Programmer Musings

SVG: Coming of Age

In the past few months, I have been focusing more on SVG. The most important reason was the SVG Open 2009 conference the first weekend of October.¹

Some truly amazing demos and research are being done in this area despite nay-sayers claiming that the technology is dead. Some of the biggest announcements leading up to the conference included two solutions for the one major browser that does not yet have native SVG support.

* SVG Web a JavaScript library for running SVG in any browser.
* Google Chrome Frame a plugin that gives IE support for SVG, canvas, HTML5, etc.

The presentations ranged from interesting uses of vector graphics to great tools for business or government to jaw-dropping effects that you would have had to see to believe. Some of the presentations are already available from the SVG Open website, with others hopefully following soon.

One of the most profound things I got out of the conference is the large number of people that have not been deterred by the pessimism that has seemed to surround SVG in recent years. These people are doing amazing work and getting things done, despite inconsistent browser implementations and one, big holdout among the major browsers. Everyone seemed excited that browser implementations are becoming more complete and consistent with every release. The HTML 5 specification is defining the ability to write SVG inline.

Truly, SVG is coming of age.

[1] Disclaimer: I was on the organizing committee.