Comments on: HTML 5: Now or Never?

By: BobMarche

BobMarche — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:00:08 +0000

Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting

By: Bob42

Bob42 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:59:16 +0000

All of us in the computer biz, especially web development, know that products, languages, IDEs and the like come at us at a fast and furious pace. I was reading recently an article talking about the most marketable technologies such as .NET, AJAX, PHP and Ruby on Rails. The author poo-pooed HTML as not worth learning since the IDEs create it automatically. Personnally I have never had an IDE where I did not have to, at some point, go in tweak the HTML. Hopefully HTML 5 will become more popular and a technology worthy of adding to the growing portfolio.

By: Rick Mason

Rick Mason — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:50:22 +0000

I think a smaller book (similar to “Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong!”) focusing on the basic philosophy of HTML 5, information about topics such as microformats and how they can be used, and code samples that will work with current/near future browsers, would be a good step to take.

To attempt a definitive book on HTML 5 at this point in time would not work, for reasons that others have explained effectively. An introduction to the ideas behind HTML 5, and ways it can be applied today (and perhaps a taste of what is likely to come) would be something I would order as soon as it was available.

In addition, the announcement this past week for Google Wave highlights the fact that HTML 5 is going to be a part of cutting-edge web development, and publishing a good introduction to the topic will benefit both SitePoint as a publisher and readers looking for good information.

By: Rick Mason

Rick Mason — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:49:15 +0000

I think a smaller book (similar to "Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong!") focusing on the basic philosophy of HTML 5, information about topics such as microformats and how they can be used, and code samples that will work with current/near future browsers, would be a good step to take. To attempt a definitive book on HTML 5 at this point in time would not work, for reasons that others have explained effectively. An introduction to the ideas behind HTML 5, and ways it can be applied today (and perhaps a taste of what is likely to come) would be something I would order as soon as it was available. In addition, the announcement this past week for Google Wave highlights the fact that HTML 5 is going to be a part of cutting-edge web development, and publishing a good introduction to the topic will benefit both SitePoint as a publisher and readers looking for good information.

By: P Ziecina

P Ziecina — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:45:10 +0000

I remember similar negative arguments concerning css and xhtml back in the late 90’s (not to mention xml), and as time has proven those who didn’t learn it were ‘left behind’, (or tried to play catch-up).

I think a book on html5 (and css3), would be one that I would certainly buy, as learning these now would mean that I am at least familiar with the language (even if not conversant).

P. Ziecina

By: omnicity

omnicity — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:46:36 +0000

@SpacePhoenix and others:

There are at least two points in time when a good reference is needed: at the beginning we all need something to tell us how HTML5 is supposed to work, and there is probably enough material for work to start on that kind of book.
The next phase is a reference that details the pitfalls and work-arounds of real-life use, and that is clearly a very long way off.
The other thing to bear in mind, is that unlike with the introduction of XHTML, there has been commitment from all relevant parties, and since this is an evolution of HTML4, there is no reason to think that HTML5 will not get there in the end, the only question is how long HTML4 will remain current.

By: Oli

Oli — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:04:08 +0000

In most cases you can change a well-written HTML4 page to HTML5 by changing the doctype alone—there’s no requirement to use new elements. As Andy mentioned, you can learn about/prepare for HTML5 by adopting it’s new semantic element names as class/id names, in any flavour of (X)HTML. Here’s a class/id names cheatsheet based on relevant articles from Andy and Jon Tan:
http://boblet.tumblr.com/post/60552152/html5

Some benefits of using the above approach with an HTML5 doctype now might be:
* far more detailed and informative spec, with better code examples
* additional validation options; Validator.nu, the W3 HTML5 validator and HTML4 Strict validator (with doctype override)
* very easy migration path to HTML5 with new elements (assuming you have regex)
* it’s basically a codified way of doing what we’re probably doing in HTML4 strict anyway
HTH

By: Arlen

Arlen — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:27:25 +0000

“Really? What about h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, address and pre?”

Good catch. Multiple exceptions make my point even clearer. The new content divisions in HTML5 make a lot more sense to me. The names of the categories take a little getting used to, I admit, but the categories themselves make more sense.

By: JohnDeHope3

JohnDeHope3 — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:22:14 +0000

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

By: itpastorn

itpastorn — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:24:34 +0000

For completeness sake, I’m going to reference Google i/o:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-bets-big-on-html-5.html

http://www.youtube.com/html5

http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Google_Throws_Its_Weight_Behind_HTML_5

People may protest, but HTML 5 is happening.