HTML 5 needs to be supported or it will never be realized. Microsoft has already effectively killed XHTML as XHTML 2 has been cancelled. They now intend to make sure HTML 5 is stillborn so that Silverlight can gain some footing (even though frankly it’s a lost cause). If the web is to be free of properitary BS then HTML 5 must survive.
Sorry to disappoint you but Silverlight has nothing todo with the progression of HTML5, they serve entirely different purposes. HTML5 is entirely based as a structural markup language, Silverlight is intended for multimedia and effect based interactivity. What you are saying is the same as comparing Flash (multimedia and effects) with RSS (XML based structural markup), implausable at best.
Then tell me, why the addition of <video> and <canvas>??
The inclusion of those tags is a direct challenge to proprietary plug ins like Silverlight and Flash.
Also, Sorry to dissapoing you but Google’s own main speaker at the opening of the Google IO conference contradicted your post in his opening speech at the conference. The goal of HTML 5 is to remove the necessity for plug ins in web pages. Canvas, Video and the CSS transformations library are the primary tools for doing this.
You don’t seem to understand the purpose of platforms like Flash and Silverlight, sure HTML5 has canvas (which is pretty much a weaker implementation of SVG in my opinion) and sure it has audio and video tags (to embed media - though codec support is going to be a major issue) however HTML is a structural markup language, the inclusion of those tags exists to provide additional semantic meaning, it does not draw away from the need or the point of using plugins to gauge extended functionality.
If you can show me exactly where HTML5 can do bidirectional (this includes streaming) of multimedia, adding interactive vector based animation effects (to the same extent as flash), the ability to manipulate and produce both raster and vector (SVG and canvas can only handle vector that I am aware) and Flash and Silverlights origional and intended purpose… to provide a sandboxed environment for creating interactive multimedia (rather than video where you are stuck with watching without interaction) and rich internet applications which have a structural framework to back them up, then by all means come back to me and say that HTML is an intended replacement. Because as far as I am aware, HTML is not and was never intended for the server and client side interoperability and depth of interaction that Flash and Silverlight can afford in a single environment.
PS: And if you are still not convinced, show me a game you can produce in HTML5 which even compares to the raw ability of Flash or Silverlight. 
Alex, despite your arguments, Michael Morris isn’t the only one talking about HTML5 [URL=“http://www.insideria.com/2009/06/new-poll-html-5-are-flash-silv.html”]killing [URL=“http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9134422”]Silverlight & [URL=“http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/06/16/2030204/HTML-5-Takes-Aim-At-Flash-and-Silverlight?from=rss”]Flash.
Alex, watch and learn.
And of course you can use htaccess to configure Apache to serve, for instance, .htm extension documents as content type text/html and .html extension documents as application/xhtml+xml.
James
What exactly am I meant to be learning? I saw the video before you decided to post it, just because other people have a different opinion to me doesn’t mean what I have to say is without merit. The fact remains that the HTML5 specification as it stands is not nearly mature or developed to a standard which could compete or take away the reasoning behind using such technologies such as Flash and / or Silverlight.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see HTML5 take a more dynamic approach in improving the web however personally all I have seen is a bunch of hype which ultimately adds up to a half baked language no-one in the web development community in their hounest minds is entirely confident about and I happen to be rather concerned so many people seem to be taking the same approach to HTML5 as they did to XHTML, making it out to be some kind of messiah which ultimately will be misunderstood, well intentioned but ultimately abused beyond recompense like most other languages which have appeared on the web.
HTML and CSS where healthy and growing languages until Microsoft became involved. Their 10 year long stagnation lies entirely at the feat of Balmer and Gates. Before the stagnation occurred though there was a lot of experimentation and pell-mell moving forward. More progress was made with the web from 1995 to 1998 than from 1999 to 2009, and this is very, very sad.
Adobe and Microsoft have a vested interest in the stagnation of the web. Adobe wants to preserve Flash and the huge money they make from its grossly overpriced authoring tools. Microsoft wants to keep the OS relevant - which a dynamic web threatens to undo.
Adobe proved themselves grossly untrustworthy when they made their unilateral decision to change how Flash interacts with Javascript breaking the SWF Upload project and a couple hundred thousand sites tied to it. Now only a fool would trust Adobe not to repeat this behavior. Google’s YouTube is dangerously dependent on a thoroughly untrustworthy company’s whims - this is the reason they are pushing HTML 5 so hard.
And Microsoft is worse. Frankly, if the W3C members had any guts they would expel Microsoft for its repeated and obnoxious failures in keeping their browsers current. They deserve to have no voice or no role in the future in the web since they have worked as hard as they can to keep it limited for as long as possible.
Silverlight is a poison pill. If Microsoft can push Flash out of the Browser space they can integrate it to IE and then shut down all other browsers to cement their monopoly and lock in as the only provider of browsers that can work. Yes, I know of Moonlight - but Microsoft cannot be trusted not to pull the plug on that project at their earliest convenience.
The second Browser War is starting. I expect HTML 5 to be at the fulcrum of the fight. Remember the bad old days of “this site best viewed in Netscape”? or “this site best viewed in IE”? Well, they’re coming back because Microsoft will not adopt a single HTML 5 spec until they have no choice, and when they do they will deliberately do it out of sync with all other browsers. Last time it was Microsoft vs. Netscape. This time it’s Microsoft vs. The World.
What it will take is for HTML 5 to reach a point where an application can be built for it and a developer with the balls to take advantage of those features and offer no version of the application for IE.
The web industry is approaching a crossroad where it won’t be financially viable to support IE 6 and modern browsers because they will be too different from one another. Businesses that educate their clients to this reality and have them choose between IE 6’s limits or a modern website. Businesses that fail to do this will go bankrupt one by one until the only developers remaining are the ones who tell clients that if they want it to work in IE 6 and have all the newest bells and whistles they’ll have to pay double. Most clients will balk at this and I’m betting the "keep up with the Jones’ " impulse will lead to IE 6 finally being kicked.
HTML 5 is the next step. It is a step towards freedom from proprietary standards and shenanigans. Microsoft killed XHTML. If they kill HTML 5 then I promise you we’ll still be coding HTML 4.01 Strict 40 years from now, or HTML will be utterly irrelevant and in it’s place will be a Microsoft or Adobe document stack that requires a multi-thousand dollar publisher’s kit to create anything for.
I don’t think Microsoft will succeed. Windows will never be thrown from the desktop, but the desktop will become irrelevant in the face of PDA’s. There is no eternal monopoly. Microsoft unseated IBM by making $30,000 mini-computers irrelevant. Microsoft will become irrelevant under a sea of iPhones and androids. But for this to happen open standards must be pushed and must be embraced.
</rant>
but the desktop will become irrelevant in the face of PDA’s
Really? I would rephrase that 
More progress was made with the web from 1995 to 1998 than from 1999 to 2009, and this is very, very sad.
You mean apart from the fact HTML 4.01, CSS 2.1, Syndication (Both RSS and Atom), XHTML, SVG and several other languages went final after that period or the expansion away from just IE and Netscape forcing developers to make two versions of a website rather than one that works ubiquitiously across multiple browsers, the idea of expansion of the web through browser plugins, the release of Firefox, the invention of microformats, the rise of social networking never before seen, the genuine implementation of AJAX, the awareness of usability and accessibility never before considered (back in 1998 to any great extent), general popularity of the web amongst normal people, the rise in online e-commerce, the rise of Google as a genuine alternative search engine, etc.
I have no idea exactly what you qualify as progress but that statement is the kind of statement I would not expect from anyone who wished to be taken remotely seriously. 
Adobe wants to preserve Flash and the huge money they make from its grossly overpriced authoring tools.
Actually, considering all the statistics show Adobe software is among the most pirated on the web, they may be overprised and they may make lots of money from businesses, but the majority of people based on all the info i’ve seen shows they download it illegally so its kind of a moot point. That and there are many flash producers now non adobe related which are much cheaper and equally as powerful in many respects for the average user, SWiSHMax being one example.
Adobe proved themselves grossly untrustworthy when they made their unilateral decision to change how Flash interacts with Javascript breaking the SWF Upload project and a couple hundred thousand sites tied to it.
So you would like Adobe take the Microsoft approach? Hinder the progression of a technology to save the developers having to actually put effort into making the required updates to ensure their stuff works, cross platform.
Silverlight is a poison pill. If Microsoft can push Flash out of the Browser space they can integrate it to IE and then shut down all other browsers to cement their monopoly and lock in as the only provider of browsers that can work. Yes, I know of Moonlight - but Microsoft cannot be trusted not to pull the plug on that project at their earliest convenience.
The problem with that arguement is that Silverlight is based on the WPF and .NET platform, which have to remain open in terms of development otherwise developers of software and web apps would be unable to use the API and the language would become redundant. Other then that are you aware that Silverlight makes use of XAML, a completely open standard XML based development language. If Microsoft did what you said it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, they would immediately cripple anyone who wants to make cross platform software using the .NET framework and it would be counterproductive as there is no version of IE that works in such a state for Mac or Linux (now that MS can’t bundle IE in europe they would pretty much force all their business customers of visual studio to move to a different language platform, costing them a lot more than browser share).
The second Browser War is starting.
Where have you been? The first browser war was Microsoft VS Netscape… the second browser war is IE VS Firefox + Opera + Safari + Chrome… the third browser war which is starting to kick off is on the mobile platform with Safari + OperaMini + IEMobile + Fennec + SkyFire (etc)
and when they do they will deliberately do it out of sync with all other browsers. Last time it was Microsoft vs. Netscape. This time it’s Microsoft vs. The World.
All this Microsoft and Adobe bashing… it gets rather boring after the same conspiracy theories keep resurfacing.
What it will take is for HTML 5 to reach a point where an application can be built for it and a developer with the balls to take advantage of those features and offer no version of the application for IE.
I assume you have never heard of Adobe Air, Google Gears, Titanium etc?
The web industry is approaching a crossroad where it won’t be financially viable to support IE 6 and modern browsers because they will be too different from one another.
Actually, as long as there is a majority percentage of people using IE6, it will always be financially viable, to state that differences in browsers will make people stop supporting them shows you seem to have no knowledge whatsoever in the concepts of progressive enhancement or general usability principles.
Businesses that fail to do this will go bankrupt one by one until the only developers remaining are the ones who tell clients that if they want it to work in IE 6 and have all the newest bells and whistles they’ll have to pay double.
Actually, if any business started telling their customers that if they wanted their website to work in all common browsers they would have to pay double the rates, the customer would go elsewhere to someone who does understand the concept of good marketing and sensible business practices and it would be you who went bankrupt through lack of customers.
Most clients will balk at this and I’m betting the "keep up with the Jones’ " impulse will lead to IE 6 finally being kicked.
Most people who use IE6 have no choice because its in educational institutions or businesses where upgrading browsers would result in heavy expense due to having to rebuild entire intranet infrastructures. All the reports I have seen on IE6 usage shows its nothing todo with people failing to take notice, its due to lack of reasonable options they stay with old browsers like IE6.
but the desktop will become irrelevant in the face of PDA’s.
You might want to rethink that, PDA’s are old hat, the ranks of iPhones and cellphone technology advances have pretty much laid the majority of the old PDA market into its tombstone.
Guys, keep this on topic!
Whilst we all love a good rant, this thread is about the viable use of HTML 5 in today’s browser environment. We already have threads about the benefits and issues with HTML 5, so please keep that kind of discussion to those threads.
I’m saying this mainly because all of this is displayed on the comments for the article - whilst in the forum straying from the topic, ranting and arguing is tolerated to an extent, I think we should take some consideration for the article’s author :).
Off Topic:
Oh, and by the way, the definition of PDA is ‘Personal Digital Assistant’. Whilst our common association of PDA is practically a brick with a screen, iPhones and touchscreen smartphones have the features of typical PDAs and more - so you could say that an iPhone is, in fact, a subset of PDA.
arkinstall, definately, I think part of the problem with HTML5 has been the sudden “rush” to try and take it to shelf with the addition of what is currently a draft specification to browsers. I just hope before the working group takes it to the final phases they iron out the kinks in the works (as there is a lot more criticism of HTML5 than any previous incarnation).
PS: While the iPhone may well have features of a PDA I would qualify it more like a mobile computer than a digital assistant
That’s partly because people have had more opportunity to comment (and there are also now more people involved in web development) than with previous versions.
To be fair though, XHTML which was issued in it’s early forms while heavily misunderstood in terms of implementation has suffered a lot less critique than HTML5 (with exception of IE’s lack of concern for supporting it). The opportunity to comment on languages has remained about the same and many people still use HTML 4.01 and have had many years to critique its failings, it remains that HTML5 has suffered more negative views than HTML 4.01 throughout its existance (from what I can see).
I think it’s mainly because we have seen what XHTML2 was going to be like, and then saw the HTML 5 spec and it was MUCH less impressive.
Many people have given their views, my personal grudges include non-nesting headers and the inability to make any object a link. But still, no changes have been made. If it’s supposed to be an open group, developers should get a say.
However, the spec IS an improvement to HTML4, so I can’t complain too much. But I’d pin the reason of HTML5 pessimism is that, for the first time, XHTML has a very different spec to HTML, and there are alot of people who WANT to code in XHTML, but can’t because of the incompetent idiots behind IE.
Sorry, I didn’t mean there aren’t web server that support application/xhtml+xml, my point was that no servers DO use it. Mine isn’t. No hosting company I know has the slightest interest. No one I know is coding XHTML that way. I know of no testing on cross-browser support for XHTML delivered as application/xhtml+xml. So XHTML is really just HTML with different coding practices, and will be as far into the future as I can see.
BRAVO!
Agreed. Microsoft is so far off the web development curve that they have a vested interest in killing any new technologies that increase the functionality of the web. Anything they can do to hamstring the innovativeness of their competition, gives them that much more time to stumble around and try to catch up. It’s that simple.
Um, hello?
Membership and Participation
The HTML working group encourages active participation from a diverse community, including content authors and content providers, web developers, implementors (of browsers, authoring tools, conformance checkers, etc.) and anyone interested in helping to evolve the HTML language. A full list of participants is available. A number of HTML working-group members answered a background experience and expertise survey.
To my knowledge, any server other than IIS defaults to application/xhtml+xml for any file with the appropriate extension. I can see that you might be confused due to your host’s use of IIS.
Response Headers - http://www.earthchronicle.com/ECBeta/Default.aspx
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:25:54 GMT
[color=red]Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0[/color]
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Set-Cookie: .ASPXANONYMOUS=FHvmx1k0ygEkAAAAYjJiNzcwZTMtYjMyZi00NzM0LWI3MWUtMmY3Y2ZmNzA0ZmVl0; expires=Sun, 13-Sep-2009 10:05:54 GMT; path=/; HttpOnly
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 27023
200 OK
I just uploaded a file to my server.* Once with the .html extension, and once with the .xhtml extension. You may view the variants at test.html and [url=http://gtwebdev.com/test.xhtml]test.xhtml. If viewed in a modern browser, there’s no difference. You will not see the xhtml page in IE8. To see why, view the server response header, which looks like this:
Response Headers - http://gtwebdev.com/test.xhtml
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:21:25 GMT
[color=blue]Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Unix)[/color] mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.7a mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 PHP/5.2.5
Last-Modified: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:19:49 GMT
Etag: "21c2bd-711-46dfda037af40"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 1809
[color=blue]Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml[/color]
200 OK
For several years, I maintained an intranet that made extensive use of xhtml, since it was more straight forward to build web pages that could take advantage of xml’s extensibility. The intranet used a variety of browsers, none of which were IE.
Cross browser checking of xhmtl is identical to cross checking html.
Hosting companies are unlikely to (though I suppose some might) bother messing with the standard MIME type registrations. UAs are pretty good at using headers that truly indicate the file type. IE is, of course, the exception.
cheers,
gary
- This is unlikely to be long lived. It’s too easy to accumulate cruft, so I try to remember to house clean every once in a while.
Off Topic:
Even better, skip htaccess and directly use mod-rewrite
It seems that one of the “holes” HTML5 is filling is scripting and further integration of JS and whatnot in pages. I mean, looking at the latest talks in web developement, sometimes it’s all jQuery, <canvas> and media players. When I saw the talk by Anne about differences (large ones) in HTML5, a lot of them made me go, “why isn’t the server doing that?!?”. The trend seems to be, the client doing more work. I suppose this is getting more feasible as battery tehchnology updates… the idea of the dumb terminal seems to sit further and further in the background. Maybe more because users want more and more interaction, and want it faster than the servers can dish it out.
In which case, the vendors might want to make things like scripting always available, and not turn-off-able. I mean, that’s why we try to write with progressive enhancement, right, because the only thing a user agent can definitely use is HTML. CSS is an extra, and can be turned off. JS is an extra, and can be turned off. HTML can’t be turned off, not in any useful way. If HTML is going to be having such a close relationship with scripting (as it affect content!), then maybe the future of the user agent will change because of HTML5. They will always run scripts, or something.
I guess I can be happy about the battery technology, being a solar energy junkie. What helps phones helps other gadgets too : )