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Cool idea i got

Hey everybody I'm using this site for my blog now since it's a bit of a pain to manage it all at https://jaecadejnight.neocities.org/blog/, since I don't have a build tool thing so I was manually writing HTML code for my posts.

Now I've got a really good idea that I think can solve a lot of the issues that exist with the current web if adopted widely. It's a replacement for HTML and XML entirely! I call it Judicious Webpages Markup Language, or just JWML.

It is meant to be easier to read and write than HTML and XML as well as using less characters and omitting boilerplate, as well as having defaults that make sense, which would make it a lot better than XML and HTML.

So let's say we want a plain-old website like this with the default must-haves:

You know what we gotta do? All this HTML code:


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
    <title>My Website</title>
  </head>
  <body>
     <h1>Welcome to My Website</h1>
     <p>Hello World!</p>
  </body>
</html>

With HTML, you need to write the doctype, which is a practice you have to follow or else you'll get quirks mode on your page, and you also have to define the charset as utf8, and tell it to work for mobile devices, and tell Microsoft Edge to not be stupid, and THEN you can put the title for the browser tab, then you have to define a SECOND root/rootish element (the body tag inside the html tag), and finally can you put all the actually important stuff. Now, I should note, you can omit a lot of the stuff I mentioned if not all, however, that will not be without consequence. And there's also a whole lot more you'll end up needing to add, like more meta tags for SEO and scripts and styles.

And to achieve the same thing, here is the JWML equivalent:

---
lang:en-US
title:My Website
---
h1`Welcome to My Website`
p`Hello World!`

With JWML, the root is implied so you don't need to waste your time defining it. Tag syntax is also simplified so you don't need a closing tag, just backtick characters (`). And YAML front matter syntax is used to replace the <head> tag. If you need to use backticks in your code, you can use a backslash (\) right behind the backtick to escape it. And you can escape the backslash too should you need to by putting a backslash behind the backslash.

If you need attributes, you can do: p[style="color:red",translate=no]`Danger`

I've been writing up a standards document on and off since March of 2025, sorta like the specs for HTML which influence the browsers and then the entire internet. Except mine will be for my markup language. 


I'll talk about the background behind this idea now. I've been reading tons of articles and posts that others create and thinking a lot, and sometimes coding in HTML is annoying. You always gotta remember to put in a CSS reset or else your page is wonky, among so many other things that you always put in your page but just don't question because of "backwards-compatibility" and "interoperability" and "so it works everywhere". It feels like web developers are slaves to the browser vendors at times, especially Safari and Google. To see why Safari is awful, I recommend you read this article: https://httptoolkit.com/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/ . When browser vendors are big, they can do whatever they want, and that can be bad by two ways: either a lack of action on their part (them not doing something) or too much action (when they do something nobody asked for).

Chrome has also been implementing "privacy-preserving" APIs that really just help bad actors spy on you more or browser fingerprint you easier. Anybody can get an HTTPS thing, and these APIs that are meant to be secure against bad actors really arent. Here is the link: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-security/user-agent-client-hints . This is pretty stupid and helps to identify you easier. Why the hell does the average website need to know the architecture of my device? Or the model number of my phone? This is very STUPID and if "the site may want to offer a download which defaults to the right format", then the site should just ASK the user or allow them to CHOOSE with a dropdown. Chrome is also implementing AI in the browser which is a whole 'nother story (source: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/summarizer-api ).

JWML won't have these issues because I'll be very strict on the standards and I'll even go as far as to say that if you made a JWML browser app, but it doesn't follow my rules 100%, then you didn't make a JWML browser. JWML won't suffer from the stuff HTML does.

Here are some other articles I've read which helped me create this idea:

What do you guys think? This is just a preview of my idea, and I'm still working on making the idea perfect, and when I do, I'll post it and release the project. When it is released, it will be much clearer, and I'm open to ideas/suggestions if anyone has any.


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