W3C documents the web with Web Platform Docs

The W3C has announced the alpha release of Web Platform Docs (docs.webplatform.org), a new site which it hopes will become a comprehensive and authoritative source for web developer documentation. Such documentation has been been available, but scattered over many sites, some of which have been less up to date or less informative than they should be over how elements of HTML5 and CSS work across browsers, operating systems and devices.

With the new site, this information should be gathered in one place, and to assist with bringing it together, the W3C has collaborated with Adobe, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia and Opera. Those companies are the first Web Platform Stewards and others are invited to join them in helping contribute, manage and fund the Web Platform Docs site.

The site itself carries information on each feature of the Open Web Platform, interoperability of the various technologies across systems, the standardisation status of the many specifications at the W3C and the current state of implementations of features and their stability. There are currently sections on web platform concepts, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Accessibility. There is also a Web development for beginners course for those new to web development.

The site is an alpha release though and much work will need to be done on it to bring pages up to the anticipated standard; for example the page for the anchor element is flagged as needing topics, missing sections, not having been reviewed, incomplete on a number of counts and needing to be cleaned up. The collaboration that is hoped will also take place on the site, beyond the document wikis, should occur in the site's forums and chat, though the latter is having some teething troubles.

(djwm)