Ad-hoc Platform

[fantasai]

Filing this comment from an AC survey on behalf of @adrianhopebailie :

We need to stop solving problems in isolated pieces in a reactive manner. We create ad-hoc new APIs and changes to the platform with no concern for the over-all architecture but purely to solve problems after they appear.

The TAG needs to take some responsibility for the overall product design of the Web platform and the features that are needed to make the Web platform competitive with others. The Web platform needs some product management and proactive feature development.

(I don't have any solutions to offer, I just thought it deserved to be tracked and opened for broader discussion. Maybe TAG has some thoughts? CC @torgo )

[dwsinger]

I like the comment. I think that the TAG does a wonderful job and I admire them; but I feel that a real value of all those detailed reviews that they do would be that they get to see trends, how things fit together, consistency (or lack of it), and so on. The details give them a unique view of the big picture, but I am not sure we get a 'state of, visions for, web architecture' at the moment?

[dbaron]

I think one of the problems from the TAG perspective is that even if we notice these sorts of problems (whether feature gaps or inconsistency), sorting out such problems can be a lot of work, and we don't have the power to get anyone to work on it. One inconsistency issue that comes to mind, although somewhat specific (although I think it is an architectural issue), is the one split between w3ctag/design-principles#41 and w3ctag/design-reviews#525, which I think we clearly need to sort out some advice on, but doing that requires a pretty deep dive into the current state of things and likely future work in the area. I've been hoping to find a chunk of time to do at least some of this myself, but it hasn't happened yet, and the model doesn't scale very well.

[torgo]

@dwsinger we are doing this through the Web Platform Design Principles document (recently renamed). It's a little frustrating to me that this isn't more widely known. I've spoken about it at the virtual AC meeting. I've done some communication on AC Forum about it. How can we better communicate this? BTW, this document is currently undergoing major revision to make it more readable. This is also partly the reason for the Ethical Web Principles document - to take more of a leadership role for what the web platform is.

Bottom line: I think we are doing this.

[adrianhopebailie]

@torgo the Web Platform Design Principles is a great document to use when designing an API but my comment is about the higher level architecture and the features of the Web as a complete platform.

In my opinion we need to recognise that the Web platform competes with other platforms for both users and developers.

• What are we doing as W3C to ensure that a developer who has a great idea for a new application or services chooses to build it on the Web vs some other platform?

• What are we doing as W3C to ensure that a user looking for an application or service they need starts by looking for it on the Web vs an app store?

As I say in my original comment, I believe we are missing some high level product management/strategy and proactive, co-ordinated feature development.

I don't think this has been a mandate of the TAG historically so my comment is not a criticism but rather a request to include this in the TAG mandate (or in somebody's mandate).

The whole standards process favours very small simple APIs that are tightly scoped and seems optimised for success of the process not necessarily of the platform in the long term.

This process works when feature development is reactive and the motivation for adding the feature is: "it addresses a problem and doesn't break anything" but I'm not aware of anything in the process that is evaluating market trends, looking at existing features of competitive platforms and formulating a product strategy that informs new feature development.

[fantasai]

@torgo as a side comment, if the Web Platform Design Principles document is something you believe people outside the TAG should be looking at, it should be published at a W3C URL.

[LJWatson]

The suggestion from @adrianhopebailie is perhaps something that could be included in a TAG charter? Related discussion in w3c/AB-memberonly#49

[fantasai]

Noting here that we now have permission from all commenters to move this issue to a public repo.