What's going to replace HTML & CSS & JS?

Question

HTML and CSS are showing their age.

SASS generates CSS (because CSS isn't clean enough). Graphic Designers don't work in HTML, they work in graphics tools then have to translate it to HTML/CSS. JavaScript has to have abstractions like jQuery, and CSS has a bunch of hacks to even start approaching consistent predictable user experience.

It feels like people are doing some wonderful things despite the technologies, not because of them.

Surely there is a better way?!? Something more closely aligned with the task at hand.. of providing a fluid intuitive (consistent) user experience to let users achieve their goals.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I think XML with XSL is the future. Graphical designer tools would come with their own XSL stylesheets, tailored to the strengths of the tool, and the tool would generate XML files that use the stylesheets.

But I'm no clairvoyant; what's going to be hot in the next 5 years, who knows. :-P

Answer 2

Nothing, I believe they are here to stay for next 10 years.

The Internet experience might be enhanced by technologies like Flash & Silverlight but what's valuable about Internet is not the technology but the information.

Therefore, breaking Internet compatibility for pure technological enhancement will never work.

Answer 3

HTML and CSS are here to stay for a long time yet!

While they may not be as intuitive to use for designers as say PhotoShop, well formed HTML is machine readable - this means that it can be used by humans AND computers. This is very important and useful. Imagine a web full of pictures that look beautiful but cannot be crawled or searched by Google?

HTML and CSS are superior because of the structured information that underlines them.

Answer 4

Personally I think HTML and CSS are very elegant, and while the W3C certainly isn't hasty, I think it's probably fair to say that a certain browser has been holding back design on the web more than the technologies themselves.

CSS3 has support for fantastic things such as web fonts with @fontface. Javascript engines are becoming increasingly speedy and allowing for things like John Resig's processing port which would have been unimaginable years ago.

We need to see users adopting new browsers at a faster pace, and we need to see vendors getting behind efforts to encourage their users to upgrade.

I think it's a mistake to think that abstractions are a negative thing, and indicate some problem with the base technology - technologies naturally evolve through abstraction. There's some inconsistency in your post in the sense that you decry the need for abstraction, but then mention that you desire consistency - that consistency across clients is achieved through abstraction. I no longer have to worry about how different clients handle the DOM - jquery does this for me. CSS hacks by the same token aren't really necessary, and it's quite acceptable to serve a different stylesheet to that browser; the rendering difference between the other mainstream engines are pretty minimal.

Please also consider that we're still using a lot of "old" technologies (Unix, c, c++ to name a few), because they are functional, elegant and well designed.

Answer 5

Graphic Designers don't work in HTML

DTP designers don't produce paper and ink either. Design something and produce something, these are separable tasks - when you have an idea for a tv spot you still need lots of technology between your creativeness and the result, the same applies for the web.

Javascript has to have abstractions like JQuery, and CSS has a bunch of hacks to even start approaching consistent predictable user experience.

Oh man, js doesn't has to have, developers simply like to make their job easier, this rule applies to various programming languages, it's like saying python has to have django. Frameworks and libraries are over the language, they are not a must. CSS 'has a bunch of hacks' because some browser producers don't give a damn about something called "standards", not because the language is badly designed.

Surely there is a better way?!? Something more closely aligned with the task at hand.. of providing a fluid intuitive (consistent) user experience to let users achieve their goals.

What user experience is not provided with html,css,js? I really don't get your point, and what you expect from the Web. Oh, and if you are like 'you know, you need flash for something or whatever', start getting interested in canvas.

Answer 6

I don't think that HTML and CSS are showing their age, I think that browsers are showing their age. I like being able to describe what I want done, but not HOW to do it.

I guess what I want is browser vendors to use one rendering engine, or if nothing else, a SSL-type of certification for browsers. Kind of a global impartial body that's measures browsers on a quality bar-like scale.

Just like with SSL certification, it's done by a third party. I'm not sure what the pricing structure would be but I don't think you should have to pay for it. I think that it would make a great "works in this browser" logo like the Spam Free and Mal-ware Free logos we've seen popping up on sites over the years. Or perhaps an Acid1, Acid2, Acid3 passed logos for browsers.

I would argue that libraries like JQuery and Prototype exist because browsers all have their quirks. We just got tired of writing all that handling code, so some very smart people did this for us.

Answer 7

If you listen to Microsoft, Silverlight will feature prominently in the new web. Since it uses XAML, which is just a text file, it has the potential to be search engine friendly.

Others like Flash.

Of course I am sure that something else new will be invented in the future....

Answer 8

I think RIA's like Adobe flex/air/apollo and Silverlight etc will eat into some of the html market share , but not totally replace it.

Some of the issues that plagued RIA's like SEO related stuff, lack of back button support are being resolved.

The good thing with RIA's is that it is browser independent (as long as the user has the right plugin) , I could foresee future browsers launching with RIA support built-in thereby ensuring a 100% market penetration for apps built using them.

Answer 9

BLTML: Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Markup Language.

In the future, the web with only be used for posting tasty things we want to eat, so it makes sense to develop a language geared just for this.

The pictures of kittens with words on them will likely be supported with a gross hack .

Answer 10

Worse is better. HTML and CSS are never going away because of the large volume of content that's written against that platform. Same thing with C. It's a terrible language, but it will always be with us because nearly all software is written in either C or C++. A huge volume of JAVA means that's never going away. There's still a market for COBOL programmers.

It's a popular idea among some programmers to get really frustrated at a crufty system like HTML/CSS/JS, and think "Hay, let's demolish it and start over". Well you know, I could invent my own phone that is 100 times better, and with better sound quality than any other phone. That's the easy part. The hard part is having someone to call.

Like it or not, HTML/CSS/JS is the technology trio that became popular, and that means millions of people have invested trillions of dollars in producing content for the technology. Millions of people will be quite reluctant to throw that effort away because someone says HTML/CSS/JS sucks.

It's a mysterious thing figuring out what technology is going to become popular. It's not something you can control for the benefit of your own comfort. But at least, you know, there's such lovely computer science concepts as "abstraction", which if you can master it, will be your secret weapon. Jquery is an example, but it can be taken very much further.

Answer 11

The problem would not be to design something to replace HTML/CSS/JS, but to get browser vendors to adopt it. Good luck with that.

As central as the web experience and HTML are in my life and in your life, the only computer most people in the world use is their phone. The web just doesn't work well even on a multitouch touchscreen.

Just like you no longer enter your game using the ROM basic before playing it, and you no longer see text only screens around (well mostly), some day the web is going to be consumed by specialized devices or by specialized applications for your phone. Machine readable web, or in other words, web services. You can call that web 3.0 if you like.

Answer 12

For documents and usual web pages, HTML and CSS are there to stay and evolve (Sass is nice indeed). For applications, mobile code (javascript most probably) driving canvas-like graphics will help merge web apps and internet-enabled desktop applications.

— I wonder how ridiculous these predictions will look like in 10 years :)

Answer 13

I believe that the problem is not HTML, CSS and JS or their age (they are constantly evolving anyway). Theoretically you should be able to create one version of something and have it work exactly the same across different platforms. Which is where the problem lies: the platforms.

Saying those technologies are old and therefore need replacing is like saying C++ is old and therefore should not be used for game development. They are actually very appropriate and powerful tools for what they were designed for. Therefore I would predict that its not the HTML, CSS and JS that need to or will be replaced, but that the current platforms need to get their shit together (some more than others) and follow the bloody standards!

That said, they do need to keep evolving to stay relevant.