HTML5 Review - My first attempt

**TechnoBear** · Nov 14, 2011 05:10

Originally Posted by polyhedra

i actually noticed exactly that while trying to figure out the <time> tag, that they were considering changing it. So yes, they might change tags by the end, but, they still will be useful in HTML5 right?

That's the point Ralph is making. Some elements may change before the specification is finished, so until the final version is completed, nobody can answer that question with certainty. Yes, you can use HTML5 with Modernizr, but that relies on Javascript, and you have no control over whether the person using your site has Javascript enabled or not. So why choose a design method that includes so many uncertainties, when HTML4 is fully supported by all modern browsers?

**deathshadow60** · Nov 14, 2011 07:02

Originally Posted by TechnoBear

when HTML4 is fully supported by all modern browsers?

... and can do pretty much 99% of what HTML 5 brings to the table so far as markup is concerned on real world deployment? Usually with less code if you try to use their new structural rules. (which again, seem to exist JUST to placate the nimrods still vomiting up HTML 3.2, slapping a tranny on it, and saying "close enough")

HTML 5, so far as the actual HTML parts go, offers maybe ONE useful thing for forms, and everything else in the spec is redundant, pointless, adds bloat if you follow the rules (assuming you can even understand the rules -- ASIDE for example) and is most likely the real reason CSS3 and the new javascripted stuff was slapped under it's banner as one all-encompassing monster of a spec... because without them the Emperor has no clothes.

The only reason I can even think ANYONE would actually support the use of HTML 5 for building websites is to sell more books, video tutorials, podcasts, etc... as there is certainly ZERO benefit in terms of actually building websites over 4.01 Strict and/or XHTML 1.0 Strict! (which you can use CSS3 and the new .js features with anyways)

Ooh, new, shiny... doesn't necessarily mean better.

**polyhedra** · Nov 14, 2011 13:13

interesting i thought HTML5 would be useful because of tag like <audio> and <video> but technically sure you could use this in a document that is html 4. I find this place to be a good place to get insight on HTML5 because the problem is finding the right information and using it!

**ralph.m** · Nov 14, 2011 16:15

Originally Posted by polyhedra

i thought HTML5 would be useful because of tag like <audio> and <video> but technically sure you could use this in a document that is html 4.

It may be useful one day, but the worry is that browser makers won't agree on single audio/video formats that can be used everywhere. At the moment, it's an embarrassing mess that threatens to sink these elements. There isn't great support for these experimental elements yet anyway.

The people developing HTML5 want us to move away from the idea of HTML versions, calling it a "living standard". This basically means that you don't need to draw a line in the sand between HTML4 and 5. There's basically HTML, and you can pick and choose elements based on browser support. The only thing to change from your HTML4 documents might be to move to the generic doctype etc.:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">

**sdt76** · Nov 14, 2011 18:25

Originally Posted by ralph.m

It may be useful one day, but the worry is that browser makers won't agree on single audio/video formats that can be used everywhere. At the moment, it's an embarrassing mess that threatens to sink these elements. There isn't great support for these experimental elements yet anyway.

People are getting around this by uploading several different video formats, kind of like how people are uploading several different fonts for font-face.

**ralph.m** · Nov 14, 2011 18:45

Originally Posted by sdt76

People are getting around this by uploading several different video formats

Yes indeed, but what a mess. That's not viable long-term, so unless it's sorted, I doubt it will take off.

**deathshadow60** · Nov 14, 2011 19:40

Originally Posted by polyhedra

interesting i thought HTML5 would be useful because of tag like <audio> and <video>

Which are redundant to OBJECT and less useful. It's part of what I mean when talking about it undoing the progress of HTML 4. One of the core concepts of HTML 4 was removing not just presentational elements, but redundant ones too. MENU and DIR were pulled as redundant to UL for example.

In the case of OBJECT, it was intended to replace Applet and the proprietary EMBED and BGSOUND... and eventually it was supposed to even replace IMG... in doing so it allowed file formats to be added when/if better ones came along, so you weren't locked in to any one format for non-html data.

Now with HTML 5, EMBED is official for no good reason, and VIDEO/AUDIO do nothing more than add more tags for no good reason, and lock you into deploying each browser makers pet codec and container formats... hardcoding it into the browser with no real interface for simply adding new formats as they arrive. It's a zero improvement scenario and just another example of the idiocy that the new spec is.

... and before peanut gallery chimes in with "It would be harder to add the new scripting and formats to OBJECT" -- BULLCOOKIES. If a switch/case statement is "too hard" or using a different object constructor is 'tough', there is something fundamentally flawed with the SKILL of the programmers working on it.

Ogg sucks, WebM is blurry with little to no hardware decode assist, and H.264 is proprietary... oh yes, SUCH an improvement.

**ralph.m** · Nov 14, 2011 20:11

Originally Posted by deathshadow60

Ogg sucks, WebM is blurry with little to no hardware decode assist, and H.264 is proprietary... oh yes, SUCH an improvement.

Is there anything better than could or should be used?

**sdt76** · Nov 15, 2011 10:54

Originally Posted by ralph.m

Yes indeed, but what a mess. That's not viable long-term, so unless it's sorted, I doubt it will take off.

It's certainly not viable for any business serious about video communication, where volume is the key. Yeah, it's a problem because the vendors all have such strong opinions that it makes standardization such a pain, but what is new, right?

**Stomme poes** · Nov 16, 2011 03:01

Now with HTML 5, EMBED is official for no good reason, and VIDEO/AUDIO do nothing more than add more tags for no good reason, and lock you into deploying each browser makers pet codec and container formats... hardcoding it into the browser with no real interface for simply adding new formats as they arrive.

Embed is in the specs because the HTML5 spec doesn't PROSCRIBE as much as it DESCRIBES. Like, you know, the dictionary's got "ain't" in it because people use it, not because we should be using it? HTML5 specs were designed to describe and be written to what browsers understand today in addition to adding shiny new junk. This was partially because they needed to write a new parser with unified error rendering and this meant needing to look up, document, and rewrite how browsers parsed HTML(4).

The point of <audio> and <video> is to do for <object> what <header> does for <div>. <object> is meaningless: all you know is, you're calling some Joe Random File. That's it.
(and yes, today <audio>, <video> and <header> are also meaningless to user agents and software. What's new)

The HTML does not hard-encode jack for formats. Instead, they left it out entirely. Like they did with <img>. You're only writing 500 video formats because browser vendors are being jokers. It actually has little to do with HTML. It's all about retards doing the kangaroo boxing about patents and other crap that should die horribly in a fire.

<object> doesn't save you from that crap. You want your video to be seen by as many people as possible? You're still making 500 different encodings anyway. Or tell everyone they have to have Flash player even though it sucks accessibility balls 99% of the time and Adobe hates Linux with the passion of a pizzeria owner killing the cockroaches in his kitchen.

People, you want to use HTML5? Go use it. Just don't be stupid and use something that might actually be useful cause there's a good chance Hixie will wake up some morning and decide it smells and should be thrown out or something. Treat the unstable spec as it is: unstable. You want to sell that stuff to clients?? Be 100% prepared to rewrite it a few months later, cause oh noes! the spec has changed (like the people in the comments here did when they decided to use the DRAFT SPEC WebSQL for production code). Oh and you'll rewrite it for free, or you're ripping your client off. We don't go to the car lot and expect experimental cars do we? No.

Am I using some HTML5? Yes. But I've never been accused of being smart. I have all the rope I need to hang myself. Joys.

**deathshadow60** · Nov 16, 2011 04:22

Originally Posted by Stomme poes

HTML5 specs were designed to describe and be written to what browsers understand today in addition to adding shiny new junk.

Which is most of what's wrong with it... since at that point it is no longer a specification, so much as a "do whatever the hell you like, who cares".

Which is no way to build code... Which is why we need to STOP having people advocate it, stand the hell up and tell the W3C and more specifically the WhatWG to turn HTML 5 sideways, shine it up real nice... and stick it straight up...

It's nonsense like this which makes those benevolent dictators sound like a good idea.

**Stomme poes** · Nov 16, 2011 12:06

It's nonsense like this which makes those benevolent dictators sound like a good idea.

Uh, what do you think Hixie is?

**deathshadow60** · Nov 16, 2011 12:55

Originally Posted by Stomme poes

Uh, what do you think Hixie is?

A naive idealist looking to perpetuate any efforts at web standards effectively ending up toothless?

**Stomme poes** · Nov 16, 2011 14:25

naive idealist

I could see both of those

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