Patrick Brosset
We tend to take HTML for granted, and consider it to be mostly complete. But the elements and browser features it comes with have evolved tremendously over the years, and continue to evolve. As HTML-first architectures are gaining traction, we're getting the capabilities to build them the right way. It's never been a better time to be an HTML developer. There's more to do though. New problem areas emerge all the time and the platform needs to keep up with new needs.
Adding New Features…
New HTML elements, such as datatables, tabs, or switches, are dearly needed, but it's important to strike the right balance between complex components that do it all; and simpler but robust and styleable primitives from which we can build.
…While Improving Old Ones
It's also important to keep improving what we already have. Existing features such as <select>, date and time <input>, or <details> don't always have the right level of stylability and customization – while other features like CSP or Shadow DOM are too complex to use.
Accessibility, although now better recognized as something developers and organizations need to care about, remains hard to test and complex to improve.
Browser Compatibility
On top of this, the browser compatibility and interoperability of our HTML features continues to be a major obstacle to web developers. Having to support older versions of browsers is a pain. This year, results show that this is especially true for newer features like Popover, anchor positioning, and multi-page View Transitions, but also for <dialog> and for PWAs. These features are getting adopted, and developers need them to work everywhere.
The Challenge of Keeping Up
So, yes, there's more to do. But, things are happening. In fact, they're happening so fast that it can be challenging to stay informed. Resources like MDN, Caniuse.com, Web.dev, or the W3C website are a tremendous help, but there is an opportunity for more tools that help us keep up. On the other hand, talking about new features too early can be frustrating for developers who can't use them yet. That's why it's important to keep maintaining high-quality platform data such as browser-compat-data and web-features, which let us communicate about features in a developer-friendlier way.
A Bright Future for HTML
To close, it's heartwarming that most respondents agree that, overall, interoperability is now much less of an issue than it used to be, with clear improvements being felt in recent years. And, with the increasing number of capabilities we're getting, building performant, accessible, and interactive HTML-first UIs is becoming easier all the time, making it possible to reduce JavaScript usage to where it truly matters, and letting web servers and browsers communicate how they were meant to: with HTML!