08, 2012
The Web Platform Docs site provides accurate and timely information on the technologies and standards crucial to developers.
Download: Web
The site also aims to provide up-to-date information on the
stability and implementation status of a given feature or technology.
This means that if something has yet to be tested for security,
developers are made aware of its status. This allows them to make
educated decisions on when to embrace specific standards-based features
and plan for the future.
“I especially appreciate that the site allows the community to see
the status of a specific technology,” says Bango. “Being able to
understand when a feature is fully baked and how it is properly
implemented is crucial. When Web developers know how to leverage a
technology the right way, and when they can do so responsibly, they can
really add innovation based on cool new features that are coming out. If
new features aren’t ready to go, they can start planning for them. By
doing that, they provide a feature set that really makes consumers
happy.”
Microsoft’s commitment to interoperability prompted its
involvement in this collaborative effort. One goal is to ensure that the
Web development community has the best resources needed for working
with Internet Explorer, Windows Azure and Windows Phone, among other
Microsoft technologies.
The wiki format of Web Platform Docs allows the developer
community to maintain and improve the content as the open Web platform
evolves, with W3C acting as administrator.
“I know that when I go to this site, some of the best minds in the
world are vetting the documentation and providing clarity on how and
when to use a feature,” says Bango. “It’s a testament to the reliability
of what I’m reading. That gives me a great perspective. I can make a
good, educated decision.”
With all the information they need located at a single site,
developers can now spend their time doing what they do best and really
light up the Web.
0 comentarii:
Post a Comment