W3C Says Don't Use HTML5 Yet

GMGruman writes "InfoWorld's Paul Krill reports that the W3C, the standards body behind the Web standards, is urging Web developers not to use the draft HTML5 standards on their websites. This flies in the face of HTML5 support and encouragement, especially for mobile devices, by Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others. The W3C says developers should avoid the draft HTML5 spec (the final version is not due for several years) because of interoperability issues across browsers."

Comments

Re:More evidence of the W3C's increasing irrelevan

[Simetrical]

When the draft spec for a technology that moves so fast and has so much widespread adoption is still deemed several years off I don't know how anyone can take their recommendations seriously. We're already at a level of fairly good interoperability amongst the core browser engines for the base features we need. If developers and designers took any notice of this then we'd probably all be still building sites with tables.

This is why the WHATWG – the body that originally developed HTML5, and which still develops a version in parallel to the W3C – abandoned the idea of rating the stability of the spec as a whole. The WHATWG spec version (which is edited by the same person as the W3C spec, contains everything the W3C spec does plus more, and has useful JavaScript annotations like a feedback form) is perpetually labeled "Draft Standard", and per-section annotations in the margins tell you the implementation status of each feature.

The W3C Process, on the other hand, requires everything to proceed through the Candidate Recommendation stage, where it gets feature-frozen, and therefore becomes rapidly obsolete. It's quite backwards, but doesn't seem likely to change soon. So for sanity's sake, you can just ignore the W3C and follow the WHATWG instead.

(I really doubt that Philippe Le Hegaret actually said anything like what he was quoted as saying in TFA, though. It doesn't match what I've heard from him or the W3C before – no one seriously thinks authors shouldn't use widely-implemented things like canvas or video with suitable fallback. It sounds more like an anti-HTML5 smear piece. Paul Krill has apparently written other anti-HTML5 articles.)

Re:Flies in the Face of Common Sense Too

[WebManWalking]

Mark Pilgrim's book is good. Very practical advice about how to use features. Also good (personal experience): Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp, Introducing HTML5, and Peter Lubbers, Brian Albers and Frank Salim, Pro HTML5 Programming. Also good (Ben Nadel raves about it): Jeremy Keith, HTML5 for Web Designers. (I can't speak from personal experience about that one yet, but it was the first one on the iBookstore and I have the sample.)

A little history about HTML5 books: For the longest time, people held off on publishing because of the same sort of FUD that W3C is spreading. What if it changes? What if I publish and a new feature becomes the hot topic and no one buys my book because I published too soon? But then Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp published. Then I guess the other publishing houses realized that they'd better publish soon, or else Bruce and Remy were going to soak up all the disposable income that's been waiting on an actual book. So, like, one or two weeks later, Mark's book shipped. Then, like, 2 or 3 weeks later, Peter, Brian and Frank's book. So here's a big Thank You to Bruce and Remy for breaking the ice.

The cat's out of the bag, W3C. People are getting antsy to code. I don't you're going to get that cat back in the bag.

Re:More evidence of the W3C's increasing irrelevan

[Tridus]

This.

The W3C is a running joke at this point. They didn't even want HTML 5 in the first place. Now they're telling people to shy away from it for a few YEARS?

I don't know what Internet these guys are on, but it's not the same one that the rest of us inhabit.