Editing VRML (section)

== Early criticism ==

In a March 1998 [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] essay, "Playfulness in 3D Spaces -- Why [[Quake (video game)|Quake]] is better than VRML, and what it means for software design", [[Clay Shirky]] sharply criticised VRML as a "technology in search of a problem", whereas "Quake does something well instead of many things poorly...The VRML community has failed to come up with anything this compelling -- not despite the community's best intentions, but because of them. Every time VRML practitioners approach the problem of how to represent space on the screen, they have no focused reason to make any particular trade-off of detail versus rendering speed, or making objects versus making spaces, because VRML isn't for anything except itself. Many times, having a particular, near-term need to solve brings a project's virtues into sharp focus, and gives it enough clarity to live on its own."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.shirky.com/writings/quake.html |title=Playfulness in 3-D Spaces - Why Quake is better than VRML |last=Shirky |first=Clay |date=March 1998 |website=Clay Shirky's Writings About the Internet |access-date=2022-04-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190409021907/http://www.shirky.com/writings/quake.html |archive-date=2019-04-09 }}</ref>