Web 2.0 Notes: Brian Dillard on Hacking the Browser
Having not read the session description ahead of time, I was expecting this to be all about browser hacking in the narrow sense: specific tricks, workarounds, and hacks. Instead, it was a much more interesting talk about why this approach to feature development is vital to the web itself.
We are in the midst of an incredible acceleration in the variety of technologies vying to serve as our interface to the cloud. Dillard did a great job characterizing the forces at play (standard vs proprietary, open vs. closed.) He then explained the complicated role that technical hacks play in this ecosystem, since they can both allow developers to adopt standards before browsers support them, and at the same time push the standards themselves (treading dangerously in the territory of proprietary feature sets.)
His advice to developers boiled down to this: Don’t wait for standards, but hack as dangerously close as you can to the bleeding edge of where you think the open web is headed. The most valuable hacks are the ones that bring future standards to today’s (and yesterday’s) browsers.
Do Try This at Home: Ajax Bookmarking, Cross-site Scripting, and Other Web 2.0 Browser Hacks
Development, room 2003, Friday 3:50 PM
Brian Dillard (Pathfinder Associates)
My rough notes are after the jump.
