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by inopinatus 1049 days ago
I don't disagree about the first part, but it is nevertheless the reason I'm not using them, since I have a very general use case (c.f. https://github.com/hotwired/turbo/pull/131).

As for representing Apple's state of mind w.r.t. alternatives; they've had the better part of a decade to shit or get off the pot, so I don't hold a shred of vendor sympathy. In that context, "open to alternatives" just sounds like product manager code for "we have no ideas of our own" and "let's kick the can down the road as much as we possibly can". If anything riles me up, it's the disinterest in developing a substitute capability, and if Apple weren't a steward of the standard it'd matter far less. I'll compare & contrast Cisco's running battles over their own PoE vs the IEEE802.3 standards that they'd had a hand in developing; at least the vendor offered a concrete alternative.
1 comments
spankalee 1049 days ago
I don't think Apple sees themselves as _needing_ to shit or get off the pot. They made their opposition to customized built-ins, and their reasoning, known from the beginning, and Chrome and Firefox proceeded anyway.

From Apple's point-of-view they're probably waiting for someone to propose a solution that doesn't have the same perceived issues. They've been doing good work on declarative shadow DOM, selection, a11y, template instantiation, etc., in the mean time.

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inopinatus 1049 days ago
> I don't think Apple sees themselves as _needing_ to shit or get off the pot.

Indeed, judging from both words & (in)actions, I think we can safely conclude that they don't. There's likely no direct commercial pressure to implement this part of the standard, and I'd expect all members of WHATWG's steering group perceive the vast influence they consequently hold as a competitive advantage, not a social contract.

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spankalee 1049 days ago
I don't quite understand that last bit. Apple objected to this part of the standard, but since WHATWG doesn't work on a consensus model like TC39, they don't have an official way to block. So they registered their rather strong objection - including that they have no intentions to implement it - the feature got merged over their objections, and everyone moved on with the rest of the specs.

I'm not sure what competitive advantage that gains them or anyone else. There's an impasse, and effectively no one uses this feature.

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