The W3C announced yesterday that the Mobile Web Best Practices had become a Proposed Recommendation. This means it has passed a number of important milestones of review by members of the Working Group that created it, members of the W3C and the public. There’s one more step to go before it becomes a full recommendation.
It is likely to stay at Proposed, rather than full, recommendation for a while, as it has a dependency on XHTML Basic 1.1. To become a full recommendation XHTML Basic 1.1 needs to have advanced through more stages than it has at present. Though this dependency is undersirable, it is in fact a crucial part of the route forward, as it represents the unification of W3C work and that of OMA (most mobile devices out there today offer some kind of support for XHTML Mobile Profile, which comes from OMA).
I’ve been working on the document as editor for a while now, on behalf of dotMobi. I am obviously very pleased that it has taken this penultimate step. Apparently the time it has taken to reach this stage is relatively short. This I think is a tribute to the focus of the group as a whole – and reflects the urgent need for authoritative guidance to stimulate the growth of the Mobile Web.
It’s worth noting that the W3C process is one of consensus. Which – broadly speaking – means that while no-one may be ecstatic about any particular aspect of the document, by the same token everyone involved feels that they can live with the content. This in turn means that the document should be more robust, reflecting – as it does – the views of the cross-section of industry that is represented in the working group.
That’s not to say it is not without its critics. Some say it goes too far in one direction, others not far enough in another. Yet others don’t appear to be willing to read it on account of being offended by what they see as a wrong-headed starting point (see One Web). Overall I feel that it pleases a broad enough community and equally displeases a suitably diverse range of people to say that it is sound in the advice it offers.
This document represents a snapshot of guidance reflecting the world as the working group sees it today. It will clearly require maintenance to reflect the changing world, and at the pace we are seeing things develop that is likely to be “sooner rather than later”. Meanwhile, I’m very much looking forward to working on the next stage, which is to provide more specific and concrete guidance, tools, tips and techniques for implementing the Best Practices.
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