The jQuery project announced today a new effort to work in support of web developers everywhere who are interested in impacting conversations about web standards but are unable to participate through existing channels, which are often maddening.
The new jQuery Standards Team says that the broad adoption of jQuery, they say it’s used on 50% of the top 10,000 sites on the web, means they have a strong perspective on the needs of developers everywhere. They don’t mention it, but they are also people that are widely liked who are responsible for very cool technology. At least that’s the way supporters see it; the group isn’t without its critics. Perhaps as all things standards related are.
Yehuda Katz and Paul Irish will lead the jQuery Standards Team and will work to represent all web developers in the unwieldy, high-context and lengthy conversations inside of Web standards organizations like the W3C and TC39. They will convene online discussions for developers and then represent the concerns discussed in those conversations with the standards bodies.
They will also represent Web developers in conversations with Web Browser companies, who often dominate standards organizations, and they will work to help the jQuery project as a whole adopt new standards as appropriate.
The team says its goal is “to give a voice to the millions of web developers interested in contributing to the process, but without an easy way to do so.”
Community Reactions
Reactions in the developer community so far have been generally positive so far, but not without some dissent. “When marketing (and that is what jQuery is) controls web standards, there is a problem,” said Garrett Smith on Twitter. (See the critique jQeury is for NOOBS, for example. It’s said by some that jQuery’s primary strength is marketing itself.)
“jQuery and standards – now that is a contradiction in terms,” complained Swiss developer Thomas Lahn.
Others voiced hope that the new organization would help counter balance Mozilla’s influence in standards and browser discussions; still others said something like this was long overdue.
Update: A Mozilla representative argues that big companies jockeying to dominate the web standards process are a more pressing issue than any concern about the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. That argument seems compelling to me and I defer to their more informed judgement of the details.
Given how long, slow, detailed, political and frustrating formal standards organizations can be, though – Texan Jason Petersen may have offered the most realistic critical perspective this afternoon.
“These are GREAT people to be leading this effort,” Petersen tweeted. “Hope they aren’t wasted.”
