Browsing Reddit today, I noticed an article on HTML 5, and I was like "sweet!" because a new version means more stuff, like maybe a <spin> tag or a <grow> tag or a <rainbow> tag!
But then I realized that a new HTML version means absolutely nothing. It's just like CSS 3. I see articles on a new version of CSS all the time and get excited, but quickly remind myself that I won't be able to use anything it offers until the major browsers support it. And that's going to take IE until at least double-digit version numbers.
So I thought, well, that's bullshit! I want to make my divs have rounded borders and stylize the numbers in <ol> tags, but until IE and Firefox (and Safari and Opera and Chrome and and and…) support it, there's no use, because no one will be able to see it. And then, of course, we have to wait for the users to adopt the new versions, and they don't like doing that.
But who does like upgrading? Web developers! Okay, okay, so maybe we don't like it (updating Wordpress is a pain in the ass), but we still do it, because we understand the importance of it; regular users don't. They don't see any point in upgrading their browsers. "They fixed a padding bug? Umm… okay. I don't use padding, so whatever".
(Now, to be entirely honest, I have no clue what a browser does and how it works, so I don't know if any of this is even remotely possible, but I like to think anything is. Don't ask "why", ask "why not", you know, that sort of rubbish.)
So why can't we allow the system administrators the power to determine what version of HTML or CSS is supported? Isn't that how PHP works? My hosting provider upgraded to PHP 5 awhile back, and I'm under the impression that they wouldn't do that if it would break my website for users whose browsers don't support PHP 5.
That way, it's a web developer's own fault if they aren't supporting HTML 5 or CSS 3. They can't blame it on IE not supporting it. And I'm assuming if HTML is "installed" on individual web servers, then the way it's rendered should be the same across all browsers. So no more cross-browser testing! No more having to open IE ever again! Wouldn't that be incredible?!
Why can't we do this? Why can't the "layout engine" (which Wikipedia tells me Gecko and Webkit and all those things are) be installed right on the web server? This should totally happen. Like, now.