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More Growing Pains

I've written before about the Web growing up - how the corporate needs are coming first now, decline of home pages and blah blah....

And the Web continues to grow up.

Unfortunately, stuff is getting ugly.

Such as (all without naming names; if you don't know, you don't want to know):

• CSS - Yes, I've written about this before, as well. Basically comes down to a few points, mainly: 1) Hey, CSS is not consistent (true); 2) Hey, it's partly/mainly IE's problem (sorta); 3) We should just screw all this CSS shit and go back to tables and font tags (ouch!).


• Blog provider issues - Basically, it comes down to one company doing something the other does not like or vice versa. And the offended party then accusing the offending party of "breaking" stuff for the rest of us it's the apocolypse etc...


• Debate over standards - This comes in various flavors, but seems to mainly be contained by 1) Who should define them ("[Current Writer] should!!!!"); 2) Do we even need standards/standards bodies (W3C etc); 3) Doesn't matter about standards because someone (browser, server, search engine, whatever) is going to mess it up for someone. This overlaps the previous bullet point to a degree.

All compelling arguements (NOT!), but in a way that's good. Fanatics (my fanatic is your hero and vice versa, mind you) are good; they keep things in check and people honest. And I wish I had a good answer, some magic wand of words to sprinkle my pixie dust over routers that would make the Web happy.

I don't.

But I do know this: For the most part, people who are using blogging tools or whacking HTML don't really give a rat's ass (hey -- "rat's ass" is in the dictionary, you could look it up) about what are in many cases pissing matches going on right now.

They want tools that work. Not as much concerned about the how, why or who (is responsible for them). Did you ever notice how much the average user didn't care that MS was a monopoly? Users just wanted their browser (IE) to just about always work. Yes, they are selfish. We all are.

While the CSS vs. Old HTML is an issue where you have to accept that CSS is a good idea but not fully formed/supported yet (*sigh* - there are holdouts to this argument, as well), the pissing over RSS feeds and things like this are making me ... well, tired.

I don't care.

Others don't either.

A small minority do, and - in some cases - it appears that the fight is worth fighting, to protect the integrity of things down the line.

Other stuff is just protecting one's turf.

Get over it folks.

The Net/the Web - every node is equal. That goes for the honkin', $Zillion Sun Servers powering enormous sites and for jodi.org. And all others.

I don't mind a call to arms, I do object to a destructive argument.

No one wins.