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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

So when we say "developers", we mean "web content developers", and when we say things like "the expectation is that WHATWG (or whatever) will prioritize the needs of developers over everything else", we're saying "we expect the browser vendors to take dictation from the content developers"? And we think that's reasonable?

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"the expectation is that WHATWG (or whatever) will prioritize the needs of developers over everything else"

Nope, not saying that at all.

"we expect the browser vendors to take dictation from the content developers"

Dictation no, participation yes.

And that is reasonable.

Fair enough. But let me ask: what's your expectation as to "participation"? How much more priority do you think a standards group decision, unimplemented in any major browser, should get over a "feature request" bug filed in one of their bug trackers?

Most of the browser vendors care about standards groups and are highly influenced by what they say. Certainly that's true for WebKit-based browsers, where I have some first-hand knowledge.

One dysfunction in this case is that the <picture> proposal was developed in a splinter group that didn't include browser vendor representatives and thus was somewhat disconnected from the larger conversation.

I will also add that both browser vendors and standards groups care more about people's use cases than their concrete syntax ideas, and ideally people making proposals should learn to think that way as well.

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